Friday Flyer - January 19, 2018

Spotlight on Johns Hopkins University QuarkNet Center

Led by mentor Morris Swartz and lead teachers Kevin Martz and Jeremy Smith, the JHU center just completed its 16th year in 2017. In late February, the JHU center hosted a WZH path CMS masterclass involving students from five local high schools. The 2017 summer schedule included both student research and a five-day teacher workshop. Eight high school students were involved in the summer research program, focusing on topics ranging from particle physics to astrophysics. Students were also able to set up cosmic ray detectors in order to conduct several experiments, including a time-of-flight experiment. The teacher workshop was held in July, involved 20 teachers, and included both talks from JHU scientists and time for teachers to try out activities, including some from QuarkNet's Data Portfolio. 

News from QuarkNet Central

International Masterclasses and orientations are nearly upon us. If your group is not yet signed up, please contact Ken soon. Here is the latest International Masterclasses circular. 

Applications for U.S. participants in the 2018 CERN High School Teachers program are still open for a few more days! Applications and recommendations are due this coming Sunday (January 21, 2018). You may read more about the HST program here, but note that U.S. teachers are not to use the CERN application.  

Physics Experiment Roundup

Though the LHC is currently "sleeping," it still is a busy time at CERN as hundreds of workers repair, upgrade, and maintain the huge accelerator during the annual year-end technical stop. Also from the LHC . . . the CMS experiment searches for long-lived particles that could get trapped in its layers. Check out these prototypes (ProtoDUNE) for the planned Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE); even though they're quite large themselves, each measures at only about one percent the size of the final detector. Like many particle physics experiments, DUNE is an international collaboration, as demonstrated by the UK's contribution featured in this article. 

Resources

Symmetry explores the possibility of "dark sectors" in this recent article. A mathematical discrepancy in the expansion rate of the universe potentially hints at new physics, according to this article from the BBC.  

Just for Fun

Xkcd's take on the end of the rainbow. And . . . Have you seen the new app that will match your face to a face on a famous painting?

QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Deborah Roudebush: droudebush@cox.net
Jeremy Smith: jsmith10@bcps.org
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu