This is one of the most famous pictures in physics ever
it shows the ATLAS detector in CERN near Geneva in Switzerland which is one of
the four machines which detect the fallout from the collisions between
particles in the LHC - the Large Hadron Collider a 27 kilometer long circular
tunnel which accelerates protons close to the speed of light
Now as spectacular as this image is the one question I've always had is - WHO IS
THIS GUY? One of the reasons this image is so incredible is because this guy is
stood in the front for scale to show how incredibly massive this thing is but who
was he? Was he a scientist? Was he a researcher? Was he an engineer? Was he on
the management team? Was this planned was he just in the right place at the right
time? I have to think about how many people must have seen this photo
worldwide and seen this guy's face and we don't know who he is. So when I came
to CERN a couple of weeks ago I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try and track
this guy down. I don't know if he even still works here but we're gonna try
anyway and try and find him out of the 10,000
people that currently work at CERN. I figured the best place to start would be
the researchers who work on these detectors to see if they have ever come
across him and know who he is. So as somebody who works in CERN, I want
to ask you do you know who this man is? The Atlas for scale guy?
Tara: Yeah I can see
that's the Atlas detector but you know for that's competition for us, another
experiment and you know there's thousands of people in ATLAS
Becky: This going to be so hard to find him isn't it?
Tara: Yeah good luck with that
Sam: no ...no ...no Becky: *laughter*
Becky: Who was he was he? Was he just there by chance? Like just at the
right place at the right time or did he do something like super important? Or...?
Sam: I have no idea who he is!
Clara: I have never met this man and I don't know who he is sorry...
I've been here for 10 years and I've never got to meet him.
Aaron: *laughing*
Becky: Who is this guy? Aaron: I don't know
Aaron: I really don't know Becky: He's the for scale guy right?
Aaron: Yeah he's the for scale guy
Yeah that photo is so famous, and I don't know if anyone knows who he is...
Becky: Well I'm hoping someone will!
Aaron: Unless he's just some sort of apparition - the spirit of ATLAS yeah?
Becky: *laughter* Spirit of ATLAS - love it!
Alright so asking researchers was a bit of a bust, it sounds like they know of him but don't know who he is..
Oo look there he is now! He's on a postcard in the CERN shop
Maybe the CERN shop knows who he is?Or maybe it says on the back
No it just says the Atlas experiment
Doesn't tell you who the dude is.
Plan B: cafeteria
So Plan B is off to the canteen
to basically walk up to random people and ask if they know who he is
Because I figured the canteen will be full of engineers, and management
and HR maybe even as well!
And we'll bump into someone that must know something
Hi - could I ask you guys a quick question? Clauda: Yes
We're doing a film about this picture
And I wanna know do you know who this man is?
Claudia: Yeah. Becky: You know?! You know who he is?
How do you know who he is? I've been asking everyone... Claudia: Because I was there...
Becky: You were there? Did you take the picture?
Becky: OK but we can find out his name if he still works here...
OK so maybe a sensible place to start would have been the CERN Media Lab to
see if we can see any clues from that day
Claudia mentioned Max then - Max is the guy who took the original photo so I'm
gonna see if we can track him down
Apparently, he's in the photography studio with all the kit..
Hi I'm Becky
Max: I'm Max Becky: Nice to meet you Max!
Becky: So apparently you took the famous ATLAS photo...
Max: Yes
Becky: Back in like 2005 or something?
Becky: And do you know Roger? Do you know his full name? Does he still work here?
Becky: Really?! So he's still around
Becky: Do you know his full name?
Max: No....
Becky: OK- we can look up we can look it up go find him
sure that's amazing I'm so excited we're gonna find him he still works at CERN! EEP!
OK so his name is Roger and he works on the CLIC experiment
might not sound like it narrows it down but out of the 10,000 people that
work here at CERN it really really does - we pulled some strings with some of
the admin teams here at CERN and they tracked him down for me! So get ready for
so what can only be described as some serious fangirling when I finally met Roger
Roger: So I'm Roger Ruber I'm the person you were looking for in the ATLAS photo
Becky: I am so glad to have found you first of all - I actually walk past that photo of you
every day on my way into the office so I see you every day and now I'm actually
talking to you and I can't quite believe that I'm here so
First of all tell me me how did you end up in the photo? Was it planned?
Were you just in the right place at the right time?
Roger: Yes right person at the right time
completely coincidence essentially if you look in the photo you see that the
toroid magnet is completely constructed and then from the back they're bringing
in a huge central cryostat with a solenoid magnet in there and I was
responsible for the magnet so with a colleague we were visiting the LHC
tunnel to look at the magnets there where my colleague was working on then
the photographer he was at the exit of the tunnel looking into the huge ATLAS
hole and trying to make this photo and he wanted to have somebody standing
there and if you see there was a lot of people working there but none of them
wanted to come in front to stand in the photo and I knew the photographer
quite well so he asked me well can you go there yes I can do that and then so I
went there but that took me a good half hour from the point where the
photographer was standing with me says to go there so I said took half an hour up
and down stairs to get to that point - so he was waiting there for me
to take the photo took like what two minutes?
Becky: so you were
responsible for this magnet you said that was coming in yeah so is that what
your role was in terms of building ATLAS?
Roger: Yeah my main role in building
ATLAS was to the central solenoid to take care of that
Becky: and what does the
central solenoid do in ATLAS? What does it control?
