Time-travellers and the Big Bang

A time-traveller arrived at an experiment dedicated to studying the Big Bang and the mysteries of the Universe recently and a log of his travel is now available.

John Barrowman, aka time-traveller Captain Jack from BBC television series Doctor Who and Torchwood visited CERN – the world's largest physics experiment. At CERN, scientists are preparing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), an experiment that will recreate conditions last seen fractions of a second after the Big Bang in order to understand how the Universe came to be as it is today.

Barrowman was given a behind-the-scenes tour of this unique facility and gave his impressions in the first of a series of podcasts from CERN that will chart the path to finishing the LHC and share the results that will give us a new understanding of the Universe.

Barrowman said "It's nice to be able to see where all these questions that we have hopefully one day will be answered"

"And its nice to know that the scientists, the guys and girls who work here, still have questions too. No one knows the answer, that's the good thing… except Captain Jack!"

Barrowman's visit was filmed and can be seen online on YouTube (link opens in a new window)| or on the STFC website - see below for details.

The podcast, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council which also funds the UK subscription to CERN, is the brain-child of Dr Brian Cox, from the University of Manchester. Brian is a physicist with a passion for sharing his work, appearing on This Morning and acting as scientific consultant on the blockbuster movie Sunshine.

Brian said "I passionately believe that everyone is interested in the answers to the fundamental questions explored by the LHC - questions about the origins and fundamental building blocks of our world. The challenge for a podcast is to convey this excitement to as wide an audience as possible. We aim to do this by inviting guests to CERN who are able to communicate their sense of wonder at the immensity of the endeavour to a wide range of people. Who better to begin the series with than John Barrowman? His appeal, particularly amongst fans of Dr Who and Torchwood, will open up our work at CERN to a new young audience."

Notes for Editors

Images

Credit CERN/Barrowman

Webcast

A four minute video of 'Captain Jack's visit can be viewed on YouTube (link opens in a new window).

Podcast – the LHC Podcast can be downloaded free from iTunes (sign up to automatically get future LHC Podcasts) and from CERN Podcast (link opens in a new window)|.

Other links

• For more on the LHC (link opens in a new window)
• John Barrowman's (link opens in a new window) official website

Contacts

Julia Maddock |
Science and Technology Facilities Council Press Office
Tel: 01793 442094

Dr Brian Cox
| |University of Manchester
Tel (via Sue Rider Management): 0208 544 1020

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