30th April 19
A small group of Year 13 A Level Physics students attended a High Energy Physics Masterclass at Imperial College London at the end of March. We heard some fascinating lectures about particle physics and the data processing required for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN – for example, one of their detectors processes 25 petabits of information per second – 10 times more than all the information on the internet! There was an excellent hands-on computer workshop where they identified particles from the array of tracks made from particle collisions, then changed parameters to fit curves to the data. It was satisfying to see them process real data and get a feel for how particles are discovered. Feedback from the day was very positive: “11/10!”, “I’m really glad I chose to study Physics at university, I’ve seen that there are many avenues you can follow with it.”
Louise Affleck
Director of Studies & Physics