News

NEXT YEAR: The CERN Zone will be back ⚛️

The CERN Zone activity will be back next year where you can continue connecting with the research teams through Open Chats, follow-up questions, quizzes and team updates.

Are you applying for University soon? Are you mentioning your participation in the CERN Zone in your personal statement? Remember to update your progress and download your certificate from your profile. If you’re planning an EPQ, then you are in the right place to start your research.

See what’s coming up and let us know which day and time would suit you for the Open Chats ❯ .

Continue reading →

Posted on July 19, 2023 by modhannah in News | Leave a comment

FEEDBACK: WIN £50!

Let us know your thoughts about the CERN Zone and be in with a chance of winning a £50 Waterstones voucher! There are 2 ways to tell us about your experience: Download your Certificate of ParticipationShow your passion for physics. Edit your profile to update your participation then download the certificate. Thanks for taking part this year, we look forward to hearing your feedback! CERN Zone Team

Posted on June 22, 2023 by modhannah in News | Leave a comment

Welcome back to the CERN Zone!

Applying to university is a big decision. Choosing a subject, choosing a university. All big choices. And then the competition for the best courses is intense. You need to know your stuff and be able to stand out from the crowd.

If you’re thinking of studying Physics, you’ll need to be able to show your passion for the subject.

This term, the CERN Zone is geared towards helping you do that.

Find out how to get involved here. Continue reading →

Posted on June 8, 2023 by modhannah in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

Team update: A new way to produce top quarks with CMS!

The CMS detector uses a huge solenoid magnet to bend the paths of particles from collisions in the Large Hadron Collider.

The CMS team gave us an exciting update from team members Joel and Vichayanun:

The CMS collaboration has seen evidence of a rare mechanism to produce 4 top quarks!

The simultaneous production of 4 top quarks is predicted by the standard model. As a bonus, the process is sensitive to many hypothetical undiscovered particles and forces that could subtly change how often 4 quarks are made (and how they behave). The new result has a significance of 3.9 standard deviations. That means that the chances of the result being a statistical fluke are very small – only about 1 in 20,000!

Top quarks are elusive particles. It is so rare that, on average, just 1 out of hundreds of millions of collisions produces a top quark (or, to put it another way: for each collision producing 4 top quarks, we expect 4,000 collisions producing Higgs bosons!).

So how do you detect 4 top quark events? And why are they such an important piece of the piece in our understanding of elementary particles?

Continue reading →

Posted on April 20, 2023 by modjosie in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

Welcome back to the CERN Zone!

What’s on this term…

Explore modern physics like you never have before in the CERN Zone this summer. See what’s happening this summer term ❯

🗨️ Live Chats
The next live Chat is on the 9th of may at 12:30 BST. Prepare for the Chat by reading the team profiles as well as the pre-reading material.

Team updates

Last term, ISOLDE gave us an insight into their work at CERN, which you can take a look at.

This term, we hope to be hearing from CMS and AEgIS.

🤔 New term, new quiz:
A massive congratulations to Dom from Greater Peterborough UTC for winning £20 in the quiz last term! Test your knowledge of CERN by having a crack at the summer term quiz; who knows, you might even be the next winner!

Think you’ve got what it takes? Have a crack at the new CERN quiz for this term ❯

Want to find out more?
Read the full update on our website ❯ Continue reading →

Posted on April 18, 2023 by modmax in News | Leave a comment

What did you miss at CERN yesterday?

Yesterday, students got the opportunity to explore how to make their dreams a reality. During the live Chat, CERN professionals gave their advice on what it takes to get into particle physics, and what kind of jobs there are in the field.

Mei-Li Holmberg took part in the chat yesterday. She is studying for her PhD in particle physics, and gave students advice in getting to where she is today!

Continue reading →

Posted on March 8, 2023 by modhannah in News | Leave a comment

Team update: What have Isolde been up to?

The ISOLDE (Isotope mass Separator On-Line facility) facility, based at CERN, is dedicated to the production of a large variety of radioactive ion beams for different experiments.

Liam, from the ISOLDE team, has given us an update on what his team have been up to lately:

“At the moment, CERN is in a winter shutdown phase and most experiments are undergoing maintenance and upgrades ready for spring time when things start up again…” Continue reading →

Posted on March 1, 2023 by modjosie in News | Tagged , | Leave a comment

What went on in the CERN chat yesterday?

The equipment used in CERN experiments are just as complex as the physical phenomena they are used to investigate – just take a look at some of the equipment below!

Students from 4 schools got the opportunity to ask CERN scientists about the equipment they use, how their work involves magnets and other questions about nuclear physics they had. The open Chat meant it was quick and easy for aspiring physicists to drop in and find out about CERN life. Continue reading →

Posted on February 22, 2023 by modmax in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

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