Katie in Chicago (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} pass_da_pierogi) wrote,@ 2008-09-17 17:36:00 |
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The End-of-the-World Pajama Party
Last week the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland circulated its first particle beam. It happened between 2 and 4 a.m. after my second day of work at Fermilab. And we had a pajama party.
That's just how Fermilab is. I knew when I first drove onto the property - almost 7,000 acres of mostly prairie - and passed an actual herd of buffalo that I had made the right choice coming here.
The only real office building on Fermilab property is this 15-floor concrete creation that slopes in from both sides at the bottom and is nothing but windows up the middle of the front and back. It's almost like two very thin buildings, one on the East and the other on the West, connected by glass. When you walk inside, you can see all the way up to the skylights at the top. All that sunlight sustains a whole atrium full of trees and plants on the ground floor.
Fermilab's first director, Dr. Robert Rathburn Wilson, had a lot of control over the building's design and also designed a lot of the metal sculptures scattered around Fermilab. There's the one I like to call the Fancy Donut at the back of the building, the obelisk in the reflecting pool out front and the one that looks like a twisted Chinese finger trap. I think Wilson also had something to do with the fact that the electric lines are held up by a series of white structures that look like the symbol for Pi.
Fermilab was the only place to have a live video connection with CERN early Wednesday morning - so we could watch it make us obsolete by doing what we do best, only better. (Okay, okay, Fermilab is still doing other important research and is a big part of the LHC experiment, but man oh man is America in trouble if we don't elect someone who cares about science.) About 400 people showed up; Fermilab was actually turning guests away.
I bought special PJs just for the event. I saw them as I was passing by the children's clothing section at Target the day before: greenish-blue, shiny, covered in fist-sized prints of multicolored owls. They were magnificent. I bought extra large, which would have fit if I were a few inches shorter. Oh well. I got fuzzy pink slippers to match.
My boss showed up in blue and orange jammies with footies. I love this place.
Before the LHC was turned on, some botanist was working people up over how it would create a black hole and swallow the Earth -- a claim that prompted some hilarious TV news graphics and inspired one pajama party guest to follow the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and bring a towel.
But if Mr. Botanist knew anything, he would realize that they weren't even colling any particles that night. They were just checking to see if beams would run all the way around both rings of the particle accelerator. The collisions start this week.
Last week the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland circulated its first particle beam. It happened between 2 and 4 a.m. after my second day of work at Fermilab. And we had a pajama party.
That's just how Fermilab is. I knew when I first drove onto the property - almost 7,000 acres of mostly prairie - and passed an actual herd of buffalo that I had made the right choice coming here.
The only real office building on Fermilab property is this 15-floor concrete creation that slopes in from both sides at the bottom and is nothing but windows up the middle of the front and back. It's almost like two very thin buildings, one on the East and the other on the West, connected by glass. When you walk inside, you can see all the way up to the skylights at the top. All that sunlight sustains a whole atrium full of trees and plants on the ground floor.
Fermilab's first director, Dr. Robert Rathburn Wilson, had a lot of control over the building's design and also designed a lot of the metal sculptures scattered around Fermilab. There's the one I like to call the Fancy Donut at the back of the building, the obelisk in the reflecting pool out front and the one that looks like a twisted Chinese finger trap. I think Wilson also had something to do with the fact that the electric lines are held up by a series of white structures that look like the symbol for Pi.
Fermilab was the only place to have a live video connection with CERN early Wednesday morning - so we could watch it make us obsolete by doing what we do best, only better. (Okay, okay, Fermilab is still doing other important research and is a big part of the LHC experiment, but man oh man is America in trouble if we don't elect someone who cares about science.) About 400 people showed up; Fermilab was actually turning guests away.
I bought special PJs just for the event. I saw them as I was passing by the children's clothing section at Target the day before: greenish-blue, shiny, covered in fist-sized prints of multicolored owls. They were magnificent. I bought extra large, which would have fit if I were a few inches shorter. Oh well. I got fuzzy pink slippers to match.
My boss showed up in blue and orange jammies with footies. I love this place.
Before the LHC was turned on, some botanist was working people up over how it would create a black hole and swallow the Earth -- a claim that prompted some hilarious TV news graphics and inspired one pajama party guest to follow the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and bring a towel.
But if Mr. Botanist knew anything, he would realize that they weren't even colling any particles that night. They were just checking to see if beams would run all the way around both rings of the particle accelerator. The collisions start this week.
