Speaker Rtn Alan Wintersgill - CERN

Alan said that back in 2001 he had not heard of CERN, but he ended up with a unique opportunity to visit the site. His daughter, Kate, studied languages at university. When she had qualified Alan’s wife saw an advertisement in the Yorkshire Post for a position at CERN. His daughter went to London and had an interview in the French language. She got a job in the Secretariat which was funded by CERN and started in April 2001. Three months later she managed to get her mum and dad permission to go for a visit, but they could only see her office and canteen.

The first 2-year contract was via an agency. At the end of it she was offered a job but couldn't because of the terms of the agency agreement so she went to work for the United Nations Aid department in Paris. Whilst in Paris she met a French man. They were married in 2007 but unfortunately at Ripley Castle not in France. His ancestor was British hence her married name Richardson. He was a fuel dealer and was head hunted to Geneva and she went back to work at CERN as she was now clear of the agency tie in.

Alan and his wife were Invited back, and this time saw the cavern. They were taken down by David Francis a senior physicist. He went down to the cavern in a separate lift to them. Alan is pictured on the Gantry holding onto wife. Angels and Demons (starring Tom Hanks) was filmed here.

The tunnel at CERN contains a Toroid magnet which is 27 kilometres long. Its primary purpose is to bend the paths of charged particles (specifically muons) so physicists can precisely measure their momentum. Overall, the construction cost was 6.5 billion Swiss francs of which the cost of Atlas machine alone was 550 million francs.

Some other facts and figures: -

• The Iron work in Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) which is one of the two particle detectors is more than in the Eifel tower.
• Every proton goes around the ring 11,245 times per second.
• The power produced of 400 TeV is squeezed into a minute space several million times smaller than a mosquito. A TeV (teraelectronvolt) is a unit of energy commonly used in particle physics and astrophysics to measure the kinetic energy of subatomic particles.
• The filaments in the magnet are long enough to reach the sun and back 6 times.