LHC’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ to speak at Athlone physics conference

Irish physicist Professor Steve Myers, also dubbed ‘Lord of The Rings’ in reference to his role as Head of Accelerators at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), will speak at the Institute of Physics in Ireland’s (IOP) annual conference in Athlone this Saturday, 27 March 2010.

Having just set a new word record in particle acceleration at CERN, Steve Myers will explain how such colossal energies are achieved and provide an insight into the excitement and anticipation of all currently working on the world’s biggest ever physics experiment.

Professor Myers will speaks to IOP in Ireland just as coordination begins for the ultimate phase of the project – preparing to smash protons together to create an energy density similar to that produced in the earliest moments of the universe.

Along with the technological advances that such experimentation inspires and the pure thrill of probing the furthest limits of human knowledge, the physicists working at the LHC hope to find answers to questions about the fundamental nature of our Universe.

The conference in Athlone both celebrates the Irish involvement in particle physics and brings the latest research in the field to the attention of the wider Irish scientific community.

Further speakers include Dr. Ronan McNulty from University College Dublin (UCD) who is leading a team of Irish scientists on one of the LHC experiments and several physics students who are presenting posters detailing the search for dark matter to date.

For those ‘out-of-the-loop’, the LHC consists of two circular beams of protons that are accelerated around a 27km-long tunnel, 100m below ground under the outskirts of Geneva in Switzerland and has just broken its own world record (on Friday 19 March) by creating two beams of protons each with an energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts.

Sheila Gilheaney, National Officer IOP Ireland said: “If you want to attract people to science you have to show them how fascinating it is.  There is no more inspirational story today than the efforts surrounding the LHC.”