As you know, Friday Flyer takes each summer off while we bring the superconducting printing press up to room temperature, clean out the RF cavities used to inject the online ink, and align the cyber-typesetting dipoles. However, we had some news to share that could not wait, so we fired things up for this Special Edition. Enjoy.
Spotlight on Beamline for Schools 2019
A U.S. team has never won the CERN Beamline for Schools (BL4S) competition. A few have made the short list. Until it happened. This year, the "DESY Chain" team from West High School in Salt Lake City, Utah, coached by Idaho State QuarkNet teacher Enrique Arce-Larreta, won the top prize along with the "Particle Peers" team from Praedinius Gymnasium in the Netherlands. Since CERN is in the midst of LHC upgrades, students and teachers from these teams will go to DESY in Hamburg, Germany, to run the experiments they proposed for the competition.
But wait, there's more! For the first time, another three U.S. teams made the short list: "The DESYners" from Old Bethpage-Plainview John F. Kennedy High School in New York, coached by Brookhaven-Stony Brook QuarkNet teacher Susan Wetzler, "A Light in the Darkness" from Champaign Central High School in Illinois, and "Centaurus Warriors" from Centaurus High School in Colorado. Read the CERN press release for more details!
Our QuarkNet teachers also provide a bit more insight. Susan writes, "The Beamline for Schools competition was a rewarding experience for my students. They researched capabilities of particle accelerators, devised a possible application, and developed a research plan, along the way, reaching out to international experts in the field. I couldn't be prouder of their success." And Enrique has shared a West High School press release that tells the story from their point of view.
Obviously, QuarkNet is very proud of Enrique and Susan and of all the team accomplishments. Congratulations for a job well done! Check out the team videos below!
News from QuarkNet Central
It may be summer, but we still have some fresh masterclass news. First, if you are doing an "off-shell"—that is, not on the regular schedule—ATLAS or CMS masterclass, you can request data and tables in OPloT or CIMA. Use the new Google form. Hopefully, this will make things more streamlined and get your masterclass on the IMC record. This and more masterclass news is in the special IMC summer circular.
The date has been set for World Wide Data Day 2019; it will take place on Wednesday, October 16. Mark your calendar!
QuarkNet summer activity is in full swing. By our count, there have been seven QuarkNet summer workshops already. Data Camp is next week, and the CERN High School Teachers program is underway. CERN International Teacher Weeks and eight or nine more workshops are planned at QuarkNet centers. Purdue Northwest and University of Minnesota did a joint test of the new CMS masterclass—still in development—and the University of Cincinnati and Idaho State University teamed up on Zoom for a joint Neutrino Data Workshop.
Physics Experiment Roundup
The LHC may be shutdown, but the physics goes on. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has a great article about DUNE while science 2.0 shows that the LHC analysis goes on with the search for a Higgs signal in jets. Looking to the future of accelerators, Interactions tells of record energy from a small accelerator at DESY and symmetry explains autonomous accelerators.
Resources
Summer videos from Fermilab! How about 150 years of the periodic table with Chris Quigg? Anne Norrick, one of our great masterclass videoconference moderators, tells us about the NoVA experiment in A moment with Anne Norrick. Don Lincoln has new videos: How do you detect a neutrino? and If the universe is only 14 billion years old, how can it be 92 billion light years wide?, which has made its own sort of big bang on YouTube with over 1.5 million views. That figures; it is a really fascinating mind-bender.
Just for Fun
Finally! Lunar cycles explained in xkcd! Any questions?
QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu