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Summer quiz: ETH research goes big

ETH researchers can’t always obtain their findings in the comfort of their offices or simply by using a computer. The summer quiz is all about fascinating research facilities, complex experiments and a special infrastructure.

by Peter Rüegg and Michael Keller

Would you have believed it? In the summer quiz series, we take you on a tour of discovery through remarkable, peculiar and fun facts from ETH Zurich’s research and teaching. This edition addresses research facilities.

Summer quiz: Large-scale research at ETH

  1. Question 1 of 8
    Research facility

    1. Which research facility at ETH Zurich is able to turn sunlight and air into carbon-neutral fuel?

    • ✓ Correct In June, ETH researchers set up a mini-refinery on the roof of the machinery laboratory building. The solar reactor uses sunlight to extract CO2 and water directly from the ambient air and produce synthetic liquid fuels. They release only as much CO2 during their combustion as was previously extracted from the air. Further information (Image: Alessandro Della Bella)

    • ✘ False In June, ETH researchers set up a mini-refinery on the roof of the machinery laboratory building. The solar reactor uses sunlight to extract CO2 and water directly from the ambient air and produce synthetic liquid fuels. They release only as much CO2 during their combustion as was previously extracted from the air. Further information (Image: Alessandro Della Bella)

  2. Question 2 of 8
    Research facility

    2. What is the purpose of this facility?

      • ✓ Correct Although reinforced concrete has been used to build bridges for decades, very little is known about the effect that simultaneously acting forces such as shearing, pulling or compression have on it. The Large Universal Shell Element Tester (LUSET) at Hönggerberg conducts stress tests on reinforced concrete elements to better understand their mechanical properties. For further information, see page 10 of this edition of Globe. (Image: Alexander Beck)

      • ✘ False Although reinforced concrete has been used to build bridges for decades, very little is known about the effect that simultaneously acting forces such as shearing, pulling or compression have on it. The Large Universal Shell Element Tester (LUSET) at Hönggerberg conducts stress tests on reinforced concrete elements to better understand their mechanical properties. For further information, see page 10 of this edition of Globe. (Image: Alexander Beck)

    • Question 3 of 8
      Research facility

      3. Why does ETH need this eye in the sky?

        • ✓ Correct In 2016, plant scientists at ETH Zurich launched the world’s first field phenotyping platform in the Swiss town of Lindau-Eschikon. In actual fact, the tool enables researchers to monitor plant growth. Inspired by the cameras suspended above football stadiums, the eye in the sky allows scientists to investigate the differences between individual plant varieties, determine how long they take to flower or study the exact link between their growth and the ambient temperature or soil moisture. The researchers are currently studying hundreds of small plots of different varieties of wheat, soy, maize, buckwheat and forage grasses. Further information (Image: Peter Ruegg / ETH Zurich)

        • ✘ False In 2016, plant scientists at ETH Zurich launched the world’s first field phenotyping platform in the Swiss town of Lindau-Eschikon. In actual fact, the tool enables researchers to monitor plant growth. Inspired by the cameras suspended above football stadiums, the eye in the sky allows scientists to investigate the differences between individual plant varieties, determine how long they take to flower or study the exact link between their growth and the ambient temperature or soil moisture. The researchers are currently studying hundreds of small plots of different varieties of wheat, soy, maize, buckwheat and forage grasses. Further information (Image: Peter Ruegg / ETH Zurich)

      • Question 4 of 8
        Research facility

        4. The Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich is renowned for its scale models of complex hydraulic structures. What does this model represent?

          • ✓ Correct Whenever the River Sihl rises, Zurich’s city centre around the main railway station is in danger of extensive flooding. The planned tunnel to divert the River Sihl near Langnau am Albis into Lake Zurich at Thalwil is one of several protection measures. VAW has built a model of the outlet structure. Further information (Image: Alessandro Della Bella / ETH Zurich)

          • ✘ False Whenever the River Sihl rises, Zurich’s city centre around the main railway station is in danger of extensive flooding. The planned tunnel to divert the River Sihl near Langnau am Albis into Lake Zurich at Thalwil is one of several protection measures. VAW has built a model of the outlet structure. Further information (Image: Alessandro Della Bella / ETH Zurich)

        • Question 5 of 8
          Supercomputer

          5. Nowadays, supercomputers are some of the most important large-scale research facilities. What is Switzerland’s most powerful supercomputer called?

