At the start of the Christmas break, a group of Physics students travelled to Geneva to visit scientific facilities in the region, learn about the historical significance of Switzerland in the development of science and to see the cutting edge technology that is pushing forward the boundaries of modern physics.
Amongst the highlights was a visit to the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN) where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is located. The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator made headlines in July 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson. The students also visited the Geneva plasma physics centre and found out more about how nuclear fusion in power plants such as ITER and DEMO is achieved; the Geneva Observatory which houses modern telescopes and is responsible for finding exoplanets and the EPFL university in Lausanne.
