Geo Materna: My science trip

Pisalem juz o Nim swego czasu na S24. Po agresji sowietow w 1968 roku, Jurek uciekl najpierw do Austrii, a stamtad wyemigrowal do Australii, gdzie prawie cztery dekady pracowal jako inzynier elektryk. Dziesiec lat temu powrocil i jest wolnym Czechem w wolnej ojczyznie.

Jego kraj nie jest republika bananowa, rozszarpywana miedzy razwiedki ruskie, pruskie, zydowskie i ich miejscowe, polskojezyczne agentury.

 

 

Couple of weeks ago, my friend, who is a director and professor of physics at local gymnasium asked me to join them on 4 day bus trip to Germany and Switzerland with their best technically minded students…

First day we visited Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Its a huge museum with just about any technical field you can think of, optics, print, shipping, cars, planes, rockets and whatever, all of course made in Germany…

We spent there all day. It was very good, but to see it all properly. it would take 2 days. However, must recommend, great.

 

Next day we moved to Wintherthur in Swiss, where is a project called Technorama..

Its something like Disneyland for technical minded, hundreds of practical expositions you can try yourself, and shows and demos in Mechanics, Chemistry and Physics…

I was impressed by this girl who volunteered to put on a complete dress from steel wire mesh and let herself to be zapped by 1,2 milion Volts, 3m long flashes….

As a matter of fact I was impressed by her even without them. She was lucky to survive…

 

And next day we moved right over to Geneva, where is an establishment called CERN.(www.cern.ch)

You may have heard about it, it’s an organisation for nuclear research, supported by about 110 nations (including Australia).

Some people say they try to create a "black Hole", well it sure is a black hole for money…

3000 people working there, and many thousands externally.

Circular underground tunnel, circumference of 27 km, approx. 100 m deep lies between Swiss and France, neither of them has any jurisdiction over it…interesting.

A device called Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been finally installed in it after more than 10 years..

Well, 1800 superconducting magnets need quite a power, 13 000Amps to be exact. In normal temperatures solid copper of about 120mm dia is used as seen on picture.

However minus 271°C does the trick..

Whole tube is filled with liquid helium and superconductors can be used…

Some 13kA can go through 15mmx 2mm conductor !!…see tables in pictures However, problems do arise, last accident was caused by overheated joint between sections.

Internal resistance must be less than 2 nanoOhms…interesting to see that joining is still by good old bolt and nut…

Also note all thin plates of mechanical support parts – liquid helium penetrates through them to get to magnets…

New 15m sections are continually built (I suppose as spare parts in case of blow-outs) and tested in cryogenic workshops…

Some sort of super thermal insulation is used, we were told whole heat

(cooling) loss is about same as in average house..

I was impressed folks.

Please note that www server has come out of CERN as by product of their efforts, also many medical instruments etc..

Best regards. Geo.