Friday Flyer/News
Submitted by kcecire
on Wednesday, September 13, 2017 - 12:53
Friday Flyer - November 4, 2016
Spotlight on the Boston Area QuarkNet Center: The "Boston Group" is one of the oldest QuarkNet centers, being in the "inaugural class" of 1999. They have three QuarkNet fellows in the center and are active in International Masterclasses, the Cosmic Ray Studies program, and in QuarkNet opportunities like Data Camp and CERN HST. (Two teachers went to Data Camp last summer.) They meet once per month and for a workshop in the summer. This past summer, lead teacher (since 1999!) Rick Dower took the group on a tour of the history of particle physics. Rick also built a laser interferometer for use in LIGO e-Lab workshops, and Mike Wadness reported in the QuarkNet site on the results he and his students got from a muon time-of-flight experiment.
News from QuarkNet Central: Registration for Masterclasses 2017 is going strong. The Fermilab registration has 17 masterclass institutes registered so far; leaders should sign up soon to get their slots. And we've opened more slots: March 11, 30, and 31 and April 1 (what could go wrong?). A few dates were added for CERN masterclasses as well. To learn how to access the new dates and get the latest news, go to the IMC circular for this week.
Beamline for Schools, the competition in which student teams propose experiments at CERN—and get to do their experiment there if they win—is now open. To learn more, go to the website.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Know your particle detector! Put it to the test (beam)! Read more from Fermilab News at Work. But what can you do with all this particle stuff? Well, neutron holography. In the department of the slightly more esoteric, we have computing dark matter as axions. Last experiment: What was the mass of that antiproton, anyway? The ASACUSA experiment at CERN uses hybrid matter-antimatter atoms to find out. Really.
Using the QuarkNet Website: Don't browse all those menus if you don't have to! Look up! In the black header on every page is a search box. Read up on how to search.
Resources: Will we ever see Spock sporting a goatee? Perhaps this symmetry video, In search of a parallel universe, can help answer; symmetry also asks us to consider chameleon dark matter particles.
Just for Fun: Alright, here is Spock with a goatee. Seen that interesting twisty sculpture at Fermilab, the Tractricious? Read its story. In Germany, there is Physics in Advent. (It must be getting late in the year.) And . . . a little XKCD.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - October 28, 2016
Spotlight on the University of Minnesota QuarkNet Center: During Summer 2016, the annual workshop was divided into two parts: a three-day cosmic ray studies workshop in June and two days in August studying neutrinos and the NOvA experiment. Martin Shaffer led the group through the cosmic workshop where participants assembled a detector, became more familiar with EQUIP, and performed several cosmic ray studies, including one on time of flight. Minnesota physicist Ken Heller led most of the activity during the two-day NOvA workshop in August. Ken gave a talk on the NOvA experiment, prepared teachers for a tour of the far detector, and spoke on problem solving in physics; a topic on which Ken's Physics Education Research Group has focused for several years. The teachers drove the nearly four hours up to a small resort near Ash River, Minnesota (near the NOvA far detector) to stay overnight in order to tour the NOvA far detector on day two. There's nothing quite like a road trip with a bunch of physics teachers!
News from QuarkNet Central: A reminder that International Cosmic Day is next Wednesday, November 2. Registration for Masterclasses 2017 opened last week; get more information from this registration notice.
Physics Experiment Roundup: See how CERN's CLOUD experiment relates to climate research. Learn more about "taming the firehose" of CMS's data stream as a recent paper highlights the detector's triggering system.
Using the QuarkNet website: New feature! Do you wonder how to find a center group in the QuarkNet site? Here's how.
Resources: Learn more about gravitational-wave detectors in this primer from symmetry.
Just for Fun: Break out the big box of crayons 'cause it's time to get coloring; check out the ATLAS coloring book recently released by the experiment. Have any taffy in that collection of Halloween candy? Learn about some of the math involved in building the ultimate taffy machine.
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - October 21, 2016
Spotlight on the University of Notre Dame: Notre Dame is not only a very active QuarkNet center but also an administrative hub for the whole QuarkNet program. With support from the university, the Notre Dame center has extensive summer research, runs 2-4 international masterclasses each year, has teachers doing outreach in local science exhibitions, and has brought QuarkNet activities to South America in partnership with particle physicists and the physics teacher group at Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile. The Notre Dame iSPI program for international students is an outgrowth of QuarkNet.
Two of the principal investigators, a staff member, an IT specialist, and an administrator for the QuarkNet national program are all at Notre Dame and QuarkNet has its own office-and-lab facility south of campus. (Contact Ken about coming to visit!) The PI's and others in the program are active in CMS research.
News from QuarkNet Central: Registration for International Masterclasses 2017 begins today! Masterclass leaders can register their groups on this Google form for Fermilab or the Doodle polls for CERN. Get all the information from the registration notice. Online registrations close on November 18. Grab your spot early!
Physics Experiment Roundup: We love our cosmic ray detectors . . . they do at Mu2e as well, but for a different reason. We also love accelerators. To learn more about them, chat with Mattia. On the astro front, symmetry reports on how a side project led to a big new discovery.
Resources: Like music? Like physics? And differential equations? Well, A Capella Science has a rap for that. And Physics Girl has come up with some nice resources for masterclasses and more with her videos What are Quarks? Sugar Edition! and Seeing the Smallest Thing in the Universe.
Just for Fun: As Halloween is near, we have a special—and by special we mean fictional—guest writer of Just for Fun this week:
It is I, the Physics Count, ah ha ha, 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, ah ha ha*...have you seen my favorite scary movie posters? Well, look at them in symmetry, ah ha ha!
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
*If you've raised children in the U.S. and are a geek, you will get this. (If you're unfamiliar, this may help.)
Friday Flyer - October 14, 2016
Spotlight on the Oklahoma State University QuarkNet Center: Nearly 20 teachers from across the state of Oklahoma met on the campus of OSU for a week in June 2016 to learn about cutting-edge research and gain hands-on experience making cloud chambers that teachers were able to bring back to their schools. Mentors Flera Rizatdinova, Joseph Haley and Alexander Khanov organized the weeklong event that included talks on detection of particles at the LHC and experience taking measurements with Geiger counters. Since Oklahoma State and University of Oklahoma (OU) take turns hosting a QuarkNet workshop each year, Michael Strauss (mentor from OU) was also present to help out. QuarkNet fellow Rick Dower led a two-day LIGO e-Lab workshop during the week as well, in which teachers learned about gravitational waves, the LIGO detectors, and analyzed seismic data from the LIGO experiment. Teachers also discussed implementation strategies, teaching methods, and some of the current realities of education in Oklahoma. A busy week, indeed!
News from QuarkNet Central: Watch for International Masterclasses 2017 registration beginning late next week! Dates were recently announced for IMC 2017; Fermilab videoconferences will take place from March 13 to April 8. CERN dates are also available; learn more by reading the first IMC circular of this academic year. A reminder of opportunities coming soon: International Cosmic Day and Beamline for Schools.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Check out these new techniques in the search for dark matter and the new planetarium show designed to immerse audiences in the search for this "phantom" matter. Physicists and geologists partner to study geoneutrinos.
Resources: Wondering if you should build a particle accelerator that collides protons or electrons? Fermilab's Don Lincoln explains the pros and cons of colliding protons versus colliding electrons. Join the search for gravitational waves using Gravity Spy; read more about this "citizen science" project in this symmetry article.
Just for Fun: Ever been to Fermilab's Wilson Hall atrium and wondered if the plants are real? Find out here!
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - October 7, 2016
Spotlight on the Virtual QuarkNet Center: The Virtual QuarkNet Center is a unique center that has no geographic bounds, with teachers from Albany to Shanghai. They meet monthly online and get together once per year. This summer they were in Chicago, where lead teacher and LHC fellow Mike Wadenss facilitated their work in a LIGO e-Lab workshop. That's not all they did; because they are so geographically separated and so motivated, the teachers in this one center were responsible for five separate International Masterclasses in 2016 and maintain a very strong presence in the cosmic ray program. The team is ably mentored by Danielle McDermott of Wabash College, Dan Karmgard and Antonio Delgado, of Notre Dame.
News from QuarkNet Central: We've chosen dates! International Masterclasses 2017 will have Fermilab videoconferences from March 13 to April 8. CERN dates are also available; learn more by reading the first IMC circular of this academic year.
Do not forget other opportunities heading your way soon: International Cosmic Day and Beamline for Schools.
Physics Experiment Roundup: New results reveal the asymmetrical charm of LHCb and give insight into the early universe.
Resources: Maxwell's equations almost cry out for a single magnetic charge, but none has been discovered. Learn how physicists at CERN are hard at work seeking magnetic monopoles. In astrophysics, symmetry reports on creating the universe in a computer. And how about that Nobel Prize in Physics 2016?
Just for Fun: A word about words in particle physics, from symmetry.
