The AlmaMAC 175: Ben Davis Purcell on ATLAS, LHC, and Particle Physics

scientificanada

The Large Hadron Collider is made up of a bunch of different experiments run by different international collaborations, but it’s all happening on the 27-km loop. All of these experiments are attached to the loop, but at different locations around the loop. This requires a ton of oversight and collaboration between experiments, and to facilitate this, the collider basically needs a governing body to keep everything working smoothly. It’s almost like its own country or something, built within this 27-km loop (about 8.5 km diameter). Actually, it kind of reminds me of Vatican City in a lot of ways. Except about 8 times wider. But the point here, is that being able to run experiments that study the things that make up atoms requires this enormously connected world of collaboration. The science blows me away, and so does the politics.

So why am I telling you all this? Well, today our guest on the AlmaMAC is a Carlton grad student via McMaster who works on this big loop. Ben Davis Purcell is an ex-McMaster student, graduating with a MSC in physics from the same lab I am currently in. Now he works with a group out of Carlton with ties to the Large Hadron Collider. This week I talk to him about looking at the smallest things in the universe and being a part of perhaps the biggest scientific collaboration in the universe. Stay tuned.