Friday Flyer - October 16, 2020
Spotlight on Adam LaMee
There is a good chance you already know Adam. He was a lead teacher in the Florida State center for many years and, now based at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, is very involved in physics education across that state. If you've been to Data Camp in the past ten years or so, you know Adam well in his Teaching and Learning fellow role for his energy, knowledge, and great workshop facilitation. Now Adam has joined the QuarkNet staff as an educational specialist, so we thought it is time for folks to know him even a little better.
As a teacher, Adam ran large-scale CMS masterclasses and was a CMS fellow, spending the summer at CERN doing research under the auspices of FSU. Adam was tapped five years ago for PhysTEC and moved from Tallahassee to UCF in Orlando. There, he has worked on extending physics education opportunities, especially to students from underrepresented groups, teacher development, and coding in science education. He has stayed on the faculty at UCF as an instructional specialist. He has also been something of a lead teacher for all QuarkNet in Florida, helping out centers and providing them opportunities. You can read more on Adam's UCF webpage.
Yesterday, we subjected Adam to some hard-hitting Friday Flyer journalism. Choose the image directly below to watch the interview.
News from QuarkNet Central
World Wide Data Day registration is open! Sign up your class! We have an interesting, new W2D2 measurement with new screencasts. The registration deadline is November 6 and the big day is November 12. Whether you are teaching in person or online—or some of both—W2D2 measurements and help are accessible.
International Cosmic Day (ICD) will take place on November 4 this year. There are two registration options this year: one for groups (as in the past) and one for individual students.
QuarkNet Educational Discussions (QED) is an opportunity for QuarkNet teachers and staff to get together virtually a couple of times each month to share ideas, ask questions, and connect with QuarkNet colleagues. We hope to have a speaker for our next meeting, Wednesday, October 28. Stay tuned!
Dark Matter Day is coming! Look on the website for events near you. We'll do our best to keep you informed as well. That is not enough, though, for FF; we will have a special Friday Flyer on October 30 dedicated to Dark Matter.
Physics Experiment Roundup
The LHC continues to provide news: CERN Bulletin reports an improvement in cryogenics during the upgrade and that LHCb has found evidence of time-dependent matter-antimatter asymmetry. More toward LHC results, we learn from Interactions and DOE News that Berkeley Lab is finding new insights into decays of the Higgs to dimuons.
There is also news in the dark matter department. APS Physics reports that the XENON1T detector at Gran Sasso in Italy has a possible dark matter signal that does not fit any of the currently favored models. And symmetry explains that the new Vera C. Rubin telescope in Chile will look for patterns in the cosmos that help us understand how dark matter behaves.
Resources
More on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020: APS Physics offers a nice review of black holes and what Penrose, Genzel, and Ghez have contributed.
Staying astrophysical, we note that Don Lincoln has followed up on the Subatomic Stories video from last week, How the Big Bang really happened, with further cosmology in When the universe expanded faster than light.
To finish with a bit of theory, here is a video from Pretty Much Physics on the Planck Scale, where quantum field theory meets general relativity. It is simple, clear, and mathematical at the Algebra I level.
Just for Fun
Want the most advanced multifunction printer in the world? Well, xkcd has it and also elucidates the mystery of probability.
Wait one more Nobel Prize-winning minute! What if you are up for a Nobel prize, the call comes in, and you do not hear your cell phone? That is when it is good to have been collaborating on the work with your next-door neighbor. Bloomberg QuickTake shows us how it actually happened this year. (H/T to Spencer Pasero.)
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Spencer Pasero: spasero@fnal.gov
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu