Qorrum

In June my family took a vacation to Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland - first time for me in all 3 places!

Couple highlights of a great trip (not in pictures: me falling in the plane and twisting my ankle and knee, getting crutches for the rest of the trip…but lots of nice Belgians/Germans/Swiss helping me get around)

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Germany 🇩🇪

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Throwback to Laura being in Oktoberfest news coverage

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Impromptu free concert in park by where Mozart was born

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Switzerland 🇨🇭

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Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva

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In Switzerland I got to visit the “Large Hadron Collider” center and learn about one of the most impressive engineering feats ever created.

The LHC accelerates particles to near the speed of light and smashes them together to recreate conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang. By analyzing the resulting particle collisions, scientists explore fundamental questions about the universe.

Here’s a few LHC facts that show the incredible things people can build:

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Where it is:

17 miles in circumference straddling the border between France and Switzerland
100s of feet underground

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Speed

Particles are accelerated to 99.999999% the speed of light
Means they make over 11,000 revolutions per second around the 17 mile circumference

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Temperature

Cooled to about negative 450 degrees F, near the coldest possible temperature possible in the universe

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Massive Components

Over 12,000 components that each weigh up to 28 tons
One of its detectors weighs 14,000 tons

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Data

Experiments generate more than 30 petabytes per year (equivalent to over 1 million blue ray disks)

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Effort

Took a decade to build
10,000 plus people from over 60 countries helped build it, with over 2,000 staff keep it running and many more scientists all over the world contributing to its experiments
Constructed with incredible precision and using theories built up over centuries (like the ones written in this sculpture in front of the center)