Introduction
While the actual traveling for these adventures started on Monday, August 3, the adventures really started back on May 12, and really even before that. For awhile I’ve known that Fermilab offers special tours of their Tevatron tunnel and the DZero experiment, however they are only offered once a month and limited to 18 people. When I first found the tours they were all filled, and only offered through July. However, when I woke up the morning of May 12, I saw a post on Facebook from my cousin, Brian, that they had added more tours and he got “tickets” for himself and his dad for the August tour. I immediately jumped on to Fermilab’s website and luckily got myself registered as well. Since I was going to be there for the tour, I decided to make a vacation and adventure out of the trip, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the tales of my latest adventures in Chicagoland.
Day 1 – Monday, August 3
I left home around noon on Monday to travel to the same hotel I stayed at a couple years ago when I went for my 35th birthday weekend. The traveling was uneventful with only minor traffic issues – mainly due to construction. I got checked into the hotel and got settled. I knew that if I went to a typical restaurant for dinner, I’d get flack for it, since I guess when you go on vacation you are supposed to try new things! So I searched for restaurants near me, especially Italian ones. I found one that seemed interesting, so I went to try out Cibo Racconto. It is considered a fast casual restaurant and was pretty good. Not a great Italian restaurant, but for fast casual Italian, it was good. Plus, they had gelato for dessert! I headed back to the hotel and decided that although I had a few options I could do that evening, that I’d just relax at the hotel, so that is what I did.
Day 2 – Tuesday, August 4
Today was the main reason for my trip to Chicago. After I woke up and had a quick small breakfast, I headed over to Brian’s place to meet up with him and his dad to start the day’s adventures. I got there, and visited for a bit before his dad showed up. Then the 3 of us went for breakfast while visiting and planning the day’s adventures (besides the tour). Our first stop after lunch was to go to an American Science & Surplus store. They buy surplus items and sell them, items ranging from science kits, all kinds of electronic and mechanical parts, toys, and tons of other random items. The signs they have for the items are very interesting to read as well, like some of them were for “plastic shapes” and some trays described as a “puke color”. I didn’t buy anything, but it was really neat looking around. Then it was off to Fermilab!
Before the tour we stopped at the Lederman Science Center, which is a interactive science area, designed mainly for kids, but adults can learn a lot as well. They also have a small gift shop (well more a gift counter) there as well where I bought a magnet and a t-shirt. While we were there, we talked to the person working and mentioned we were there for the tour. She asked if we’d be willing to drive ourselves to the actual tour location since the normal vans they use weren’t available, so they didn’t have enough space in the vehicles they were going to use. Brian quickly said yes, because how often do you get to drive your personal vehicle into restricted areas on government property!
We then headed over to Wilson hall, the main building at Fermilab, and that houses some public displays, offices, an art gallery, etc. This is where our tour would be starting. After looking around, it was time to head out to the DZero detector/experiment building to start the actual tour. Now is the time that Brian puts me to shame in sharing info about the tour. He has carefully posted all his pictures on Facebook with detailed information about them, where you’ll just get a quick summary from me and pictures without many descriptions. In this post I’ll share a few pictures, but will post all mine of Facebook as well, so if you want to see more pictures, check out my gallery on Facebook.
We went into the building at floor 3 1/2 which was at ground level. We then proceeded to head down the stairs where each 1/2 floor was labeled on the wall, until we got to level 1. We went into an area where they had displays and a model of the DZero setup and our guide explained the detector and the various pieces of equipment that are part of the DZero. The DZero is setup to create and detect subatomic particles, but in order to study something that small they need really big equipment!
After this we headed into the control room that was staffed 24/7 while the experiment was running. We learned more about the work they did, then got some safety information about risks associated with the tour including bumping your head, that we’ll get some radiation (although they promised it was no more than taking a cross country flight), and watching our step, etc. We were also given hard hats and signed our lives away – all the fun things in life have waivers! Then it was time to head into the DZero.
Another sign of a good experience is when you get to go past doors for authorized personnel only! A quick summary of the tour of DZero is we walked around the various parts of the experiment, looking at all the detectors (that was explained to use in the display area where we stopped first.) The thing is huge! Pictures can’t do it justice as to how large this marvelous technology wonder is. They have to have so many detectors to make sure they capture all the subatomic particles created and can monitor their energy level and motion, so they can piece it all together to determine what actually happened during the collision of protons and anti-protons.
Brian and I made sure to get lots of pictures, including one he took of me standing by the detector. You can only see a very small portion of the detector in this picture. The picture on the right gives you a better idea of the size, that picture is looking up several stories. Each of those rectangular metal pieces is 1 pixel in their detector. Talk about low resolution! But because they particles they are detecting are hard to see, they need to make the pixels large to make sure they capture everything!
After we walked around the outside area (and up and down many steps), we got to go up a ladder and even further into the detector. We were within about 10 feet from where the collisions actually happened, where the top quarks were created that were first discovered right here at DZero! We couldn’t get closer to it because that area of the equipment is still radioactive.
When I keep saying we are in the detector, I’m not meaning we are in the room the detector is in, I’m meaning we were actually inside the detector. The whole thing opens up into sections because they have to work on the various sensors and computers, so they need to have it so they can slide it apart to get to the various equipment. Our tour guide said that when they first started it would take them 12-24 hours to turn it off, wait for the radiation to clear, open it up, make the repairs, and put it all back together. Later on they got good enough that they could do it in an 8 hour shift.
Then it was time to go to the Tevatron tunnel. This is the tunnel where the 4 mile particle accelerator ring is. As you can see in the picture, it curves to the right to start the loop around. The use magnets to steer and accelerate the particles to get them moving (pardon the technical jargon) “very fast” until they collide them together to do their experiments. One interesting thing is that if they have particles in the pipe that they don’t need anymore, they basically stop steering them so they go straight and dump them into a concrete or steel block to get rid of them. Don’t worry if you don’t understand any of this, most of it goes over my head as well!
We then headed back up, took a look at the assembly room where they built the equipment before sliding it into place. We headed out, and that was the end of the tour. Very fascinating and a once in a lifetime experience. It was very neat to be able to be up close and personal with such great scientific equipment that is funded by the government. This is what I love knowing my tax dollars go to, unlike somethings that tax money goes for.
The days adventures were not done yet! We gathered our thoughts on what we wanted to do next and decided to go see Ant-Man and stopped for a quick bite to eat at Culver’s before heading to the movie. While I’ve never really seen any of the current (or recent) super hero movies, this was a wonderful movie and I enjoyed it a lot.
At this point Brian’s dad headed back to Michigan (he only came for the day) while Brian and I headed back to his apartment to figure out what else we wanted to do. After our normal struggling of figuring out 1) What I like to do, 2) What there is in the area, 3) what is actually open/available, and 4) what we’d enjoy together, we watched an episode of Big Bang Theory and then headed out for another movie. We went and saw Inside Out. I had heard many good things about this movie (including from Brian) and was glad we went to see it. Wonderful movie and makes you really think about your emotions and how you grow emotionally and what is going on inside of your head. The only downside is the movie is making me think a lot more about how I think and what goes on in my head, which I already do way too much!
Then it was back to his apartment complex to drop him off (I was driving at this point) and I headed back to my hotel. A wonderful day that I will never forget, but it was just the start of my Chicago adventures!