Trip to Fermi Lab

The view from the 15th floor of the main Fermi Lab building
 

So on Friday, my health and science reporting class took a road trip to Fermi Lab, about an hour outside of Chicago.

They’ve got a particle collider there, and they smash protons and anti protons together to see what happens.

Over the years, they were responsible for the discovery of three primary particles, including the bottom and top quarks.

It was a fascinating trip, even though the weather was against us.  The campus is large, and primarily looks like prairie.  You wouldn’t know there was a particle collider there, unless you saw the huge earth birms from above.

Here’s a trailer for a PBS special that was filmed there called “The Atom Smashers”.  Bonus — the special was scored by Ghostly International’s Kate Simko.

Want to see some more pictures I took at Fermi?

The control room at the D0 site
The control room at the D-Zero site
Scale model of the entire campus
Scale model of the entire campus
Oooohh... Sci fi!
Oooohh… Sci fi!
Lobby looking up.
Lobby looking up.
The particle zoo
The particle zoo