            • ✓ Correct Switzerland’s most powerful supercomputer is Piz Daint at CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre in Lugano. The CSCS is operated by ETH Zurich. It is used to calculate the weather predictions of the MeteoSwiss meteorological survey, as well as for countless simulations requiring enormous computing power, such as reconstructing the history of glaciation in the Alps over the last 120,000 years. Further information (Image: ETH Zurich)

            • ✘ False Switzerland’s most powerful supercomputer is Piz Daint at CSCS, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre in Lugano. The CSCS is operated by ETH Zurich. It is used to calculate the weather predictions of the MeteoSwiss meteorological survey, as well as for countless simulations requiring enormous computing power, such as reconstructing the history of glaciation in the Alps over the last 120,000 years. Further information (Image: ETH Zurich)

          • Question 6 of 8

            6. On a global scale, where does Piz Daint rank in terms of its computing power?

              • ✓ Correct The latest edition of the Top500 list of supercomputers around the world, issued in June 2019, ranks Piz Daint in sixth place. Delivering a maximum of 21,230 teraflops per second, it is powered by 388,000 processor cores. Nonetheless, Piz Daint is still a dwarf by comparison with the world’s most powerful supercomputer: the Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has over 2.4 million cores and delivers an impressive 148,600 teraflops per second. Piz Daint remains top of the league table in Europe; only American and Chinese systems are more powerful. Further information

              • ✘ False The latest edition of the Top500 list of supercomputers around the world, issued in June 2019, ranks Piz Daint in sixth place. Delivering a maximum of 21,230 teraflops per second, it is powered by 388,000 processor cores. Nonetheless, Piz Daint is still a dwarf by comparison with the world’s most powerful supercomputer: the Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has over 2.4 million cores and delivers an impressive 148,600 teraflops per second. Piz Daint remains top of the league table in Europe; only American and Chinese systems are more powerful. Further information

            • Question 7 of 8
              Chloroplast

              7. Which Nobel Prize does this picture have to do with?

                • ✓ Correct The image refers to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017, which was shared by three laureates, one of whom was Jacques Dubochet from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Dubochet developed a radical method of freezing biomolecules in aqueous solution so rapidly that it prevented the formation of ice crystals, which distort electron beams and thus impair the imaging of the molecules. Using this technology, Dubochet and his colleagues succeeded in imaging virus particles in solution for the first time in 1984. Today, cryo-electron microscopy is a vital tool in structural biology research. On the scientific technology platform ScopeM, ETH Zurich boasts a state-of-the-art device. The image shows a cross-section of the chloroplast of an algal cell. Further information (in German only) (Image: iStock)

                • ✘ False The image refers to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017, which was shared by three laureates, one of whom was Jacques Dubochet from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Dubochet developed a radical method of freezing biomolecules in aqueous solution so rapidly that it prevented the formation of ice crystals, which distort electron beams and thus impair the imaging of the molecules. Using this technology, Dubochet and his colleagues succeeded in imaging virus particles in solution for the first time in 1984. Today, cryo-electron microscopy is a vital tool in structural biology research. On the scientific technology platform ScopeM, ETH Zurich boasts a state-of-the-art device. The image shows a cross-section of the chloroplast of an algal cell. Further information (in German only) (Image: iStock)

              • Question 8 of 8
                Research facility

                8. A global leader in using radiocarbon dating to determine the age of organic material, the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics has previously analysed such valuable objects as the Bundesbrief (the founding document of the Swiss Confederation), the Turin Shroud and scraps of clothing worn by Ötzi the Iceman. What apparatus makes these analyses possible?

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