SLAC Tour: A Recap from an attendee
November 24th, 2007 by Kishore
The DtaS Science in Action event - the Stanford Linear Accelerator was an amazing event. 20 people were able to get a 1st hand look at the one of the premier particle acclerators in the world.
We all gathered for a half hour explanation of particle physics…that quickly turned into an hour with all the fascinating questions (leave to science cafers to come up with good questions). We then spent another hour looking at the accelerator itself, along with more fascinating discussion on the research conducted there. Rather than my take, here’s a recap from David Ferris, an attendee from the tour.
Adam gave this analogy to explain atoms. Let’s say you puffed up an apple so big its diameter extended from the Earth to the sun (take that, New York!). If an apple were that huge, how big would one of its atoms be?
Answer: the size of a football field.
OK so far. Pretty small. But does that mean that this magnificent apple is made up of football-field-sized chunks? No. All that means is that the components of an atom – its nucleus and electrons – exist in that football-field sized space.
So how big are the nucleus and electrons? The nucleus, Adam continued, is the size of an apple seed in the middle of that football field. And the electrons are far smaller than that. They are, in Adam’s words, “the size of a small virus,” which is to say, so small they’re hard to measure. In fact, Adam concluded, electrons don’t have any mass at all, as we humans understand it. Oh, and they don’t really exist anyplace, either. There’s just a probability they exist.
This means that all matter – your hands, your mouse, the coffee cup, the screen upon which you read this – are made up of infinitesimally teeny bits of almost-nothing. How can something that appears so substantial in fact be the exact opposite? Mind blown. Game over.
More Info:
Ferris’ entire post
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