In the last
session of this season we had the great opportunity of having Jeff Wiener with
us on our Q&A session. Jeff is a staff scientist, managing CERN's national
and international teacher programme and conducting physics education research
with high school teachers and students. Besides, he is investigating how best
to use medical applications of particle physics as a tool for science diplomacy
in low- and middle-income countries.
In the
Q&A session we discussed, how it is working at CERN, and why there are
people working there 24 hours a day, since when the experiments are done, they
are running without a stop for a long period of time. He gave us ways how
students could start working there. And we talked about the intricacies of
working in CERN. One of my favourite stories Jeff talked about was about
napkins. In the cafeteria in CERN, a couple of years ago the food providers
wanted to stop giving paper napkins, but the scientists at CERN were enraged.
The reason for this was because usually during lunch, when they are talking
about what they were doing that day and explaining the problems they have come
across, it is in these moments that often breakthroughs happen, and the
solutions are always written down on these paper napkins. It is said that all
of the important ideas are written down on napkins in CERN
We hope to
have more brilliant people with us in the Q&A sessions next year as well.