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - September 30, 2016
Spotlight on the University of Kansas QuarkNet Center: Located in Lawrence, the center hosted both a research program for high school students and a teacher workshop this summer. Eight teachers participated a LIGO e-Lab workshop held on campus on June 6-7. During the workshop, teachers heard a talk from Hume Feldman on gravitational waves and LIGO, assembled table-top interferometers, took a virtual tour of the LIGO facility in Hanford, Washington, explored the LIGO e-Lab and discussed classroom implementation. Thirteen high school students participated in summer research, focusing on a variety of topics: CMS data simulations, radio detection of lightning, cosmic ray detectors, and development of a game, "Quarked!" (www.quarked.org). The student experience included a field trip to Chicago, where students toured Fermilab and other sites around the city. Phil Baringer and Dave Besson are both mentors at KU, with Jim Deane as the research teacher.
News from QuarkNet Central: International Cosmic Day will be here before you know it. Be sure to get those cosmic ray detectors up and running and register here. We also provide a poster to help you announce this opportunity to your students. There will be some improvements made on the e-Labs site (http://www.i2u2.org/) over the weekend; expect the site to be offline 12 AM - 1 AM EDT on Saturday, October 1 (that's overnight Friday).
Physics Experiment Roundup: Construction of the LZ (LUX-ZEPLIN) dark matter detector moves forward. This next-generation detector will be at least 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor and is scheduled to become operational in 2020.
Resources: Check out this short video by Nobel Laureate Art McDonald as he describes neutrino oscillation and detection. If you received the October 2016 edition of The Physics Teacher, you may have noticed "Ripples in Reality," an article by Fermilab's Don Lincoln and LIGO's Amber Stuver on gravitational waves, LIGO, and the "chirps" that announced the first measurements of gravitational waves. The Perimeter Institute will host a lecture, "As We Enter the Quantum Era" by Michele Mosca, on the evening of Wednesday, October 5. Sign up for the live webcast of this lecture, and watch without having to travel to Waterloo!
Just for Fun: Injection: A method of delivering a vaccine, or the transfer of particles from one accelerator to another? This symmetry article gives several examples of "physics slang," or words that have a specific meaning in the context of physics that may be different than in everyday life. With the arrival of autumn, leaves will soon be changing colors across much of the country. Impress your friends with your knowledge of leaf color chemistry with the help of this guide thanks to compoundchem.com!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - September 23, 2016
Spotlight on the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez QuarkNet Center: Persistence pays off. A few years ago, the QuarkNet center at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPRM) had two detectors that were not working very well. Hector Mendez reassessed the situation and worked with the teachers to put the detectors where they would be best used while he got help from QuarkNet to renew the equipment. He also enlisted the help of a UPRM student to work with detectors. The center had a workshop in October last year to get reacquainted with using detectors in the classroom. They are having another this weekend with Mark Adams, who leads the cosmic ray studies program, to sharpen skills with detectors, EQUIP, and the Cosmic Ray e-Lab. In the end, they will have four working and well-used detectors in Puerto Rico.
News from QuarkNet Central: Signed up for International Cosmic Day yet? If not, learn more and then register. Deliverables done yet? They are overdue and we still need them. Contact Ken or Shane.
Watch this space! (Are you watching?) We will soon announce the dates for International Masterclasses!
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC usually runs with tight beams to maximize head-on collisions, but not right now; read why the beams are wider for TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA. At another end of the universe, astronomers seem to have found a dark matter galaxy, short on stars and long on what we cannot see.
Resources: Speaking of the elusive 27%, this article takes on the matter with dark matter while another addresses those not-so-elusive, long-lived particles. Two eye-openers for students: this day in the life video from Fermilab and an article by CERN Director General Fabiola Giannotti taking on the fallacy of "useless knowledge."
Just for Fun: If you've been to the second floor of Wilson Hall at Fermilab, you've seen exhibits of the art of physics . . . or is it the physics of art? On more of J-pop-art note, consider ILC, kawaii, symmetry ni. And a hat tip to teaching and learniing leader Jeremy Smith for this tour of how Americans talk: small words, big data.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - September 16, 2016
Spotlight on the Colorado State University QuarkNet Center: This QuarkNet center located in Fort Collins is now in its fifth year. Lead teachers Cherie Bornhorst and Adam Pearlstein along with mentor Bob Wilson organized the 2016 teacher workshop that was held on June 13-17. That week coincided with the U.S. Particle Accelerator Summer School (held at CSU this year), so teachers were able to participate by attending some of the morning lectures associated with the USPAS. Teachers also spent time working through resources in the Data Portfolio (including TOTEM Data Express), running lifetime and time-of-flight studies using cosmic ray detectors, and sharing teaching resources in a teacher share-a-thon. One highlight of this share-a-thon was a lab setup for the Milliken experiment; something the group hopes to work more on next year.
