Einsteins of the future on a visit to CERN?

In 1896 a 17-year-old named Albert Einstein joined ETH Zurich. Here, he was to spend the next four years building the foundation for his brave new vision of the physical world.

Fast-forward almost 110 years and on 17 June 2005, ETH Zurich's Department of Physics organized a “Night of Physics”, a special event open to the public. This formed part of a series of activities at ETH to celebrate its 150th anniversary, as well as the World Year of Physics. It gave thousands of visitors a chance to experience the excitement of doing experiments, learning about Einstein's breakthroughs, visiting world-class labs or observing galaxies through high-quality telescopes.

Amongst these were about five-hundred high school students from all over German-speaking Switzerland, who participated in a physics competition. They were highly motivated to win, not least because of the first prize: a trip to CERN!

The winners visited CERN on the 21st September. A group of five students from the Gymnasium Appenzell, who shared the first prize with another group from the Kantonsschule Romanshorn, were welcomed by the ETH Professors Felicitas Pauss and André Rubbia. Their diverse visitors' programme introduced them to many of ETH's activities at CERN, including the CMS experiment construction site at Point 5 of the LHC, the electronics integration centre of the CMS crystal calorimeter, as well as the Positronium experiment.

Who knows, maybe in a few years we will meet some of the prize-winners again, perhaps as researchers analyzing particle physics data at CERN?