Friday Flyer - April 1, 2016
Spotlight on the University of Rochester QuarkNet Center: Located on the banks of the Genesee River near the shore of Lake Ontario in New York State, the University of Rochester QuarkNet Center is led by Kevin McFarland and Carol Hoffman and Paul Sedita. In 2015, the summer workshop focused on activities around the analysis of MINERvA data. Teachers put on their "student hats" to experience these activities, then "teacher hats" to suggest improvements and to discuss implementation. Find out more about these activities at the MINERvA "Neutrinos in the Classroom" website.
News from QuarkNet Central: Attention mentors and lead teachers! A reminder to please be sure one person (mentor or lead teacher) completes the RFP form for your center on or before April 8 to indicate the level of support requested for 2016; additionally, it is not too early to set your dates and plan your summer workshops. Please let your QuarkNet main point of contact know these dates once chosen. Your point of contact can also assist if you would like to include one of these workshop experiences and to order or return cosmic ray muon detectors.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Protons are once again circulating around the 27-km beam pipes of the LHC after a 13-week maintenance break. The Long Baseline Neutrino Facility will power the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) in order for scientists to learn more about neutrinos. Learn more about the basics of LBNF/DUNE in this recently released Fermilab video.
Resources: Find out more about the Italian Prime Minister's visit to Fermilab this week to celebrate nearly 40 years of collaboration between Italy and Fermilab in this article from Fermilab News, or this video from Fermilab's YouTube channel. Learn more about QED (quantum electrodynamics) in this video from Fermilab's Don Lincoln. You can also check out Don's video on perturbation theory, a powerful technique used to solve otherwise impossible mathematical equations.
Just for April Fools' Day: First, check out this week's Fermilab This Week this week. OK...now...a lot has been going on in particle physics and in QuarkNet. But who cares? Let's get to what really counts, like the QuarkNet initiative to use cosmic ray detectors for early warning against an ID4-style attack from space. Moving over to our Physics Experiment Roundup, we note that Dr. Knott Drew of Really Small National Laboratory and Arboretum has published a paper in The Journal of the Obscure titled "Finding evidence of gravitational waves in the Cavendish experiment." No comment from LIGO. Finally, for those who miss QuarkNet an der Elbe (anyone? anyone?), we have the first and only issue of QuarkNet on the Lena. Read with gusto!
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu