Back to 80s

This page contains drawings and pictures taken with a film camera in 1980s in Sepänkylä, close to Vaasa in Finland. Left: A meteor in constellation of Cassiopeia 21.8.1982. Meteors are stones which burn in atmosphere  when they hit it with speed of 20-30 kilometers per second. Right: Northern Lights are born when  charged particles from sun hit the Earth's magnetic field, which guides the particles to hit the upper atmosphere molecules in north and south poles of Earth.

Left: 20 minutes exposure around Polaris 10.10.1982. Earth is rotating.  Right: Venus and Jupiter 30th of October 1980.  

Halos around the Sun 16.6.1982. Halos are born when sun light is redirected by small ice particles in atmosphere

Series of drawings of the Sun 16-21.7.1980, during the sunspot maximum.  The activity of sun changes in 11 year periods.In second row is drawings of the Moon and the telescope Carl Zeiss Telementor 63/840. In 1980s it was typical to draw observations on paper. 

I wrote down the astronomical observations to a notebook. On low right is a drawing of Halleys comet 4th of November 1985.

Milky way in constellation of Cygnus and telescope Carl Zeiss Telementor 63/840.  Canon film camera was attached  on top of the  telescope and I tracked the stars manually.

Observations of variable stars, comets and the Sun for Finnish Astronomical association URSA. 

Making software with first PCs, Sharp PC-1500 and Spectravideo. In image below are programs:

Software and computer science became my daytime profession in and after university studies in Helsinki University of Technology.  Astronomy remained as hobby.

Particle physics at CERN 

I was working as a summer student in Geneva CERN year 1989. In the picture below there is Delphi detector of LEP-collider,  100 meters underground. The electrons and positrons (matter and antimatter) were accelerated in 27 kilometers long tunnel close to speed of light. Collisions were done in 4 places, one of them this Delphi detector.  Conditions in the collision are same as in first second after birth of the Universe in Big Bang.  The LEP-collider produced Z and W bosons so that their mass could be determined.  The successor of LEP, the LHC is now working and a particle resembling the Higgs particle was found on July 2012. 

Below is also a printout of the first Z-boson decay, observed by Delphi detector. The Z-boson decay produces a bunch of particles which are curved in strong magnetic field of Delphi detector. To this printout the physics Nobelist Carlo Rubbia, leader of CERN at that time, on my request has signed his congratulations. Discovery was done by finnish physicist Paula Eerola.  The Finnish science group was led by professor Risto  Orava.

There is 4 known basic forces:

Electric force: Charged particle like electrons and protons interact with each other. Interaction is transmitted with Photons( Light)

Gravity: Objects with mass pull each other. Higgs boson is assumed to give mass to particles. 

Strong nuclear force: Keeps atomic nucleus stable. Nucleus contains protons and neutrons, which are combinations of 3 Quarks.  Quarks are kept together with color-force, which is transmitted by exchanging Gluons.

Weak nuclear force: Weak force can change a particle to another. Interaction is done by Z and W bosons.

Images below. Walking on LEP tunnel, where strong magnets guide the relativistic electrons and positrons. Climbing to Hochenhorn mountain in the Alps. The computer terminals were connected to CERN supercomputer. And Carlo Rubbia at a party at CERN when LEP became operational. 

At end of 1980s I worked for Helsinki University department of high energy physics. In the image below there is software with Fortran language for hadroncalorimeter of CERN Delphi detector. It calculates how elementary particle myon causes electron cascade when hitting atoms of hadroncalorimeter.

Another task was to design with Apple Macintosh Hypercard software  a presentation ”Did you know this about physics?” to opening presentation of Finnish Science center Heureka 1989.

Slides of the Heureka physics presentation.  Still valid information after 33 years.