Big Science – TC Jacobson & Associates LLC

I have always been enthusiastic about “big science” be it a rocket, telescope, supercomputer, or accelerator, and have had the privilege from an early age of visiting a number of these wonderful cathedrals of modern man, starting with my adventures at Cape Kennedy during Apollo.

When spending time at Stanford, I used to take the interlibrary shuttle up to Berkeley and crawl around the Bevatron accelerator, and hang out in the control room talking to the grad students there, wanting to understand first hand how it was made and worked. I enjoyed reading biographies of famous people who were involved, like Lawrence and Alvarez.

On one of many visits to CERN I got the grand tour of the ALEPH detector (>100m deep) by tagging along with a friend (Dr. Tom Walsh) whose son was a postdoc working there. I remember my ears popped as we descended down the elevator, it was so deep.

Sitting in the cafeteria at CERN, with its row of different coffee (espresso) machines for each nationality, listening to conversations in many languages, watching the English play croquet on the lawn in front, and sleeping in the old wooden Swiss army barracks where Heisenberg and Bohr probably slept, was always something special.

Over the years, many visits to these cathedrals of big science has shown me what man is capable of, and the marvel of creation, what we know and how much is yet to be discovered, …

As a hands-on tool builder, I have enjoyed contributing in a small way, and have always envied the people, much smarter than me, so engaged in these grand challenges…