• Question: what has been the most dangerous experiment you've ever done?

    Asked by anon-187219 to Stewart, Miriam, Marton, Laura, Kathryn, David on 12 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: David Ho

      David Ho answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      I mainly do theoretical work, so I’m normally quite far from any experiments, but I am connected to an experiment at the LHC where they collide particles together at fantastically high speeds. They totally block off access to the particle beams when they’re running to avoid anybody getting inside.

      It turns out though, that a man called Anatoli Bugorski once stuck his head into a beam of particles travelling at almost the speed of light, and he survived! I still wouldn’t recommend it, but you can read about it here:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski

    • Photo: Stewart Martin-Haugh

      Stewart Martin-Haugh answered on 13 Nov 2018:

      The experiments I work on are dangerous if you get close to them, because they have lots of X-rays and other radiation. But the experiments are kept behind lots of concrete and people aren’t allowed to go near them when they’re switched on.

      This is a picture of an experiment in my lab in the UK (not one I work on) but you can see that there’s lots of concrete protecting everything.

      When people work on these experiments, they wear radiation detectors to check they’re not exposed to too much radiation. This might sound worrying, but it’s just taking extra precautions: more radiation hits you if you take a long flight, and it’s still not enough to do any harm. Radiation is always hitting us from space, and you get more of it the higher up in the atmosphere you are.

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