Roger: so there when you have two
proton beams colliding in the center of our class or CMS or one of the other
detectors they have to fill the proton beams collided which gives new particles
then there's different types of particles and then some of them are
electrons and they are in a central part of the
detector (ATLAS/CMS) you want to look of them and to measure their energy
momentum and the charge we want to see is an electron and positron that you
need a magnetic field - with magnetic fields you can distinguish negative or positive
particles because they go left or right and as you measure the track you can get the
momentum of the particle so that's why essentially this is the central magnet
the solenoid in this case that creates field to do that and the main problem
with those magnets is essentially that for the physics you want to have the
magnetic field but not a magnet- so you need to make a very special magnet
ferritin that doesn't disturb your experimental design so that's why I
worked on for for many years
Becky: and so were you then there to see the ATLAS
detector get switched on and were you around to see that happen?
Roger: I was around I
wasn't in the control room or not at the experiment anymore because you know in
physics to be part of the experiment you have to pay to be part of an experiment
and they didn't have research money to pay so I wasn't part of the experiment
at that time but I was around and I saw all the starting there yes
Becky: is that quite a nerve-wracking experience knowing that something that
you've spent years designing and building is is then getting switched on
and has to work cohesively with everything else?
Roger: no - that was okay
because you know we had been during years we have been working towards and we
make sure that every step every step you take you test it to make sure that
everything is okay that it works until you go to the next step so by the time
essentially as you say it was "switched on" the detector had been working already
for a long time there was no beam no LHC beam that the rest of the
detector had all been working I mean the magnet was switched on in 2006
Becky: And it's been working presumably ever since ever since...
Roger: so my main worry is it should not fail
that is my main worry still not everyday but regularly when I think
about it I think we shouldn't fail
Becky: have you been back obviously down to ATLAS
the photo was taken?
Roger: I go from time to time down to have a look and see that
everything is okay okay
Becky: I guess the main thing about this picture is the number
of people that have seen it - that will have seen that at some point in their
lives - the impact that it that it's probably had and inspired so many people
to get into physics as well - seeing this guy - I remember seeing it at school and
thinking how incredible how that it's that big you know to have someone stood
in the front to show for scale what the size the sheer size this is that do you
ever sort of stop to think and reflect on how many people must have
seen your face wearing the yellow hardhat over the years?
Roger: no that not but I when it happened I mean after this in 2008 came out in all
the newspapers everywhere - of course you know it was very exciting that everywhere all
the family everybody friends they see all this in the newspaper them was very exciting
Becky: did you get recognized?
Roger: some people did - most not because when
the photo is printed it's so tiny - you don't see me
Becky: you get to fly under the
radar of Fame I guess
Roger: The people here at CERN they recognized me from
the helmet which was not the standard CERN helmet - and the clothes
Becky: If it is your helmet do you still have the helmet?
Roger: I still have the helmet
Yes after, now that helmet is now 20 years old so we
shouldn't use it anymore
Becky: that was obviously back then what do you do now?
You're obviously a researcher - would you call yourself a particle physicist then?
Roger: yes and no - so essentially I went from nuclear particle physics I went
more into instrumentation accelerators so when I finished the assignment at
ATLAS my funding was finished and then I got a new funding to work on
development of future accelerators essentially linear accelerators - the LHC
is a circular one so then then since then essentially I've been working on
the development of linear accelerator CLIC and since a couple of years also
work on the development of the European Spallation Source in Lund and then
at university essentially I build up from nothing from scratch essentially a
big lab that does accelerators and instrumentation and that has been
the main exciting thing for the last years
Becky:so what do you with your
development of new accelerators what are you trying to achieve with that is it
just higher energies or is it some new sort of area that you're trying to focus
in on in terms of the detectors?
Roger: it's in general to... - the idea some
physicists have of how to build an accelerator is you have to make the
real stuff like in ATLAS - I mean people have the idea you collide two protons
you measure it but how you have to build a huge experiment and that's the same
you have to build the accelerators for
for particle physics, for nuclear physics, for material science nowadays it's an
accelerator, even for medical purposes and for industry so in the
industrial accelerators I'm not really involved but medical and all the
scientific accelerators I'm invovled and try to make them more
reliable cheaper better so more people can use
Becky: that's fantastic
Roger: yes so every University if they
would want to have I would have the need for the research to build an accelerator
that they can afford it. If it's a hospital if they need it for cancer treatment
that they can afford to have it it's that kind of thing
Becky: that's fantastic yeah
Roger: collaborations of hundreds thousands of people even
ATLAS - I mean you see this photo, this huge thing, one person- when essentially
it was two to five thousand people who constructed it worldwide. The same
all these big scientific infrastructure we build it's thousands of people working
on it make it work and I think maybe I think most of those people are forgotten
because you see the director of the lab proudly showing it off, or the scientist who
gets a Nobel Prize but there are thousands of people behind it essentially
constructing all the equipment - it's a lot of scientists, technicians, engineers all
kinds
Becky: yeah you must be so proud to be involved in that collaboration then
of so many meetings of minds...
Roger: yes it's a very rewarding environment to work in yes - absolutely
it's very inspiring
Becky: oh my god I can't still quite believe we managed to track
him down in CERN where ten thousand people work
like it's such an iconic picture and you think that everybody would know who he
was but I mean he was just the guy that was in the right place at the right time
on that day so you know - he's so humble and lovely, Roger, and it was so
great to hear about his work with ATLAS and developing it and his work now as
well developing new accelerators
I mean what
I mean, what I really would have liked to do was
to recreate the photo with Roger if I could but as he said ATLAS doesn't look
like that anymore you know they've put all the magnets in the detector in
place so you can't get to it like that anymore
which is a real shame but you don't think a little thing like that stopped me - do you?
I love how like it is a fun thing to do to recreate a photo but I'm literally
just putting myself into the most iconic particle physics picture ever because I
just want to hang out with this guy
oh yeah I should totally just put the
picture of me and Roger with the green screen just up somewhere and they could
Photoshop me places like Leonardo DiCaprio like
So doing that