well folks, I'm out here for the ATLAS trigger and physics data week, which basically entails attending a lot of talks and feeling rather stupid when next to some of the leading people in the field I'm working in...

still, I've had a chance to go down to the ATLAS cavern ~100m below ground and have some stupid photo's of myself with the ATLAS detector in the background, well, ~80-90% of it anyhow, its not quite finished yet. I'll be posting these shortly but I'm borrowing a friends camera which I don't have the lead to but I'm hoping to grab them off the memory card before the week is out. Just so those of you who don't know what ATLAS is, its a huge detector about the size of a 8 story square building that is built around one of the collision points of the new LHC beam ~100m below ground.

so...

basically is there anything you guys want a photo of while I'm out here, say any particular building or experiment? I've got limited access to the ATLAS detector and whether or not I can go down there again is debatable and as for the other experiments, well, I'd have to go through another safety course that I nearly wanted to kill myself afterwards for just the basic one....but as for the sprawling mass of buildings here there are plenty of things to see, plus mount blanc (sp?) not too far away in the distance. Or I could just post random pictures of myself standing on my head...

the two days here so far have mostly consisted of filling out a bunch of forms and walking all over the site from building to building finding the people I need signatures from to enable me to get my access card and computer login. In between doing the "boring" stuff I've managed to sit through a few talks on certain physics status updates on things like jet/egamma/muon/ tag efficiencies (that's a VERY general description of the talks) within the ATLAS detector (I should say simulated detector as nothing is up and running yet).

Tomorrow morning I'll be sitting through ~5hrs of talks on Top physics which is the area I'm currently working in and should be the most relevant to my work. I mostly have the afternoon free...at least it looks that way and I was wondering whether anyone was interested in the place and wanted to see certain "things" that I might be able to grab a photo of?

Otherwise I'm thinking of heading into geneva again (just got back from a few drinks with people from UCL) to try out my french....or should I say, lack of french on the local's...I really only know a few odd words, did german at school and wasn't really any good at that.

To say I know no french would be a little harsh as I have survived so far by either marking large hand gestures, (probably looking like a total idiot at the same time) or running away like a little girl and calling up my auntie who is a french teacher, who will promptly tell me what to say and I memorize it quickly, rush back to say it before anyone interrupts me and I forget...oh I love feeling like a total idiot.

and well....I can't really think of an appropriate way to finish this post now and so here it is...the finish....now post stuff...

this is what i look like when i'm envious

Awesome stuff Jamesy

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I have no real idea of what it is that you're doing, but it's good to know you're doing well

What the hell is an LHC beam, why does it have collision points and why did someone feel the need to build an 8-story tall detector around it and WHAT does it detect?

All you need to know is that it's not going to destroy the universe.

Probably.

EDIT: Speaking of which, when is it set to be turned on for the first time? (Also, who gets to throw the switch because that would be awesome)

It's been a while since I followed the High Energy Physics stuff, but I seem to remember that in the early stages of construction they were talking about building the main accelerator ring at a slight angle. That way the detector could be closer to the surface, and they could maximize the diameter of the accelerator without having to use more land (or something like that).

Did they do that? or is ATLAS just a bigger version of Fermilab’s Tevetron?

You have to find a pretty maiden to have your photo taken with. It will restore my faith in the human race! (Since leaving uni I've spoken to just one female in engineering and I know there must be some in physics somewhere!)

Post pics of antimatter!!!