Science in Progress: Upgrading the World’s Biggest Science Experiment

17 thoughts on “Science in Progress: Upgrading the World’s Biggest Science Experiment”

1. Oh myyyyy! Been waiting for this one! I visited with some science colleagues of mine last year. Unfortunately we couldn’t get down to the LHC, so I’m jealous, but the other experiments they had there were just as awesome for me personally. They even have an anti-matter factory. 🙂

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2. So cool!! This was excellent.

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3. Btw, the wiring inside the LHC detectors is craaaaazy. They said that no single person there would be able to rebuilt it, it needs such a collaboration because it’s simply way too complicated otherwise.

   And another cool fact; although the proton-beam isn’t even visible, the energy of it is so strong that would a magnet on the LHC fail while the beam is travelling close to 99.9999% the speed of light, it would be like crashing a huge train into the side of the ring.

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4. Fantastic episode. I am so glad you went into detail about how the equipment is made and tested. Really fascinating.

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5. Thanks Kishore! Your wonder with all things science is infectious and always makes me more excited about whatever it is you’re talking about 🙂

   For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I can heartily recommend the documentary on the LHC called “Particle Fever” (2013). The film follows a couple of the engineers and scientists into the lesser-seen areas of the complex at CERN, and goes into some cool personal details about the constant activity that their jobs and all that science require.

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6. Dear tested,

   i have a big problem with this being for premium accounts only. as a European i’m proud that some of my tax money goes to cern (the e is for european!) Cern has also made a big deal out of it that they want to share all their information for free, they are also a advocate for “open access” and allow everyone to consult their publications for free, not just for europeans, but for everyone.

   I don’t mind you doing lego build or whatever for premium content readers, but this is about something that should be free for everyone. i mean, you are making not only money from something they probably didn’t charge you to film and explain, but you are making your money on a freaking website, something they also made possible (thank you cern for the www!)

   so the least you can do is release this to the public for free.

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7. I see where you’re coming from and I would agree to most of it. However, all being open etc. is what CERN itself is all about, so indeed everyone can access all of it for free and it’s awesome. This site does need to make money ofcourse, flying everyone to CERN, filming it and all the overhead associated to that is not something you can do for free. The premium members here pay extra for interesting content, if they choose to offer this to them I think that’s fine, though I get your point as well. Besides that, there’s already loads of CERN video material out there to check out, this is just a nice thing Tested itself did.

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8. Fully agree. This adds value to my Premium membership. Tested is footing the bill for most of this and deserve to be paid for good stories.

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9. we filmed several pieces on this trip, including one for youtube

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10. I love this series.

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11. Indeed, this and Bits to Atoms really made me extend the membership again. Very nicely done.

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12. Thanks for the kind words everyone! We’re starting to get a feel for the arc of the show now and I hope that is showing in the product. We’ve been using much of the critical feedback from episode 1 and 2 to refine the intros for episode 3 – so keep it coming.

    And as Norm mentioned, there will be a YouTube video on the CERN trip with Simone out later. I hope we can release SIP on YT in a few months as well, after we wrap the 1st season.

    Back to work on editing episode 4. In the meantime, if you have show topic suggestions, hit me up! We want to focus more on the custom tools and process of research still underway – but we’re pretty agnostic on science areas right now.

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13. +1 to this. Particle Fever was amazing – screened it during my science festival years ago. Surprising drama for a science documentary too.

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14. Maybe the advance on genetics and proteomics? Maybe a bit too specialised, but as I work in proteomics and have seen the progress on genetics, it blew my mind how fast things are going in the past couple of years. Fascinating stuff.

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15. the struggle with genetics is the visuals. Some of the custom stuff for lab on a chips or CRISPR is hard to showcase on camera without loads of animations. I’m definitely keeping my eye out for something in this realm.

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16. Ah yes, true, but a lot of science these days isn’t very visual. My lab is also working on mitosis and the advancements in cancer research, very nice microscopy going on there as well with 3D modelling etc.

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17. Very nice episode! Keep up the good work! Was at CERN earlier this year and it still blows my mind to see all the stuff there.

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