Iceland Trip Account - Day 2

Day 2

• Woken at 8:00 by bathroom use and a short laze in bed promptly brings us to breakfast for Kellogs and slightly sweetened soya milk. Everyone gets ready for the day’s walk and we are out by 9:28.
• Arrive in Hveragerdi (k-vera-ger-thee) [see map marker for location] after a 20 minute drive and naturally it begins to rain and will continue to do so on and off until we get home that evening when the sun is bright and perfect for photos.
• A bit of a normie gravel trail walk, but 10 minutes in we got to see our first geiser: a clay-like liquid bubbling away at over 100 degrees celsius. The pit is about 3 or 4 meters in diameter and reeks of Sulphur which smells like gone off egg if you didn’t know - note how the tourist adverts don’t mention how the moment you land in Iceland you are welcomed by the smell of rotten egg in the air and of course you have to drink and shower in water that has a hint of egg to it because it has been filtered from sulphur rich ground which is being fired up. Harmless of course, but you will wrinkle your nose for a while. But don’t worry, you will be reminded of the stench as soon as you stand downwind of a geiser!
• Lots of tourists down this route but it was still a sight to see. The open and refreshing mountains of Iceland are reminiscent of the Scottish highlands - just lacking the peat bog and trees. Plenty of American and French tourists but everyone was friendly. I don’t know why I was so surprised - because it is such common knowledge - but the water is actually so hot. But not just from the source but way down the river (which is where people take the pleasure of bathing). It wasn’t quite blue lagoon but interesting all the same.
• Tonight we fire up the hot tub and have cocktails IN the bathtub. Cocktails. In the bathtub. Crazy.

Iceland Trip Account - Day 1

Day 1

• Flight at 12:45 at gate 26. We bought an excess of booze and because I forgot my books I bought Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at WHSmith. We had lots of space on plane because we were next to the emergency exit so legroom but no chair table but we did have lap tables that came out of the arms of our seats.
• We landed in Keflavik (South-West of Iceland) [see map marker for location] and met up with my French family members. We proceeded to take the bus from the airport to the car hire where we drove to Hafnarfjordur to meet the lady who was renting the house. We then drove through the outskirts of Reykjavik to get to Selfoss where the house was.
• The keys were not under the front door mat. Panic strikes as the fear of a con settles in and the seller isn’t answering her phone. We search every exterior possibility for about 20 mins until the lady calls back and ends up sending the owner to the house who had forgotten to set the key up.
• I cook pasta. Dad does cocktail. Life is good. Bed after a cup of tea and discussions of the oplan for tomorrow The shower is great: high pressure, good temperature control and lots of space for flailing when one gets shampoo in one’s eyes. My bed is squishy and and welcoming after a day of traveling. I've come to the realisation that all anyone cares about is how nice the bed and shower is. So there you go.

CERN - A Brief Summary of What They Are Doing There

CERN - What are they actually doing there?

Early November of 2016 lead to me to visiting CERN in Switzerland on a school trip. Before this however, it sort of struck me that “wait a minute, what are they actually doing there?” Last time I’d heard they were discovering “Higgs Boson” and in 2012 they were going to destroy the universe - according to social media that is. The prospect of actually going to visit what could be debatably labelled “the coolest science project ever” (advancing science in multiple aspects, and best of all, birthing the modern internet as we know it) - having next to no prior knowledge on it made me feel quite ignorant.

So the idea here is that I’m going to fill you in with everything you need to know about CERN and the mass hadron collider - BUT- without all the waffle. I’m going to try and keep it concise… Which is actually close to impossible, but you’ll be better off than before.

Despite it being referred to as the pinnacle of science today, the project actually started soon after the second world war when European scientists came together to answer some big questions. The first particle accelerator was probably only the size of your living room, but after new ones were built and improved it has become the “Large Hadron Collider” (or LHC as you will more commonly see it referred to as) that we know today. In fact, the next one is being designed already.

Okay, so what does it actually do? Well, a few things actually, which is handy. Spending $13.25 billion to find something that we weren’t even sure existed sounds a bit pricey. In fact, in terms of cost, it’s about $1 billion per year in total. Ouch. The Large Hadron Collider is a) large and b) a collider. There you go. That’s all you need to know.

Okay but seriously, what it does is super-cool particles to accelerate them close to the speed of light then smash them together in order them to form new particles. They use Hydrogen particles because there is only one electron to remove from it and then it’s good to go. When the particles collide there is a lot of energy released. Well, I say that, but you yourself could create that much energy right now. You ready?

1. Hold your hands in front of you like you’re about to clap.
2. Clap once.
3. Done.

You just created a similar amount of energy in that clap as the collision of two particles travelling near to the speed of light. “Whaaat??” you exclaim?! Well, imagine all that energy across the millions of particles in your hand on just two particles. That’s a lot.

They collide and it shoots out new particles at different stages. Some form straight away, some further away from the initial collision, hence they have multiple different sensors to detect the variety of particles. This includes matter and antimatter. The two sound crazy, in fact you’ve probably watched enough Sci-Fi to hear “antimatter rocket launcher” and think “sh*t is about to get real”. Unfortunately, it’s not as exciting as you think, it’s just another standard particle that is a byproduct of the collision.

The three big hurdles are: accelerating the particles, detecting the particles and storing the information from them. Firstly, accelerating the particles, as mentioned before there are multiple “layers” to it, as shown by this diagram:

At each “ring” the particles are accelerated by different means. Pb and b are “linear accelerators” where the particles are electronically accelerated - the technology for this was first proposed in 1924 and has given way to lots of useful technology around the world generating X-Rays and being used for radiotherapy.

PS is “Proton Synchrotron”. No, it is not a Transformer that fights alongside Optimus Prime, but accelerates the particles using very powerful magnetic rings. It is the oldest accelerator on the CERN site, and has operated since the 1950s - having lots of upgrade of course - still using the original magnets.

SPS - “Super Proton Synchrotron” - not only sounds badass but measuring at 7km long, it has served as the workhorse for CERN since it’s launch in 1976. Using it, they have made numerous discoveries including the Nobel-prize-winning discovery of W and Z particles in 1986.

Finally, the piece-de-resistance being the LHC - “Large Hadron Collider”. First launched in 2008, the LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator having a length of 27km made of superconducting rings. This peaks the acceleration of the particles using the supercooled electromagnets at -271.3°C/-456.34°F - which is colder than outer space which is (-270.45°C/-451.81°F).

[The LHC accelerating magnets - Source: CERN website]

Once they are in this ring, there are 4 main sensors picking up data: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb - each having their own roles. You’ve most likely seen ATLAS (see below) as it is often used to represent the CERN experiments. 100m below the little village of Meyrin on the Swiss-French border lies the 7000 tonne beast that is ATLAS. It has been used for multiple physics researches from searching for Higgs Boson to dark matter - even new dimensions - that run day-in-day-out.

Layers of sensors pick up different things like heat, momentum and size to determine what sort of particle is produced by matching them with the properties of particles we can already distinguish to a very precise level. A stream of data is produced using a computer system that decides what data to keep and what to throw away. This data is then stored all across the world using “the grid computing” which is effectively a sophisticated internet. About 1 petabyte of data is created at the LHC every second (about 210,000 DVDs every second) which is all sent out as “packets” that are then reassembled when needed through a clever computer algorithm.

ATLAS [Source: www.oastories.org]

Most of CERN is underground with exception of the control buildings, offices and museums being above ground. There a couple of reasons for this, one being that it is protected from exterior damages (it would be a costly loss if it were to be targeted by terrorists) and also that a lot of it would be obstructed by all the people living on the surface.

Interestingly, it is shut down only once every 4 years. This is because it takes more energy to shut it down and start back up that to just leave running. It is at this point when they shut it down and do check ups and repairs that it is possible for people to visit the underground parts.When they do bring it back to life again, the power demand causes a bit of a shortage in the town of Geneva. Unfortunately when I visited it was not one of these times, but the exceptional museum and tour guides are still worth the trip.

Some question whether the costs of running this whacky science project is worth it. You could argue that the discoveries are leading us towards a better future and it must also be considered that the money does come back into the economy with the wide variety of people being paid from office workers, to tour guides and even the miners for example who are obtaining the raw materials. A debate for another day perhaps.

To summarise: the idea is to collide particles in order to obtain a better understanding of the world around us and even beyond the world we know. I hope this was informative for you to read and that it wasn’t too much or too little.

Let me know what you think,

Seb

At what age should we have the right to vote?

At what age should we have the right to vote?

By Sebastian Freke-Morin

Or shouldn't. This should equally be questioned.

With the explosive reaction of our nation, it has been close to impossible to escape the barrage of facts, fears and foreshadowing that have been brought about due to the “vote leave” campaign in Britain.

The result of this being that more and more people have developed an interest towards politics; most notably teenagers. Indefinitely being affected by the outcome as well as the country being in uproar, most minors (including myself) would like to get involved with discussions, debates and – most importantly – the ability to vote. So why can’t we?

UK Law states that voters must be:

·         18 or over

·         a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland

·         not be subject to any legal incapacity to vote

[Source: GOV.UK]

There are legal (and debatably cultural) restrains on us depending on our age. Examples include: age of consent, consumption of alcohol, learning to drive, some are banking limitations and the list goes on. Something that particularly stood out to me was joining the army. As my uncle put it “you can join the army and serve your country at 16 but you can’t vote for the change in your country?” – Sounds like dictatorship when you put it that way.

We are led to assume that this is due to our understanding of the world: that we understand the consequences that arise from said decision at said age. This applies to any of the laws mentioned before.

Something that frustrated me with the “vote leave” was the lack of research people had done from either side. Most people you ask would be incapable of stating at least 3 facts for both for and against leaving. Lots of people walked blindly into the polling station and ticked the box that had the most likes on Facebook.

I believe this is where the youth come in. 72% of eligible voters in Britain took a trip to the polling station on Thursday the 23^rd of June – which is more of a turn out than usual - including a greater number of youths.  Statistically [see graph 1] there were more young people between the ages of 20 – 40 that voted to remain.

[Graph 1. Source: Guardian News]

So the implicature here is that a lot of younger generations were more involved than usual. The way I viewed this was: facts > experience. Mirroring this for the older generations: experience > facts. We have grown up in a technological era where if we have a question we can turn to our trusty friend Google for some answers. Unlike older generations who are more likely to go by T.V., radio and newspapers as told by politicians and publishers.

With the vote turning out to be leaving this gives a nod the experience side of things this made me question why there is the age limit. The whole idea of democracy is that the public have a say in how the country is governed. The limitation of having to be 18 to vote contradicts that don’t you think? And if it’s a question of being well informed then where has this presumption that all under 18s are less informed than all over 18s?

The answer to that would be housing, banking and working. Post 18 we run wild in the world making our own way. However for someone like myself who is 17 years old, soon to make big decisions in my educative life, rent my first flat, start paying bills and, well, living like anyone else does, it would appear that I should have an equal say in what happens to my future as well.

But where does it end? 5 year olds at the polling station that can’t spell “Government” would be biased. But placing it 18 seems limiting to people’s rights.

Multiple people have raised the idea of a test. Hypothetically, if I were to make the decision I would say secondary school students should spend some time dedicating some of their education learning an unbiased political GCSE. This could include practical skills as well like mortgages, shopping, banking etc. All concluded in a test at the end that would give a rounded education in order to have an educated opinion on who or what to vote for.

At this point, post 16 when we start making decisions in our education we should have the right to vote.

Some claim that the elderly should not have the right to vote because "it's not their future". They have the equal rights to vote for the same reasons as we do. They still live in the country, pay taxes and everything else in between. 

There is no definitive answer so let me know what you think.

Seb

Twitter: @SebFrekeMorin #RightToVote