Friday Flyer - March 25, 2016
Spotlight on the Wayne State University QuarkNet Center: Wayne State, located in downtown Motown, runs a cosmic ray research program every year for local high school students along with teachers and Rob Harr and Gil Paz. One of the projects this year was an experiment to measure the speed of muons (abstract). The center also partners with the Detroit Metro Area Physics Teachers; Rob and Gil often participate in meetings, show demos, and lead learning experiences for teachers.
News from QuarkNet Central: Mentors! Lead Teachers! Read this, please! It is getting to that time when we need to figure out summer workshops at QuarkNet centers. QuarkNet Central can help. Please check out these workshop experiences for teachers and then contact the staff member listed or your assigned staff member for consultation and planning. Also, please give us the dates of your summer meetings as soon as you can.
Physics Experiment Roundup: Old school—a surprisingly simple patent diagram for the superconducting magnet. Newer—inching toward benchtop particle accelerators and LHC just might see a new particle.
Resources: Fermilab physicist Mark Thomson explains matter and antimatter in a new Why I Love Neutrinos video. Theorist Carlo Rovelli offers insight into general relativity in this New York Times review of his new book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. From other side of the Pacific, Soochow University physicist Shian-Shyong Hsiao sent a cool and different video (in Chinese but mostly language-independent). The video starts slowly but then jumps to great demos, to students working with Raspberry Pi's, and at the end, to a portable cosmic ray detector with which Dr. Hsiao took data running the length of Taiwan from north to south.
Just for Fun: XKCD is maybe at its best with offbeat computer humor, like this, this, and this.
In QuarkNet, there are two kinds of March Madness. One is, of course, International Masterclasses, just wrapped up. Then there is that other thing, that NCAA basketball thing, in which we carefully track our QuarkNet centers. So far, of the four games that have been played in the Sweet 16, three were won by QuarkNet centers. (The other did not have a center competing, somehow.) Good work Kansas, Oregon, and Oklahoma! For the other four games, we can cheer tonight for IU, Iowa State, and Syracuse. Notre Dame and Wisconsin are playing each other, so, well, there it is.
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu