Friday Flyer - October 6, 2017

Spotlight on the Colorado State University QuarkNet Center

This center—located along the Colorado Front Range in Fort Collins—just completed its sixth year as a QuarkNet center. Led by lead teachers Cherie Bornhorst, Zach Armstrong, and Adam Pearlstein, along with mentor Bob Wilson, this summer's workshop came in two parts: a two-day CMS e-Lab workshop in which teachers explored the new CMS e-Lab, and a field trip to DUNE at the Homestake Mine in South Dakota. Though last spring this center was unable to hold its masterclass at CSU due to a snow storm (second year in a row!), this didn't stop teachers Chris Nichols and Roger Felch from holding the masterclass at their high school with 30 students participating!

News from QuarkNet Central

Reminders of upcoming activities: Check the first International Masterclasses circular of the new academic year if you have not seen it yet. Yes, it is already time to start thinking about it. Next month will be big. November will kick off early from Dark Matter Day on October 31, followed in two weeks with World Wide Data Day on November 14, and finishing with International Cosmic Day on November 30. 

If you are interested or might be interested in participating in World Wide Data Day 2017 on November 14, please contact Ken or fill out the Interest Form. You can learn more on the W2D2 page. We are looking for teachers who can, with support from QuarkNet, engage their students that day—it takes no more than two hours, soup to nuts—and for particle physicists who might moderate one or more of the 30-minute videoconferences from wherever they are.

QuarkNet Website Nuts and Bolts

Attention mentors and lead teachers: Please add two–three contact names (mentor(s) and lead teacher(s), for example) to your group's page within the QuarkNet website (www.quarknet.org). There's a "how to" page with directions on how to do this. Contact Ken or Shane with any questions. 

Physics Experiment Roundup

In honor of three LIGO scientists sharing this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, this section features some LIGO-related articles from the last few years. Revisit this primer on gravitational wave detectors. Also check out symmetry's Following LIGO's Treasure Maps and The Rise of LIGO's Space-Studying Super Team. And here's LIGO's own news release on the 2017 Nobel Prize.

Resources

The Nobel Prize in Physics was announced this week; you can also read about it in this year's prize in this symmetry article. Just in time for the Nobel Prize announcement: CPEP (Contemporary Physics Education Project) has a new poster on gravitation. (You may recognize other CPEP posters as well.) And here's a personal perspective on CERN, the LHC, and the CMS detector.  

Just for Fun

Teaching and learning about gravitation, thanks to xkcd.