QuarkNet an der Elbe: Eventful

The week was full of small, interesting events, starting with a walk on Sunday in the old city. It was cold but we could find all sorts of holiday decorations, German food (or, here in Germany, "food"), and mulled wine. It was all cozy and cheerful and nothing wards off low temperature like bratwurst and hot wine.

On Monday, I facilitated my second seminar (stop giggling). The topic was particle physics in high school and we spent most of our time doing activities.* We did two standbys - Rolling with Rutherford and Z Mass - and pioneered a new activity using data from TOTEM, the small far detector up and down the beamline from CMS. Stay tuned for more. If you want to see more of what we've been up to in these seminars, take a look at the site for this week, with convenient links to last week and next week.

Visiting faculty and fellows were invited to a nice lunch on yesterday with the Rector and Vice Rector of TU Dresden. The Rector is equivalent to the University President. We told what we do, we chatted, and we shared a meal in ALTANA Galerie on campus. ALTANA is sort of amazing. The building is industrial but it is also an art gallery. The bottom floor has an enginnering lab for undergraduates and the rest of the building has displays of old-tech machines and modern artwork. 

Yesterday afternoon was taken up with trying to troubleshoot the Netwerk Teilcehnwelt cosmic ray detector before we turn it over to a teacher and her class. Progress is happening but it is slow. We rather entertained Bob with a slightly hair-raising HelpDesk request.

I'll leave you with two views of ALTANA Galerie, courtesy of their website.

Old technology on the left, new art on the right. Who knew they'd go this well together?