I just got off work. My night shift usually ends by 8:30am (an hour ago) but today they asked me to stick around for a training opportunity. I got to go into the D0 Assembly Hall where they house one of the two big detectors. I had been in B0 (aka the Collider Detector Facility, CDF for short) earlier in the night and so got the opportunity to compare the two detectors. CDF was a smaller detector but it was still HUGE. It was at least two stories tall. D0 is three stories. The detectors weigh thousands of tons each. We went through them and my trainers showed me that there were hundreds of places that a person could fit and that if we ever had to do a Search and Secure in either of them, it would be a pain.
Truthfully, the best way to describe them is to imagine that you had to crawl through a human sized habitrail filled with pipes, electronics, and wires. You have to wear a hard hat because it is inevitable that you will bump your head on something. I did. Several times. A flashlight is also mandatory, not just for looking into dark places, but also to signal your partner who will be searching the detector with you.
I wish that I had brought my camera with me.
Anyway, time to go home and possibly go to bed. Or practice unicycling until I am tired. We shall see what happens.
UnCool Before UnCool Was Cool 