Hi All!
My husband loves physics. I saw Paris hosts the Marie Curie Museum, which we'll both enjoy I'm sure, but it got me thinking, what does Paris offer for a man who can't get enough history/information about Physics?
Love any and all (even obscure) ideas!
Thank you!
Melissa
*In Paris June 28 - July 5th
Husband is 50, in good shape and NOT a professor. ;)
Museum Arts et Metiers for starters. I think the Pantheon had the first Foucault pendulum and there is one there now although the original one broke; the pieces used to be at Arts et Metiers, not sure if they are now.
If you want to make an excursion to Geneva, you can visit CERN and the worlds biggest atom smasher. Just over 3 hours by TGV.
We tried for years to get a reservation for CERN and then when we finally managed one of us was sick and we didn't make that leg of the trip. The next time we were close in Annecy, the deep tour was not available during COVID. So be sure you have CERN nailed down for a real tour before committing to that trip.
Arts et Metiers, absolutely. There is a pendulum there, early machines, and though not a physicist, the early chemist Lavoisier's laboratory is there. It's a treasure house.
My husband has a Ph.D. in nuclear physics and worked in plasma physics (fusion) for over 40 years. He appreciated Foucault's Pendulum (facsimile) at the Panthéon in Paris. We'll be visiting the Curie Museum in May. I've added Musée des Arts et Métiers to our May itinerary. I suppose your husband could admire the function of gravity with certain crooked buildings in Paris (!?)
ITER ( International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is located in Cadarache, France, but it's a distance from Paris--near Aix-en-Provence if you're heading that way. Others have already mentioned the Large Hadron Collider (CERN).
If you live in the US, or visit, you could take tours of Princeton's Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL also offers Science on Saturdays) or some of the other DOE (Dept. of Energy) labs in the US (Lawrence Livermore (California), Oak Ridge (Tennessee), etc. You'd need to check their visitation schedules.
Just a fun fact here. Did you know there is a particle accelerator under the glass pyramid of the Louvre?
See: https://www.iperionhs.eu/provider/51/#:~:text=AGLAE%2C%20the%20Grand%20Louvre%20Accelerator,chemical%20characterisation%20of%20heritage%20materials.
Wow!!! What great responses!! I’m thrilled! Thank you!!
The Marie Currie lab brought me to tears, truly moving. Where else will you be besides Paris?
Hi Mona,
We'll also be in Barcelona/Valencia, then Strasbourg area, Luxembourg and Bruges.
And we'll start in Iceland.
Rather less exalted than these suggestions, the Paris sewer museum is still an interesting exploration of how early engineers delt with an, uh, sticky necessity. And no, it is not smelly. At least not much. You can hum the music of Les Miserables.
This is more about an engineer's obsession, but if you were going up the Eiffel Tower anyway, peer in at Gustav Eiffel's apartment near the top of the tower.
There are a few scientists, including the Curies, interred at the Pantheon.
