As everybody on Earth already knows on February 8-9th there was the first SteemSTEM MeetUp and it.... was… AWESOME!
The first to arrive at the restaurant:
(We were eating before everyone else even arrived, but that's a secret - thanks @howo for teaching me what real pâté is)
Many thanks to @aurel.proorocu for driving us every day all over France and Switzerland.
First day was fun, but the second day was even better!
We visited the Globe of Science and Innovation where there’s a permanent exhibition i highly suggest you to visit.
Crossing the street there’s the Microcosm Exhibition - an interactive museum worth every second of your time.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a cool cloud chamber.
(They are so cool I want to build one soonTM)
An amazing thing I found at the Microcosm souvenir shop is this tape (image below) with about 1TB of data during real experiments in the LHC - actually I saw @Suesa purchased one and I immediately wanted one for myself
(Reminder for future self: open it and read all the data!)
The @SteemSTEM community is fantastic and I had the opportunity to meet 21 amazing people who are actively contributing to build a wonderful science community here on steemit.
Unfortunately I had not time to talk to everyone, but this is one more reason to have a second MeetUp( @lemouth ).
Special thanks to @dber , @galotta , @saunter , @ertwro, @howo , @fredrikaa , @aurel.proorocu , @ana.luiza and @kerriknox . I’m not a very outgoing person and usually i do not enjoy being in a group, but with you it was a different story. Being with you was an enriching experience and i wish to meet you again soon!
And the same goes for everyone else who was at the MeetUp (@alexs1320 , @scienceangel , @tristan-muller , @suesa , @reggaemuffin , @justtryme90 , @lemouth , @grandpere , @ceybiicien) - I really really wish we had more time to spend together, but I'm quite confident we will in the next MeetUp.
Anyway, time to talk about something a bit more serious.
The Value of CERN
During the MeetUp we had the opportunity to visit the CMS detector
This BEAST is capable of taking 3D “pictures” of particle collisions up to 40 million times every second!!!
Working on devices capable of such tasks is a huge engineering challenge, but these kind of challenges are what makes technology go further.
You probably already heard about this, but it is good to repeat it once in a while: we need (more) pure science projects in order to grow as a civilisation.
Not just because we want to understand the real nature of the universe (even though this may already be enough), but also because doing so we are forced to work on cutting edge technologies to solve problems that no one has ever had in the entire human history!
And to the smart guys saying: "Yeah, but it costs too much and we have bigger problems to focus on!"
Just show them this and remember them that this year the entire CERN budget probably cost them no more than a good espresso ;-)
This was an amazing experience and I can't wait to see all of you in next MeetUp!
P.S.
Per i lettori italiani (For the italian readers):
tra domani e dopodomani sera dovrei riuscire a pubblicare la versione italiana utilizzando il tag #itastem - più dettagli, qualche video e spiegazioni su cosa si fa al CERN ed in particolare che cos'è il CMS.
Great job Ben, and thanks for all the recording you did!
Thanks, even though the quality of those videos is not great...
It was awesome meeting you too. I would have never guessed you were shy and not outgoing! Maybe you just need to be in the right company, and SteemStem are the right peeps for you to hang around.
Definitely, you were all awesome people to be with! :-D
Thanks for sharing the story of the meet. steemit is full of amazing people and I am glad I came upon this post. Will show it to my son, he will be interested in all this science stuff
It's always good to be interested in science stuff :-D
It was a pleasure to meet you. It is a pity we didn't have the time to chat more. At least, we will be able to catch up on 10 days in Rome :)
To come back to the cost comment. Yes, the LHC is expensive when you take the absolute price. But when you account for the amount of contributors, as you said, it is just a couple of EUR per person. Therefore, this is somehow cheap science!
PS: I will add a link to your post under mine :)
That would be great! (You just reminded me I have to send you some good restaurants names, I'll DM you this evening)
Unfortunately there are too many people who still do not understand it. We need more SteemSTEM :-D
P.S. Thanks :-)
People just take the absolute amount of money and think about all other things could be done with this amount of money. While this is a sane reaction, there are many other area where the same amount of money could be extract (while always cut down education and health?).
I think there is not enough communication with the public. Paradoxically when advertising that CERN has found the Higgs Boson, the average Joe cannot directly see why there is value in that discovery, but when you advertise that CERN has developed the World Wide Web and gifted it to humanity BECAUSE it was working on particle physics, the average Joe can understand the value of working on particle physics and hopefully he will support the development of scientific projects in the future.
When putting things into prospective, CERN costs are nothing compared to the priceless innovations coming out of it (and you know that better than me for sure).
I am totally agreeing. There is actually some communication, but it deserves some effort to the average Joe to get it. This is maybe where things are blocked :)
It was a pleasure to meet you! Hope to see you again someday to hear more fascinating stories about hi-end prosthesis :)
Hopefully next MeetUp! Anyway, if during your crazy journey around the world you end up somewhere near Rome let me know! :-D
Maaaaybe on a way back when we cross the Atlantic we'll go through southwestern Europe :)
Whats the secret?
No secret, just a bad joke on the fact that we started eating before the others even arrived at the restaurant ;-)
cool! Well done! keep it up! I also want to))))) thanks for the post! good luck!
Very good friendship
This is good! well done @bendelgreco
Keep the good job on. @steemstem moving forward like never before.