Fermilab tunnels make hit History Channel show

"Cities of the Underworld" show host Don Wildman (center) interviews NuMI safety coordinator Mike Andrews.

The group had braved days in Parisian catacombs, underground dungeons and shipwrecks. Yet as the elevator dropped 360 feet into the MINOS near detector hall at Fermilab, flickers of uncertainty crossed the faces of the globe-trotting television crew.

In late September 2007, "Cities of the Underground" host Don Wildman and a crew from Authentic Entertainment came to Fermilab with intentions of peeling the laboratory's layers like an onion. Beginning hundreds of feet deep in Fermilab's tunnels and working their way to the top of Wilson Hall, the group documented explanations of the science at Fermilab and the formation of the laboratory itself for the hit History Channel series "Cities of the Underworld."

Although Fermilab only appears in a brief segment of the Chicago episode, which airs at 8 p.m. tonight, Authentic Entertainment producer Chris Bray said that the Fermilab tour and the science of neutrinos really steals the show.

"It turned out great," Bray said. "We were worried about the explanation of such abstract and complicated science, but when we showed people an early version, we found that they loved neutrinos. This really is the star of the Chicago show."

Each show in "Cities of the Underground" focuses on the tunnels, tombs and subterranean hideouts that make up the foundations of today's cities. Former sites include dungeons of Scottish castles, the underground infrastructure of Rome and the caves beneath Budapest.

While most of the program's visits give viewers a glimpse of past achievements, Fermilab's NuMI tunnel offers a look at current science working to shape the future.

"It appeals to a wide audience - people are fascinated by looking at all different aspects of what goes on in the world," said NuMI safety coordinator Mike Andrews. "It definitely gives exposure to the neutrino program and the laboratory as a whole."

--Rhianna Wisniewski

Full steam ahead

From Physics World, Feb. 29, 2008

When he takes charge of the world's largest physics laboratory next January, Rolf-Dieter Heuer will begin work just as the long-awaited Large Hadron Collider reaches full throttle. Matthew Chalmers finds out what CERN's next director-general plans to make of his rather fortunately timed five-year term.

When the Economist recently reported the news of Rolf-Dieter Heuer's appointment as the next director-general of CERN, it depicted him sitting cross-legged in the middle of a circular track steering a model train around him - smiling. It was an apt cartoon for someone who is about to take charge of the world's most powerful particle accelerator: the 27 km-circumference Large Hadron Collider, which is nearing completion at the European laboratory just outside Geneva. What the cartoonist did not known is that model railways are one of Heuer's passions.

"I don't 'play' with the trains," the 59-year-old German particle physicist is quick to point out over the phone from his office at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, where he is currently director of high-energy and astroparticle physics. "I like to build complex track arrangements - and not just circles!"

From January 2009 Heuer will have a somewhat more complicated toy at his disposal. The LHC, which is due to start tentatively smashing protons into one another beneath the Franco-Swiss border this summer after 23 years of planning and construction, is the largest scientific instrument ever built. When it reaches full throttle next year, the multibillion Swiss Franc accelerator will pack an energy of a few TeV (10¹² eV) into a volume of about 10^-45 m3. Such conditions have not existed since the first trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, which means that the LHC could open the door to particles and forces that have never been seen before. The timing of Heuer's five-year directorship could hardly be better.

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