Tomorrow is the big day – we are getting lots of briefings about what to say and what not to say, where we are allowed to be, etc. I have read a lot of press about it too. But what I find most amusing about the articles are the comments. It tells me more about how people see us than anything else, which is wildly different from person to person, based on what they see as important to them in relation to the this big experiment.
Science has always been about trying to understand some sort of phenomena. For high-energy particle physicists it is about exploring the nature of matter, at energies never seen before.
But the LHC and all its experiments have a human side too, because nothing this size could ever have been built in isolation. To construct something this large required collaboration on a grand scale, both money and resources: human and material. People work together, towards one common goal, with no concern for the other person’s origins or affiliations, since we have a job to get done, in time.
It has been wonderful to meet and work with people whose countries I may never have the chance to visit, and I think it is something people often forget about when they comment in these articles. We have overcome personal prejudices and barriers put up by our own countries to come together and work towards a common goal.
I am as anxious as the rest to see it work and analyze all the data, but I don’t want to forget all the wonderful people I have had the pleasure to work with.
