Friday Flyer on Monday - April 23, 2018

Spotlight on the International Particle Physics Outreach Group

QuarkNet and Fermilab have been well represented in the International Particle Physics Outreach Group (IPPOG). Our own Marge Bardeen was a co-chair for four years and has just retired from representing the United States in the group while Ken Cecire has a long-standing role due to his work with International Masterclasses (IMC). In the meeting that concluded this past Saturday, Global Cosmics (Mark Adams represented QuarkNet.)  came to the fore along with IMC as key IPPOG activities; there was also much discussion and activity around new masterclasses from Belle II at KEK and the LIGO-Virgo collaboration. The participants met at VIRGO, the European companion of LIGO, on Friday and went on a tour. Spencer Pasero, Fermilab and a strong LIGO delegation were there too. New ideas kept popping and the discussions were intense.

Part of one of the interferometer arms at the Virgo gravitational wave detector.

 

 

News from QuarkNet Central

Are we there yet? Well, International Masterclasses are mostly over for 2018, but we just had a Fermilab videoconference for the University of Tennessee, the University at Buffalo, and Universidad de Colima this past Saturday, with two more in the next few weeks in Spanish for some of our collaborators in Latin America.

Our QuarkNet mentors have done a great job of informing us of their summer plans (thanks!), and we should be able to send funding letters soon. There are still details to fill in, especially since not every center has nailed down its summer dates. Please send those details to Shane or Ken when they become available.

 

 

Physics Experiment Roundup

Last week was CMS Week at CERN, and that is our main focus this week. The LHC is up and running and doing great, as detailed in CERN Bulletin. CMS is doing its part: Fermilab reports that CMS has seen its first 2018 colllisions and that it has important new Fermilab-supplied upgrades. While talking about Fermilab, let's include this article on g-2 from Argonne National Lab.

 

 

Resources

Symmetry brings us a super-astro movie and IMC moderator Mike Albrow gives us his own order-of-magnitude insights in Fermilab News at Work. We asked Spencer Pasero what PechaKucha is and here is sort of a video answer, Fermilab-style.

 

 

 

Just for Fun

Yes, one can geek out on the physics of just one scene of the Last Jedi. And xkcd. And xkcd.

 

 

 

 

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