A cura di @Ospizio

In questo articolo del Guardian si parla dell’esperimento Katrin, che tenterà nei prossimi anni di misurare la massa del neutrino (la particella massiva più piccola dell’Universo). Per farlo, l’esperimento si servirà una delle camere a vuoto più grandi del mondo: l’articolo descrive in particolare l’odissea che ha dovuto passare questa camera prima di essere installata a Karlsruhe, in Germania.

The voyage that brought Katrin’s main component – its giant, 23-metre-long, 10-metre-wide vacuum chamber – to Karlsruhe remains one of modern engineering’s strangest odysseys. Built in nearby Deggendorf, 150km north-east of Munich, the 200-tonne, zeppelin-like chamber was too large to be taken on the 400km westward journey directly to Karlsruhe, either by air or road. So engineers were forced to take to the water, which in turn obliged them to head east down the Danube before sailing into the Black Sea and then the Mediterranean, across the Bay of Biscay and the Channel to Rotterdam. Finally, it was taken down the Rhine to bring it close to Karlsruhe. The 8,800-km trip took two months. “It was dubbed Europe’s biggest detour and you can see why,” says Drexlin.

 

Immagine da Wikimedia.