World's Largest Microscope Reaches Major Milestone

What races close to the speed of light in one gigantic circle? No, it’s not Superman, it is trillions of subatomic particles in the biggest science experiment in history. The final pieces of the ATLAS project— a particle detector that will record the debris from collisions of protons sent whizzing around a 27-km circular tunnel in Switzerland—are being set into place today, and the University of Victoria has played an instrumental role in this international collaboration since the start.
       Since 1992, the ATLAS-UVic group has made crucial contributions to the design, development and construction of the detector, and today the last pieces (called “wheels”) were lowered into place in this huge device. The circular tunnel itself is buried deep underground within the proton collider facility built by world-famous European Laboratory for Particle Physics, or CERN. Once the facility is active later this year, the collisions will allow scientists to recreate ‘Big Bang’ like conditions and obtain invaluable data about the beginnings of the universe and the frontiers of particle physics.
       UVic adjunct professor and Institute of Particle Physics scientist Dr. Robert McPherson and UVic physics professor Michel Lefebvre are available for comment today.
       The CERN announcement is posted at http://press.web.cern.ch/press/.
       UVic information is posted at https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~web-atlas.

Photos of the ATLAS wheels are available upon request.

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