Friday Flyer - November 6, 2015

Spotlight on the Southern Methodist University (SMU) QuarkNet Center: The SMU QuarkNet group of teachers met this year during the week of August 3-7 and were treated to a wide variety of activities organized by Simon Dalley.  University of Texas at Arlington Professor Joe Izen gave a talk on the LHC upgrade and SMU Professor Jingbo Ye gave a talk on cosmic rays; several teachers also shared topics relating to summer research and ideas for the classroom. Nate Unterman led the group through a three-day cosmic ray workshop during which teachers analyzed data from four detectors in a variety of configurations. In addition to the workshop, 2 teachers and 17 students performed summer research in SMU labs on a variety of topics.

News from QuarkNet Central: A reminder that registration for International Masterclasses 2016 is open. The Doodle polls are open through November 18; after that, contact Ken Cecire directly.  

Physics Experiment Roundup: This week, the MicroBooNE collaboration announced that the newly built detector has seen its first accelerator-born neutrinos. Physicists at Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider recently announced that they have measured the force that makes antimatter stick together.

Resources: A nature of science article from Real Clear Science discusses how science is neither "settled" nor "skeptical." University of Illinois Professor Peter Abbamonte discusses an inside view of how science works in the video How Laws, Sausages, and Science are Made. 

Just for Fun: Notice the new addition to Howard and Bernadette's apartment on TV's The Big Bang Theory? 

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