Andrea Magali Fletes | January 19th, 2025
In Switzerland, luxury is perfected in sophisticated forms such as Läderach Swiss chocolate, a decades-long chocolate family business that began in the 1960s. This Swiss chocolate has earned international respect with its exceptional high-quality artisanal chocolate. In parallel, this country has also synthesized what is recognized as the world’s most iconic and prestigious watchmaker, Rolex. It is fair to conclude that while the Swiss pride themselves in these adornments, their true grandeur narrows to innovation in scientific ingenuity, such as the field of particle physics.
France created the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor, the ITER Tokamak; the United States is home to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); Japan successfully developed the KAGRA gravitational wave detector. These are all instruments that beautifully represent groundbreaking engineering achievements. And though we could discourse on the brilliance of these other machines, it seems fitting — and perhaps more compelling — to focus our attention on the most renowned instrument as an introduction to the machines responsible for the most rigorous yet rewarding research: a particle accelerator. Particle accelerators not only advance our innate understanding of the space and physics around us — they are also an inspiration to future generations of engineers in initiatives such as those taken by Vanderbilt.
Photons the speed of light
Imagine a concentric race track in Switzerland, where the cars are not cars but protons, and the track isn’t concrete but a 27-kilometer superconductor magnet. If you multiply those protons by a magnitude of a trillion, and picture them speeding up to 0.99997 times the speed of light, you have just created a skeletal image of the world’s largest particle accelerator — the Large Hadron Collider. In Geneva, Switzerland, more than 10,000 scientists in universities and laboratories from over 100 countries collaborated to create this high-tech machinery, and because of it, theories of particle physics have been set to ground.
Particle accelerators are high-tech instruments that use electric and magnetic fields to speed up particles, such as electrons, protons, or ions. By using magnetic fields, the sped-up pathway of the particle can be manipulated by forming curved trajectories to increase speeds. Engineers design particular magnets so they can steer particles in a quantified trajectory and quantify data. Without magnetism, the basis on which particle accelerators are built on would lose its ability to operate.
The different particle accelerators deviate between the set up of the magnets. Linac accelerators consist of linear magnets along a straight path. Cyclotrons have magnets in a circular path to create a constant magnetic field and gain more energy within each cycle. The Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was the first to house a proton synchrotron, another type of circular accelerator that uses electromagnets to sync with the particle speed, this way particles can continue accelerating at exponential speeds.
From proton therapy to radiopharmaceuticals and destruction of cancer cells to vaccine optimization, particle accelerators are significant in contemporary life and have been used not only to lay the foundation for skeptical physics theories, but for many real-life applications such as medicine. The standard notion lies in that particle accelerators are strictly for chemical or physics research, but many of these instruments have actually been used for oncological and other medicinal purposes; in fact, the greatest use of these accelerators is in hospitals.
From Switzerland to Nashville
Peabody College at Vanderbilt has long been a devoted advocate of the students of the Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) by offering programs offered by the Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach at Vanderbilt Peabody College. These programs provide MNPS students opportunities in working alongside professors on research projects and attending workshops. Among these opportunities is the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, which has led a hands-on particle physics workshop for young high school students.
With the activation of the Electron-Ion Collider particle accelerator in 2034, the high school students will find themselves in a time for shaping their career aspirations. It is hoped that these collaborations will motivate future generations of engineers to pursue a path in scientific ingenuity where their contributions will be written about and admired by others. Just as Swiss chocolate has earned global acclaim for its sophisticated quality, so too have researchers and their particle accelerators around the world, especially the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. As with the finest chocolate, the future in engineering is rich and exceptional.
References
Brookhaven National Laboratory – a passion for Discovery. (n.d.). https://www.bnl.gov/world/
Fusion energy. ITER. (n.d.). https://www.iter.org/
Kagra Project. KAGRA project – KAGRA HomePage. (n.d.). https://gwcenter.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/
The large hadron collider. CERN. (n.d.). https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider
NASA. (n.d.). James Webb space telescope – NASA science. NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/
Udayh. (1970, May 12). The school for science and math at Vanderbilt – Landing. Vanderbilt University. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/cseo-ssmv/