Each winter, between December and spring, the LHC at CERN is undertaking a maintenance phase where the machine and the detectors are warmed up so that humans can do stuff on the machine. During this phase, it is sometimes possible to go down to (some of) the detectors and visit the machine.
After discussing with a colleague of mine, it turned out that it is actually possible to organize the first steemSTEM meetup at CERN, and to have a private tour of the CMS experiment of the LHC.
This will offer the steemSTEM community (and any other interested Steemian) a unique chance to see a state-of-the-art detector of particle physics from the closest possible place.
Since this needs to be organized before the machine restarts, this meetup will talke place very soon. I apologize for this, but life is what it is. Note that the next chance to go down to the LHC will be in 2019…
In practice, the event will be organized on Feb 9th, 2018, at CERN (close to Geneva, in Switzerland).
In order for me to take care of the local organization (transportation, lodging plans, etc.) I need to know who exactly who will participate. To this aim, please confirm your participation by commenting this post or bugging me on the chat (in the steemSTEM channel) before the end of January. And do not hesitate to ask practical or not-so-practical questions, if necessary.
The only thing I need from any interested person is to provide a copy of a valid ID. Yep, you will have to trust me on this one, but that is the price to pay to enter CERN.