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Zurich’s Engineering Interns get a newsworthy lesson in physics
September 24, 2012
This year we tried something new with our engineering interns in the Zurich office - a field trip exchange between
CERN
and Google interns. Back in July, interns from Google Zurich went on a highly anticipated field trip to CERN. To say it was an exciting day at CERN would be an understatement, as the
discovery of a new boson
(possibly the Higgs) had been announced that very morning.
The cake prepared for the visiting CERN students, decorated with
a reference to a certain cult computer game.
Michael Gornisiewicz, a full-time software engineer at Google summed up his day with the interns.
When we arrived we were given an introductory presentation about the various accelerators at the complex, including the Large Hadron Collider and its two main experiments ATLAS and CMS. A quick tour of the main control centre followed, filled with an inordinate number of displays.
In the afternoon, the group was split into three subgroups, each taking turns to get a tour of the Antiproton Decelerator (AD), the Computer Center and attend a talk by Sverre Jarp about the software and computing facilities used by CERN. The AD is a laboratory where antimatter (chiefly antiprotons) is investigated and devices to store it are developed.
The computer center contains a number of historical devices, including one of the NeXT machines that Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web. We were also able to view CERNs own data center.
For the last part of the day, we visited “the Globe” - CERNs visitor center. Following this we were then taken through the ATLAS visitor center by a passionate physicist who explained the fine details of the workings of the detector. We were also shown a short video about how the detector was built, which included some difficult work to lower the massive detector through the relatively narrow opening to the cavern.
Overall, it was a very interesting trip, giving a glimpse into the world of cutting edge particle physics, an appreciation for how large data processing problems can be solved on a limited budget as well as a visit to where the web begun. All on possibly the most historical day in particle physics in recent history - when 50 years of particle physics research culminated in the discovery of a new boson.
Following Google’s exciting field trip to CERN, we had a chance to return the favor. In August CERN interns visited Google Zurich. The day was packed as we hosted informative talks about infrastructure at Google, how to design Gmail for scale and incremental web indexing percolator to name but a few. We also had a panel discussion with former CERN engineers, who are now Googlers. This session proved to be very insightful for our guests. The CERN interns were also enthusiastic about our office tour - and we finished the day with some cold drinks and networking.
Thanks to everybody who helped out with this exchange - it helps us to deliver the best intern experience for interns from CERN and Google.
Posted by Frida Borjesson, College Recruiter - Europe, Middle East and Africa
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