Getting started at CERN

Well, I suppose that since I've been here for a week, I should get started with blog posts as promised. I will be using this to document random interesting facts about my time at CERN as well as some pictures of my time here.

Some background I suppose...

I am a fourth year (going into fifth year) student at Thompson Rivers University studying Physics and Honors Mathematics. I began this summer working with Dr. Dugan O'Neil at SFU in May as part of the SFU ATLAS group. ATLAS is one of the major detector experiments at CERN and is the project that Canada is primarily involved in. To learn more about ATLAS or ATLAS Canada, the following are great sites:
http://atlas.ch/,
http://www.atlas-canada.ca/

In particular, I have been working in the Higgs --> tau tau group. Now, the Higgs boson, which many of you have probably heard about since the announcement on July 4th 2012 of its discovery (and if not CERN has some fantastic resources: http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/search-higgs-boson), only lasts for a very short time before decaying into other particles. Using detectors like ATLAS, we can "see" these decays particles and trace them back to the Higgs itself. One of the main ways the Higgs can decay is to two tau particles (which then decay even further), and this is the area I'm working in.

Now this work is done all through programming. For this project, I've been learning Python, which if anyone is interested in learning, is actually a really nice and quite straightforward language to use. I can certainly recommend the following book for anyone starting out:
http://briggs.net.nz/snake-wrangling-for-kids.html

And now for CERN....

Since having arrived on Saturday, I've been familiarizing myself with the CERN "campus". I can't begin to say how convenient it is being able to walk only 100 meters and reach my office, the cafeteria and most meeting rooms, not to mention that I have a view of the Alps!

That's building 40 to the right, home to the ATLAS and CMS secretariats.

Inside building 40

Speaking of the cafeteria, the food here is amazing (of course), but rather expensive, as with most of the Geneva area.

At the moment, it is pouring buckets outside my office window, but for the last few days, it's been unbelievably humid. Luckily there is a pool not too far away, to provide some relief from the heat. Nonetheless, in the evenings, when it cools down a bit, it is nice to sit outside with other summer students and discuss life, the universe and everything. It's not often that you can have drinks with someone from the UK, USA, Greece, Norway and Finland all at once!

In my opinion, other than of course the unbelievable science and fundamental discoveries being made here, the people you meet and interact with here are the most amazing part about CERN. Though nearly everyone here speaks French or English in a group of 10 people, there are likely to be 6 countries represented. Everything from Madagascar and China to Costa Rica and Iceland.

Working in the office- a bit empty at the moment...