Friday Flyer - December 6, 2024
Spotlight on the Drew University QuarkNet Center
One of our new QuarkNet centers is Drew University in bucolic Madison, New Jersey. Drew is a small university where mentor Kamal Benslama is a member of the Fermilab Mu2e experiment and is building an already substantial QuarkNet center. The initial meeting of the center was held last May with about ten teachers and three faculty members, including Tom Smock, a retired physics teacher who now works with the university and lends both his ability to work with fellow teachers and his wisdom. Shane and Ken facilitated the workshop with an introduction to QuarkNet and Data Activities Angles and Dimuons and the classic Calculate the Z Mass. Dr. Benslama gave introductions to the Standard Model and the ATLAS experiment. The Drew University QuarkNet Center is now gearing up for a masterclass orientation workshop in Frbruary and a maserclass in March.
News from QuarkNet Central
Fermilab-based International Masterclasses 2025 Registration is supposed to close today. Oh no! What to do? Well, we will hold the registration form open through Monday for our Friday Flyer readers to accommodate any last minute registrations. After that, you can still register by email and send your questions to Ken, Shane, or Spencer. Need more information? Look at our updated Masterclass Library, with neutrino and LHC measurements all in one place and the easy-to-remember URL quarknet.org/mc-start.
Beamline for Schools (BL4S): BL4S is a global competition for high school students offering winning teams the unique opportunity to conduct their own physics experiment at a CERN beamline. Check out the BL4S website for more information.
Upcoming Dates:
- AAPT Winter Meeting 2025: The AAPT WM 2025 will be held January 18-21 in St. Louis, MO. There is still time to register!
- Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics Teacher Conference: The 2025 KITP Teacher Conference will focus on particle physics, and will take place in Santa Barbara on February 8, 2025. For more information, including how to register, please see the conference page. As the website indicates, financial aid for travel and lodging is awarded on a rolling basis.
Physics Experiment Roundup
We have a bit of everything in this Roundup. CERN Bulletin reports on the abrupt end of the 2024 LHC run at CERN. Also at CERN: the CLOUD experiment at the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is revealing new knowledge of aerosol particles and cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere. Also, on cosmic rays The High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) Collaboration in Namibia is measuring the cosmic ray energy spectrum to new highs, according to APS Physics. That same APS Physics also gives us articles on anomalies in B physics and dark matter in the very early universe. And Fermilab News tells us of the new, resilient beam targets in development.
Resources
There are some interesting learning opportunities coming up. The APS Forum on international Physics has an online colloquium series called Physics Matters that is worth checking every so often. The next colloquium will be on Thursday December 12. (H/T Christine Darve.) In the CERN Bulletin CERN70 series we learn about the open science past, present, and future from former Director General Rolf Heuer. Since many of us in QuarkNet use the CERN Open Data Portal, this is a topic of special interest. And if you've evet wondered about that Robert Wilson whose name adorns the High Rise at Fermilab, you might want to look out for the coming film, Accelerator, about his work and legacy.
December is here! Check out Physics in Advent, a festive and educational initiative that features 24 small, simple experiments each day from December 1-24.
Just for Fun
Yes, it is that time of year when the holidays approach at near-relativistic speeds, and all our particles have more momentum than mass. To ease us through, your Friday Flyer staff have worked tirelessly for several minutes to offer your some holiday videos with a science theme. And by science, we mean "science."
Let's start with the trailer of the classic movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians in which, well, we don't really need to describe it, do we? And if you survive that, here is the full-length feature. Star Trek has provided some "fascinating" holiday music. Let's start the concert with You're a Mean One, Mr. Spock and continue with the joyful, metaphorical Santa, When the Claus Fell. Then on to Wonderful Deep Space Nine and an extended rif by Vic Fontaine. (that last one is not really about the season but it does have red and green lights.) And what about Star Wars? Hmmm...The Battle of Hoth has snow, so that counts. And if you could handle all that, you can try - we can't believe we are referencing this again - the Star Wars Holiday Special, which pretty much makes Santa Claus Conquers the Martians look, in comparison, like It's a Wonderful Life.
Okay, let's clear the palette with some xkcd, xkcd, and xkcd. This xkcd is good too.
QuarkNet Staff
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Spencer Pasero: spasero@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu