08 Sep 2008
Tim Head, 24, a particle physics PhD student, has created a time-lapse movie showing the five-year construction of the huge ATLAS detector at CERN from its foundations in concrete to its final 45-by-25-metre majesty.
Now he’s made it available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVrUR_SOykk) and it’s already had thousands of views.
The ATLAS detector is one of several experiments that will get underway at CERN in Geneva once the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is switched on.
ATLAS will search for new discoveries in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy. It will learn about the basic forces that have shaped our universe since the beginning of time and that will determine its fate.
Among the possible unknowns are the origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, microscopic black holes, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the universe.
Student Tim, who is currently traveling around the US, built his film sequence using footage from a webcam based at CERN, known as the ATLAS eye.
“I was at home talking to lots of non-physicists about ATLAS and my PhD and all that seem to come up was black holes,” said Tim.
"It was very difficult to find something normal people considered exciting about ATLAS that was not related to black holes. So one evening my Dad suggested that if someone had had the foresight to take pictures along the way a time lapse would be pretty cool.”
“I then remembered that ATLAS had its own webcam. Now I can show this to friends and they understand why it took ages to build and why everyone is so excited.
“Once I had all the images it took about 20 minutes to make the first version, with no sound or introduction. The version as it is now came together about a day later. So all in all it was rather a quick job.”
Asked about the prospect of the LHC of creating black hole when it's switched on, Tim says: "I believe we can't rule it out but I think the chances are very, very remote."
“Hopefully all will go well so I can have some real and exciting data to look at for my PhD thesis.”
Set to the steady rhythm of Ravel’s famous ‘Bolero’, Tim’s short film spans construction work from October 2003 through August 2008, compressed into just five minutes.
Tim says the music was chosen simply because it was long enough to fit with the video footage. “In a way, it seems to support the never ending story that was the build.”
The ATLAS detector measures 25m in diameter, 46m in length, weighs 7,000 tonnes and incorporates 3,000 km of cables. The floor of the cavern where the detector is based is reported to move about 0.5 mm upwards each year.
Tim spent Summer 2007 in Geneva working at CERN, where he developed
software for the Beam Timing Experiment, which is part of ATLAS.
Speaking about his time there, Tim says: “There is so much collective knowledge in that place, the hardest thing as someone who is new there is learning how to take advantage of it. Once you know who to ask, buying them a coffee is all it takes.
"I moved from Germany to Manchester four years ago, so I really enjoyed the international atmosphere of CERN, and working with scientists from many different countries. Being in such a team is very motivating and fun."
Prof Brian Cox, a Royal Society University Research Fellow based in the High Energy Physics group at The University of Manchester, will be part of a team involved in the hugely anticipated switch-on of the LHC.
Scientists will send two beams of particles around a 27km ring at 0.999999991 times the speed of light. Huge electromagnets will bend the beams, and collide one into the other.
The LHC project involves around 10,000 researchers and is based at CERN in Geneva, which is the world's largest particle physics centre.
The LHC represents the biggest scientific experiment of all time. By colliding tiny beams of protons researchers are hoping to recreate conditions in the Universe less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang and uncover some of the universe's unsolved mysteries.
Prof Cox, 40, has been working with an 11-nation team that has built detectors to pick up particles such as the as-yet-undetected Higgs boson - the so-called 'God particle' which could help to explain why matter has mass.
To celebrate the historic event, Prof Cox will co-present a special edition of Radio 4’s Today Programme on Wednesday from the control room at CERN - before hot footing it back to the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool on Thursday 11 September to give a special lecture.
For more information please contact Alex Waddington, Media Relations Officer, The University of Manchester, Tel 07717 881569.
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