Spotlight on the Syracuse QuarkNet Center: This past summer, Syracuse QuarkNet teachers participated in a four-day workshop organized by Steve Blusk and Mitch Soderberg. The first two days consisted of a CMS data workshop during which teachers did several activities from the data portfolio, analyzed CMS events and discussed classroom implementation. During the final two days of the workshop, teachers explored the use of cosmic ray detectors by performing muon speed, lifetime and shower studies.

News from QuarkNet Central: Registration for International Masterclasses 2016 is now open. Teachers, coordinate with your mentor to determine which dates and times work best for your center. Mentors, register by November 18 via the links Ken e-mailed to you to be included on the preliminary videoconference schedule. After November 18, centers may still sign up but will need to contact Ken or Uta directly. 

And now a message about giving credit where credit is due. Please remember to acknowledge QuarkNet, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy when presenting work relating to QuarkNet; this may be done by simply placing the appropriate logos on your presentation. Thank you!

A reminder that International Cosmic Day (November 5) is quickly approaching; join students, teachers and scientists from around the world to make measurements and learn about cosmic rays!

Physics Experiment Roundup: What happens when you kidnap a muon? Two experiments, AlCap and the upcoming Mu2e, aim to find out what happens when muons are shot at aluminum foil, trapping the muon.

Resources: If the universe is everything, how can there be a multiverse (multiple universes)? Fermilab's Don Lincoln discusses some of the possibilities in this video.

Just for Fun: What if? explores what would happen if the earth were made entirely of protons and the moon entirely of electrons.

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on Fermilab/U Chicago: The QuarkNet center at Fermilab consists of teachers and students from the vicinity of the Lab and those centered at the University of Chicago. It is one of our more "Astro" groups, in that the mentor, Chris Stoughton, is a Fermilab particle physicist (E769) turned astrophysicist. This past summer, they had a CMS data workshop but also a large research program. One of the premier efforts was building their own QuarkNet Radio Telescope. In all, they had two mentor teachers, eight high school students (seven juniors and one sophomore), 12 physics teachers, and one lead scientist this summer working on a wide variety of projects. 

News from QuarkNet Central: The QuarkNet IT staff has been doodling around with maps and detector geometries . . . and, well, not all of our geometries are accurate. Some QuarkNet schools appear to be in oceans or remote parts of the earth. Please look at your last upload to check and, if needed, correct the latitude and longitude of your detector. Look at the altitude as well; we do not want to claim astronaut wings unless we've really been up there.

Physics Experiment Roundup: At SURF in South Dakota and Gran Sasso in Italy, detectors are looking for evidence of a different form of dark matter that Notre Dame physicists think could come in matter-antimatter varieties as well as add mass to cause supernova explosions. Speaking of things we cannot yet detect out there, the hunt for gravitational waves goes on.

Resources: Another new out-of-this-world topic: neutrino astronomy

Just for Fun: Physics Today reviews The Martian. 

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on the Kansas State University QuarkNet Center: In its twelfth year, the KSU center remains strong, serving primarily teachers from small, rural schools throughout Kansas. In March, KSU participated in a particle physics masterclass with 7 teachers and 16 students in attendance, assisted by KSU's HEP and Cosmology graduate students. In the summer, KSU QuarkNet teachers were involved in a wide range of experiences, from local to international. Curt Parry and James Neff participated in the 2015 Data Camp at Fermilab, and Penny Blue went to Inspiring Science Education in Greece. The KSU teachers met during the week of July 6, starting with a workshop on Cosmology, Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics at KSU; then finishing off the week traveling to South Dakota to tour the labs nearly a mile underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF). While traveling, the Kansas teachers were also able to squeeze in visits to some of South Dakota's tourist attractions, including Mount Rushmore and the Badlands!

News from QuarkNet Central: New Center Contacts! At a meeting of QuarkNet staff and leaders at Notre Dame this past weekend, we reviewed center contacts, assigning a staff member or leadership fellow to each center as our main point of contact. Staff and fellows will be in touch with mentors and teacher leaders to renew connections and start planning for future work. List of Assignments

Physics Experiment Roundup: You probably have heard the exciting news this week that the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Takaaki Kajita (from Japan) and Arthur McDonald (from Canada) for their contributions to experiments that demonstrate the oscillation of neutrinos from one type to another. In the U.S., experiments such as MINOS and NOvA continue to study neutrino oscillation; NOvA released its first results earlier this year.

Resources: Thanks to event display guru Tom McCauley, it is now possible to visualize CMS collision events in stereoscopic 3D using a phone and a simple, inexpensive (~$10) Google Cardboard viewer. The content comes from iSpy-webGL, a browser-based event display developed in part by QuarkNet support for CMS. It works on a phone, tablet and desktop via a browser. Once it's loaded on your phone (preferably using Chrome), follow the instructions, and enjoy!

Just for Fun: On the topic of neutrinos again . . . check out Sheldon Cooper's "Gino the Neutrino"!

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on the international Presence of QuarkNet: International Cosmic Day is coming up on November 5! International Masterclasses and International Muon Week are coming up in late winter and early spring. QuarkNet groups are usually strong participants; please join in! Fellows Martin Shaffer and Joel Klammer joined Ken and to offer workshops on ILC, cosmic rays and masterclasses in Japan with our collaborators there. See Martin with Japanese teachers at the University of Tokyo. Meanwhile, Marge is making a difference as co-chair of the International Particle Physics Outreach Group.

News from QuarkNet Central: QuarkNet will hold a staff meeting this weekend in an undisclosed Midwest location, which is not a national lab but does have an iconic college football team. Watch this space in the weeks to come as we explain and implement results from the meeting.

Physics Experiment Roundup: Got a muon, got a magnet, look for new physics; the Fermilab g-2 experiment is cranking up. Read the article in symmetry or the other article in Popular Mechanics, then pop some popcorn and watch the video. Keep it popping for a video about the PXIE RFQ at Fermilab as part of the development of the PIP II accelerator.

Resources: Gotta love that Einstein. Here is a nice article by Brian Greene on GTR at 100* (in our reference frame) and another on how to derive the energy-mass-momentum relation. Particle physicists, please overlook the "relativistic mass" language. Another version of the derivation is in this Comment on the Z mass activity in the QuarkNet Data Portfolio.

Just for Fun: Take a look at the Lego video on the LHC (auf Deutsch!) by a teacher in the German Netzwerk Teilchenwelt program. (Give it a "like" to help it win the "fast forward science" video contest.)

Did you see that lunar eclipse? In case you did not or you just want some good images, take a look at the eclipse as photographed from the Fermilab Village. If you missed the eclipse due, don't be surprised; clouds appear at scheduled astro observations like expats would show up at Rick's.

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

*Or, as the dairy farmer succinctly remarked when Bessie the cow made an odd mooing noise, "Gee, myu, new." From then on, things around the pasture got tensor.

Spotlight on the Boston Area QuarkNet Center: The Boston center is one of the QuarkNet originals, dating back to 1999. They meet for a few days each summer and then have monthly evening meetings throughout the school year, sharing ideas and activities as well as getting mentor updates on particle physics. This year they brought on several new members, were active in both ATLAS and CMS masterclasses, sent member Mike Hirsh to the CERN HST program, and turned out for the Massachusetts memorial service for Tom Jordan shortly after he passed. Boston is a strong center owing in large part to the leadership of lead teacher and LHC fellow Rick Dower, who has hosted and organized workshops and meetings in his lab at Roxbury Latin School. 

Rick retired from teaching this year but continues to be involved in both the Boston center and LHC fellows. No worries: the meetings will still be at Roxbury Latin and Rick will still organize them (and, as usual, bring pizza and snacks). When asked to comment on his time with QuarkNet, Rick mostly focused on the accomplishments of the center, but also shared a story: "Once I had the interesting experience traveling back from a QuarkNet gathering in Aspen, Colorado with a box full of the early cosmic ray detectors spilling over the sides. I was asked to change seats on the plane because another passenger was frightened of the detectors wrapped in black plastic with ominous wires hanging over the edge of the box." Rick still has many more stories and ideas to share, and Boston QuarkNet teachers will enjoy them for some time to come.

News from QuarkNet Central: Efforts are still underway to be sure everyone in QuarkNet is on the website. If you are not on the site or are not sure, contact a staff member for help. Once you know you are on and able to log in, please update your profile for your personal and school information as well as your DAQ information if you have a cosmic ray detector. While we are at it, think about making a contribution to your center page on the site. Here is how to create and edit a document and page. Mentors and lead teachers, please let a staff member know of anyone new to QuarkNet or who for any reason may not have an account on the QuarkNet website. Send us contact information and we will get them started.

This comes in from the teaching & learning fellows: Join us for an online videoconference using Google Hangouts in which QuarkNet teachers from around the world talk about new strategies and lessons, discuss implementation of Data Camp activities, ask each other questions, and discuss anything else of use to QuarkNet teachers. The next one is at 7 PM EST on Wednesday, September 30. Get more information from the T&L Google Hangout documentation.

Physics Experiment Roundup: As everyone knows, today is Dark Matter Friday. (Actually, FF made that up.) Some physicists go underground to hunt for the elusive stuff at Gran Sasso in Italy and SURF in South Dakota. Others plan to look deep into space using DESI—not to be confused with DESY—a new instrument that will measure redshifts and the early universe.

Resources: Five facts about dark matter

Just for Fun: More than fun, we have this from the Notre Dame College of Science: On Sunday, for the first time in more than 30 years, a total lunar eclipse will occur during a “supermoon”—when the moon is closest to the Earth. The eclipse will cause the moon to turn a deep red. The eclipse will begin at 21:07 PM ET, with the total eclipse lasting from 22:11–23:43 PM ET. Read more about it!

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on Altitude with Attitude: Several QuarkNet centers did the cosmic ray flux vs. altitude experiment this past summer. The Colorado State group drove two cosmic ray detectors high up into Rocky Mountain National Park; Purdue Calumet and Notre Dame lofted detectors into the sky on airplanes. These efforts follow experiments in previous years by the University of Cincinnati center visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Purdue with their balloon flight; Berkeley Lab teacher Sean Fottrell and his students going up Mt. Diablo; the Virginia group going to the Blue Ridge; and the original QuarkNet mountain climb from Snowmass Village to Independence Pass in the 2001 Lead Teacher Institute. Next challenge: Would anyone like to use all this data to create a muon attenuation function for the atmosphere? (Warning: Relativistic calculations required!)

News from QuarkNet Central: Autumn is upon us (the equinox is next Wednesday, September 23). That means it is time to turn in those abstracts for summer research and center annual reports. Here are some basic instructions. While we are in this season, if you need a new Cosmic, CMS, or LIGO e-Lab account, please contact Ken Cecire for at least the next few weeks.

Also, be sure we have your attendance sheets for this summer. Thanks! 

New App! QuarkNet PI Dan Karmgard has developed a new CMS app for Android and he needs your help to test it. Learn more here.

One last reminder: If you'd like to join our QuarkNet IB group, please fill out this Interest Form. 

Physics Experiment Roundup: From the Possibly Earth-shattering News Department (PEND) we learn that maybe lepton universality isn't so universal after all. (This is a PENDing result.) Speaking of Earth, it's now been mapped in neutrinos. 

Resources: Don Lincoln has produced useful videos on the Quark-Gluon Plasma and LHC Computing.

Just for Fun: Raven about mathematics and the latest from Teaching Center

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on Altitude with Attitude: Several QuarkNet centers did the cosmic ray flux vs. altitude experiment this past summer. The Colorado State group drove two cosmic ray detectors high up into Rocky Mountain National Park; Purdue Calumet and Notre Dame lofted detectors into the sky on airplanes. These efforts follow experiments in previous years by the University of Cincinnati center visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Purdue with their balloon flight; Berkeley Lab teacher Sean Fottrell and his students going up Mt. Diablo; the Virginia group going to the Blue Ridge; and the original QuarkNet mountain climb from Snowmass Village to Independence Pass in the 2001 Lead Teacher Institute. Next challenge: Would anyone like to use all this data to create a muon attenuation function for the atmosphere? (Warning: Relativistic calculations required!)

News from QuarkNet Central: Autumn is upon us (the equinox is next Wednesday, September 23). That means it is time to turn in those abstracts for summer research and center annual reports. Here are some basic instructions. While we are in this season, if you need a new Cosmic, CMS, or LIGO e-Lab account, please contact Ken Cecire for at least the next few weeks.

Also, be sure we have your attendance sheets for this summer. Thanks! 

New App! QuarkNet PI Dan Karmgard has developed a new CMS app for Android and he needs your help to test it. Learn more here.

One last reminder: If you'd like to join our QuarkNet IB group, please fill out this Interest Form. 

Physics Experiment Roundup: From the Possibly Earth-shattering News Department (PEND) we learn that maybe lepton universality isn't so universal after all. (This is a PENDing result.) Speaking of Earth, it's now been mapped in neutrinos. 

Resources: Don Lincoln has produced useful videos on the Quark-Gluon Plasma and LHC Computing.

Just for Fun: Raven about mathematics and the latest from Teaching Center

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on the New Academic Year: The Friday Flyer is back for 2015-2016! QuarkNet is developing at an increased pace this year, so watch this space to keep up with the news. Among the events already scheduled are International Cosmic Day on November 5, 2015 and International Masterclasses from February 11 to March 24, 2016. And trust us, there will be plenty more to be announced.

One new feature this year is of importance to those who teach in the International Baccalaureate program: IB Physics now has particle physics included in its core curriculum. QuarkNet responds: let's form a group of QuarkNet teachers of IB Physics to see what we can do support student learning in this new context. If you'd like to join a QuarkNet IB group, please fill out this Interest Form.

News from QuarkNet Central: You will recall that Shane Wood joined the QuarkNet staff last spring and that Jeremy Smith has taken on some staff functions as well. The changes are not finished: watch this space in the coming weeks.

News from an der Elbe: Cosmic ray physics meets LHC physics in the Bachelor's thesis written by Joshua Unger of TU Dresden on production of Higgs bosons in the atmosphere. 

Physics Experiment Roundup: Going east to west . . . Over at CERN, ATLAS and CMS team up to give us the most precise measurements yet of properties of the Higgs. At Brookhaven Lab on Long Island, RHIC is making droplets of quark-gluon plasma. Want to see nice muon tracks? Well, the MicroBooNe neutrino experiment at Fermilab turned on its Time Projection Chamber in August and it lit up with cosmic rays. Take a look! On that other coast, SLAC physicists are hard at work on new accelerator technology. 

Resources: Also at CERN, the LHCb experiment seems to have found the elusive pentaquark; watch as Don Lincoln explains pentaquarks. In another video, Don does a nice job of explaining statistics in physics.

Just for Fun: The Saturn V launch vehicle (it is rocket science) made way too simple

In Remembrance: Fourteen years ago today

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

Spotlight on Summer 2015: Summer is upon us, and starting next week, the Friday Flyer will be on hiatus until September, unless we run a special edition. (Who knows what discoveries are around the corner?) June through August will be a busy time for QuarkNet. There will be, at latest count, 30 QuarkNet workshops, a Data Camp at Fermilab, AAPT, and QuarkNet teachers participating in CERN-HST and Inspiring Science in Greece. And even this does not capture all that is going on. So: have a great summer and, if you are involved in something interesting, send your favorite staff member a line about it—it may show up the the Flyer this fall!

News from QuarkNet Central: On the e-mail front, it looks like we will not have an official address for Shane Wood until next week. We will alert everyone once we know what it is. This just in! We will have a QuarkNet gathering on High School Physics Teacher Day, Monday July 27, at the AAPT Summer Meeting in College Park. If you're attending AAPT this summer, drop Ken a line. Finally, an i2u2 note: The i2u2 servers will be down for the entire workday this coming  Monday June 1. 

Physics Experiment Roundup: Recent experiments probe quantum weirdness and what the state of helium is. Other small experiments are aiming at big particle physics results.

Resources: This article on magnets and particle physics by Jim Pivarksi first appeared in Fermilab Today. Here we use the URL from Jim's blog, Coffeeshop Physics, which has fun reads and great resources on particle physics; pay special attention to CMS Results and Physics in a Nutshell.

Just for Fun: Here are eight things to know about the LHC in Run II. And some of us just never get tired of this Higgs bump animation from Run I.

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu

We hope to see you at a QuarkNet workshop soon! Have a great summer!

Spotlight on the Cosmic Fellows: Got a cosmic ray detector? Use the e-Lab? Jeff Rodriguez opines, "If there's something weird and it don't look good, who you gonna call? Cosmic Ray fellows." This team, under the leadership of Bob Peterson, facilitates cosmic ray workshops; answers help desk requests; assists colleagues; and acts as a "cosmic advisory board" for QuarkNet. They are: Martin Shaffer at Cowley College in Kansas, Jeff Rodriguez from Cincinnati, Elisa Gatz from Northern Illinois, Nathan Unterman, Jeff Rylander, and Steve Grosland from the University of Illinois Chicago, Chris Gosling from Buffalo, Robert Franckowiak from Idaho State, Jim Stith from Black Hills State, Rose Emanuel from the University of Washington and Kevin Martz from Johns Hopkins. Not a small group; not a small job.

BIG News from QuarkNet Central: The news today is from the "help is on the way" department. Shane Wood, whom many of us know well, has agreed to join the QuarkNet staff. You may well be seeing him soon at a workshop near you or at AAPT this summer. Fellow staffers Bob and Ken have both known and worked with Shane for a long time and are enthusiastic about having him on board. Shane reflects, "I've been fortunate enough to be involved in QuarkNet since 2002, primarily working with the Minnesota QuarkNet center and with the LHC fellows. Now, joining the staff, I'm excited for the opportunity to work with more centers, teachers, mentors, and students from around the country and beyond." Look in the flyer next week for contact information for Shane. We are also fortunate to have the help of Teaching and Learning Fellow Jeremy Smith, who has agreed to step forward and take the lead on Data Camp along with his fellow T&Lers. He is also reviewing new QuarkNet activities as part of the approval process. Jeremy's contribution has already been very valuable. Thanks, Jeremy and Shane!

Physics Experiment Roundup: From LHC Run 1, the Standard Model gets further validation, but does it get much love? In LHC Run 2, collisions at record energies. Meanwhile in space, we learn that giant spirals may explain our existence. (No big deal.) Back on Earth, a new collider?

Resources: Scientific American 60-second video - The Loneliest Place in the Universe

Just for Fun: L'accélérateur des particules dans le Louvre! At xkcd, a sort of dimensional analysis

QuarkNet Staff Teachers:
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Bob Peterson: rspete@fnal.gov
Shane Wood

Go to http://www.rockthelhc.com/.