Friday Flyer - December 2, 2016
Spotlight on the Northern Illinois University QuarkNet Center: The NIU QuarkNet Center, located just a short drive west of Fermilab in DeKalb, Illinois, had a successful 2016, with events and activities organized by Dhiman Chakraborty and Elisa Gatz. On March 3, teachers and students participated in the International Masterclass, with students analyzing data from CERN's ATLAS detector. The summer program took place during the week of June 6–10, with 21 students participating in addition to teacher involvement. Participants had the opportunity to learn about a wide array of physics topics from talks ranging from cosmology to the impacts of high-energy physics research on our daily lives. Students and teachers also collected data using the cosmic ray detectors; the week ended with a poster session, in which results of cosmic ray studies were shared.
News from QuarkNet Central: Updated Center Contacts! Recently, we updated the list of staff and leadership fellows who serve as a point of first contact for each QuarkNet center. The list can be found here; these leadership fellows and staff are able to assist mentors and lead teachers in planning for center activities and to take advantage of the many opportunities and resources "QuarkNet Central" has to offer. Masterclass season is approaching; check out all the latest about International Masterclasses 2017 on this updated IMC2017 informational circular.
Physics Experiment Roundup: CERN uses two robots, each known as TIM (Train Inspection Monorail), to inspect the LHC in order to keep the accelerator in working order. After some recent upgrades, LIGO is back online ready to make more discoveries.
Resources: As we all know, physics is a broad subject containing an enormous number of topics. Physicist Dominic Walliman attempts to put it all in perspective through a video and poster found in this article. Fermilab's Don Lincoln talks about the Higgs boson from the perspective of 2016 in this video. It's now official: As of Wednesday of this week, the names suggested in June this year for newly discovered elements numbers 113, 115, 117, 118 have been added to the periodic table.
Just for Fun: Think you had a challenging time preparing Thanksgiving dinner last week? Try making it in space! Check out how astronauts made a Thanksgiving meal on the International Space Station. Fermilab turns the "big 5-0" in 2017! Keep up to date with the plans for the yearlong celebration here.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu