NWC Sixth Form’s CERN Trip to Geneva

On the 28 November, NWC’s Maths and Physics students flew to Geneva for a three-day trip to visit the United Nations and CERN- the world’s largest particle Physics laboratory.

We arrived in Geneva at around 4:00pm and took the train to our hotel we were staying at for the next two nights. We stayed at ‘Hotel International & Terminus’ which was conveniently located close to the ‘Cornavin’ train station and tram service, which we would use over the next couple of days. It was also a quick 10-minute walk to the city centre and the beautiful Lake Geneva. Once we arrived at the hotel we checked in and got ready to have dinner at an Italian restaurant called ‘Vapianos’. The food was delicious. After dinner we took a scenic walk through the local Christmas market and by Lake Geneva, taking many photos, before heading back to the hotel for the night.

On the second day we had an early start with a trip to the old town, where we had time to look around the shops and buy some of Switzerland’s famous chocolate! We then made a quick stop for some hot chocolate before catching the tram to the UN. On our tour of the UN, we had the opportunity so see conference rooms such as ‘Room 19’ and the ‘Assembly Hall’ which is the largest the UN’s 34 conference rooms and can accommodate for over 2,000 people. We were all very impressed both by the architecture of the rooms and the importance of the work conducted there. We ended the tour with the chance to buy some souvenirs from the gift shop.

After lunch it was time to get another tram to CERN. On arriving at CERN, we had a quick introductory talk before splitting up into groups for our tour. We had a very insightful tour where we learnt about CERNS ‘Large Hadron Collider’ (LHC). The LHC is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator that occupies a 27 km ring, situated 100m below the Swiss-French border. At the LHC, protons are accelerated close to the speed of light, before colliding them in the ‘Compact Muon Solenoid’ (CNS), shown in the picture below. The energy of the colliding protons is converted into a shower of particles, which we can then detect and analyse. We were fortunate enough to see the CNS where scientists currently conducting experiments in search for other dimensions and particles that could make up ‘dark matter’. We also learnt about CERN’s important discovery, in 2012, of the Higgs Bosons- the particle that explains why matter has the property of mass.

We ended the day with tacos for dinner at a Mexican restaurant and ice cream for dessert at Häagen-Dazs.

The next morning our fun trip had sadly come to an end and so we were back at train station, ready get back to the airport to catch out flight back home!

Overall, we had an amazing time in Geneva. It was fun, memorable and a truly enlightening experience. We are grateful that we got the opportunity, as Northwood College students, to experience a once in a lifetime trip to learn about the current research that goes on at CERN.

By Tanya, Year 13