Cuesta College students to visit Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland – The Cuestonian

Cuesta College students have an opportunity to travel abroad this summer to Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain.

Physics Professor James Eickemeyer will lead students on the tour, which will take place from June 1-12, 2025. Eickemeyer has been taking students on international trips for over ten years.

The first stop on the trip will be near Geneva, Switzerland to visit the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. The LHC sits in a tunnel 100 meters underground at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets that rush particles so they collide at extremely high speeds.

“The idea is to take these protons and send them around the ring in opposite directions at almost the speed of light, then have them collide with each other,” Eickemeyer said. “They have such high energies that the energy can be created into mass — particles that can exist in nature. So you’re generating energies that are comparable to what the universe saw in the first second of the Big Bang, which is when all of the particles in the universe were being created.”

The next stop will be in Zurich, where students will travel by cable car up into the Alps to analyze glacier retreat data and experience Lake Lucerne. This glacial research is currently being used to support evidence of climate change.

Participants will also visit Italy to explore Lake Como and the Italian Riviera. They will then travel to the French Riviera and Monaco. Students will have an opportunity to analyze data regarding Mediterranean salinity and water temperature changes, which is also being used to support evidence of climate change.

The group will then spend two days in Provence, France where they will have an opportunity to hike on the Ochre Trail and go sightseeing. They will end the trip in Barcelona, Spain for two days with a guided tour.

The cost of the trip is $4,967 plus a $450 fee, which includes flights, lodging, transport and two daily meals.

Any students who are interested in participating in the trip must attend a mandatory meeting on Thursday, Oct. 24 from 12-1 p.m. in Room 2609 on the SLO Cuesta College campus. They can also attend a meeting later that day from 6-7 p.m. via Zoom. For further information, contact James Eickemeyer at [email protected].