Today I had another opportunity to visit THE MACHINE…
Some people keep calling it ATLAS, I just call it THE MACHINE!
You can see

Still it is overwhelming and beautiful at the same time…
and a lot has changed since last time.
You can follow the build-up by watching the webcams.

Yesterday the ATLAS Inner Detector (ID) Barrel was tranported and installed into ATLAS. This includes the Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT) barrel which is the machine I am mostly working on…
It’s getting closer and closer to the point where the real physics will start…

Today the Scientific Policy Committee (SPC) of CERN released a first final plan for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC):
– beam pipe closure at the end of August ’07
– followed by LHC commissioning runs at 450+450 GeV (till end of ’07)
– shut-down for final machine commissioning
– followed by first physics runs at 14 TeV (full luminosity by end of ’08)

This might sound strange and boring for all non-physicists (even for some of them), but it’s at least a bit interesting for all those working for/at CERN…

I wonder if the B40-masterpiece will still be there at this time… PPJB rulez!

… and the “machine” I am working for (on the physics/software front) I got something to look at.
I just got an email with a link to a webpage with some movies made out of webcam pictures taken in the cavern during the last months/years.

The birth of ATLAS http://www.hep.upenn.edu/atlas/movies/movies.html

[edit]
for those interested in other fancy stuff… I just got an email with this:
The official Ravensburger ATLAS jigsaw puzzle: click here (pdf)
and the ATLAS 3D viewer: click here (jpg)