KTS Parental Bulletin 23rd March 2017

Year 12 Physics Trip
On Friday the Third of March, 2017, The Knights Templar school joined 6 other schools and members of the public
to receive a tour around the ISIS particle accelerator. Rowan Gray gives his account of the day.
To start the day, we were shuffled into a tall lecture hall. There were no wooden pews and broad, square tables
here- instead, there were rows of gently coloured seats lit by warm lights. The hall had a theatre-feel to it. After a
quick introduction; we were promptly briefed on the history of particle accelerators. The professor taught us the
journey particle physics had taken, from a tall steel pipe with a man in a box- to the 27 kilometre super synchrotron,
A.K.A; the LHC- in Geneva.
Afterwards, we were given a lecture about the standard model, a ‘periodic table’ of fundamental particles; in which
he explained the four fundamental forces, the difference between bosons, leptons and force carriers, and how to
detect gravitational waves.
Later on the tour, we were shown the ISIS particle accelerator, as opposed to
the diamond light source synchrotron. Both essentially do the same thing in a
different way- accelerating particles at test objects to determine their properties
under a variety of conditions. The difference is the Diamond light source
uses x-rays, while ISIS fires neutrons at the target material.
Following this was an activity where we viewed computer generated images
from atlas, a machine which detects particles at Cern. We saw the particle trails
and were tasked with finding certain decays of bosons into
The run up to the target area where the
neutrons are accelerated
their fundamental components. As an extra challenge, the staff had hidden a higgs boson decay
among the snapshots. The group who “discovered” it first were to win a prize, which
turned out to be LHC holographic viewers and postcards.
Then we returned to the lecture hall to be greeted by another professor who talked about his
experiences at CERN and explained why the higgs boson why so important.
On the tour of ISIS by one
of their engineers, just in
front of the target area.
Overall the trip was truly eye-opening, seeing physics being applied for real life rather than being
a theoretical study. I may even go as far to say that I might want to work at a place like this
someday.
During the tour of ISIS with one of their scientists,
explaining some of the physics that goes
on there
The hunt for Higgs is on!