The Large Hadron Collider

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

1- 8 1st couple cross right hand, dance half way around the outside of the set, cross left hand below 3rd couple and continue dancing around the outside of the set back to place.
9-12 All dance the first three bars of half an interlocking reel of four giving right shoulder to partners. On bar 12, instead of turning back, quickly half turn the next dancer by the left hand to put the men in the centre: 1st man half turns 2nd woman at the corner between 3rd and 4th places etc so that all are now on the diagonals.
13-16 The women chase round anticlockwise just under half way back to their original places while the men dance a complete right hands across ending by dropping hands and dancing out of the corners, passing left shoulder (not giving hands) with the opposite woman: 1st man passes 3rd woman left shoulder etc.
17-20 The women dance a complete left hands across as the men chase round clockwise just under half way back to their original places ending with a quick quarter right hand turn with partner to leave the men facing in and the women facing out.
21-32 All dance ¾ of a full Schiehallion reel ending in the order 4123.

(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA May 2013)

Dance Notes

Variation:
For those capable of dancing at nearly the speed light a more challenging version of bars 1-8 could be:

1- 8 1st couple cross right hand, cast around the corners, dance in between the side couples and out between the next corners, cross left hand below 3rd couple, dance in between the next corners, out between the side couples and back to place.

(Dance notes by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA May 2013)

Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams

The Large Hadron Collider - Full Size And Key To Symbols

Dance Instruction Videos

Dance Information

The four couples can be taken to represent the four experiments round the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) ring.

The figures (very) vaguely reflect the operation of the LHC starting with injection of "probe" beams (1st couple solo), full circulating "physics" beams round the two rings (interlocking reels), acceleration (right or left hands across and chase) and stable collisions (Schiehallion reel) - though of course the dancers should not actually collide!

The quick turns at the end of bars 12 and 20 are quite contrary to the way the proton beams behave but allow the dancers to change direction from time to time. The Schiehallion reel is only ¾ to suggest that quite often the LHC fills are interrupted earlier than expected due to overenthusiastic safety systems cutting in.

Recommended music: Suggested tune Haulin' The Ropes by John Renton; suitable recording Perth Meets Perth (Marian Anderson: The Other Kangaroo Paw).

(Dance information by the deviser, Murrough Landon, CC BY-SA May 2013)

Lying in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference, as much as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland, it is expected to address some of the most fundamental questions of physics, advancing the understanding of the deepest laws of nature.

Compact Muon Solenoid Detector For Large Hadron Collider

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