News from QuarkNet Central: A couple of reminders:
(1) All teachers and mentors, please be sure you have recently updated your profile on the QuarkNet website, including your school and contact information along with a record of your CRMD DAQ number (if you have a cosmic ray muon detector). If you're not sure how to do this, refer to this "how to" page on updating your profile. Please be sure to scroll to the bottom of the "edit your profile" page in order to enter the DAQ number from your cosmic ray detector. If you have any questions regarding this process, feel free to contact Ken or Shane. And don't forget to 'save.'
(2) Mentors and other center leaders, QuarkNet deliverables were due yesterday (Thursday, September 15). If you have not done so, please submit these ASAP. Here is a helpful guide and here is a document on submitting abstracts and annual reports.
Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC MoEDAL experiment recently published its first paper on the search for magnetic monopoles. Find out more about magnetic monopoles in this symmetry article.
Resources: Which is better? Colliding two beams of particles or sending a single particle beam toward a fixed target? Find out in Don Lincoln's short video, Accelerator Science: Collider vs. Fixed Target. Know a student who might be good at explaining a science or math concept in a short film? If so, check out the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, in which students have the opportunity to win a $250,000 scholarship and a new lab for your school!
Just for Fun: Have an iPad and want to learn more about black holes while having fun? Check out the Nova Black Holes app!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - September 9, 2016
First Friday Flyer of the 2016–2017 Academic Year!
Spotlight on Summer 2016: It has been an exciting summer for QuarkNet! Interest has been, understandably, up on LIGO and gravitational waves, and QuarkNet had LIGO e-Lab workshops at 10 centers. There were also four CMS e-Lab workshops, nine Cosmic e-Lab workshops (plus another coming up in late September), three CMS data workshops and one ATLAS data workshop. These are all in addition to summer research and teacher programs at the centers themselves and a very active presence at the AAPT Summer Meeting.
News from QuarkNet Central: Big news abounds . . .
First, mark the date—November 2, 2016—for International Cosmic Day, organized by our colleagues at DESY in Germany. Start planning now and get that detector fired up! It is not too early to register on Indico (no account needed) or to e-mail for more information.
Next, a note that last month a small group of QuarkNet teachers met at ICHEP in Chicago to learn more about the neutrino programs at Fermilab and try out a measurement of the size of an atomic nucleus using data from the MINERvA neutrino experiment. (Conclusion: We needed to analyze more data!) Look for more neutrino activities and opportunities from QuarkNet in the coming year.
Finally, mentors and other center leaders, QuarkNet deliverables are due Thursday, Septmeber 15, less than a week away. Here is a helpful guide and here is a document on submitting abstracts and annual reports.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Read up on more news this summer than we can fit in the flyer, compiled by Steve Schnetzer, mentor of the Rutgers QuarkNet center.
Resources: Learn more about LIGO and gravitational waves in this symmetry article. And since we are thinking on the scale of general relativity, there is yet another symmetry article, this time on the galactic neighborhood, dark matter, and dark energy.
Just for Fun: Ah, those Fermilab bison!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu
Friday Flyer - Special Summer Monday Edition, August 1, 2016
Special Edition!
Spotlight on Summer 2016: Summer 2016 has been full of QuarkNet events, from the CERN High School Teacher program to Inspiring Science Education in Greece to Data Camp at Fermilab as well as all that is going on at the centers. Read the QuarkNet at ISE Blog to tap into some of the excitement from that program.
News from QuarkNet Central: QN@ICHEP! ICHEP, the International Conference on High Energy Physics, will be held in Chicago this year, and QuarkNet will participate with its own teacher program on Sunday, August 7. We'll have a mini-workshop on Neutrinos in the Classroom, participate in the Tevatron Reunion and go to a Physics Slam. Check out the agenda for the day. If you'll be within driving distance, come and join us! Just fill out the registration form.
Beamline for Schools is coming! Get your group started early! Read how!
Physics Experiment Roundup: The g-2 experiment at Fermilab is set to start up this fall. Read about it in symmetry. In CERN Bulletin, we read that the ICARUS neutrino detector is Fermilab-bound to join the short-baseline neutrino program. And what about that possible 750 GeV diphoton bump? And did we mention ICHEP?
Resources: How about a medley of physicists on Why I Love Neutrinos? Or Don Lincoln talking QCD?
Just for Fun: From the symmetry archive: Kasoku Kids particle physics anime. More: Kakoku Kids ILC Special!
Look for the return of Friday Flyer in September . . . Enjoy the rest of the summer!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu