Friday Flyer - May 12, 2017

Spotlight on the University of Illinois at Chicago and Chicago State University Quarknet Center: Perhaps UIC-Chicago State is the only center in which one of the mentors, in this case Mark Adams, is also a member of the QuarkNet staff. Mark took over the QuarkNet cosmic ray project when Bob Peterson retired and was, even before that, instrumental in QuarkNet cosmic ray efforts. It is no surprise, then, that UIC-Chicago State is oriented toward cosmic ray studies. Mark, Edmundo Garcia, and the teachers had a robust cosmic workshop last summer in which they explored new measurements and met for a day in the academic year to follow up. One of them, cosmic fellow Nate Unterman, proposed and is working on the Solar Eclipse Cosmic Ray Project, and there is little doubt that this Chicago-based center will play a role. 

News from QuarkNet Central: AP Physics is done for the year, and IB Physics will be soon. Now is the time to get your students going on QuarkNet's first-ever e-Lab Poster Challenge, which ends at the end of this month. Don't have an account? Send a request to Mark, Shane, or Ken; include your name, e-mail, school, city, and state or country. And if you are planning to study any effect of the total eclipse of the sun this August, be sure to contact Mark Adams to collaborate with your QuarkNet colleagues. 

Physics Experiment Roundup: The LHC got up and running just two weeks ago. Now, here is the play-by-play from CERN, which, by the way, just completed a new linac. Getting esoteric: Particles have wavelengths and wavelengths can be redshifted or blueshifted, so maybe we can measure spacetime effects on the wavelengths of particles. According to APS Physics, it's been done.

Resources: What are "sterile neutrinos" and do they exist? Maybe not, according the the Daya Bay experiment. Yet the idea is compelling, as seen in Don Lincoln's spin on the subject. Then Mike Albrow discusses more that we cannot see. And what do the folks behind PhD Comics say about all this? According to symmetry, We Have No Idea.

Just for Fun: Ketchup. It's science. Rap. It's about CERN.

QuarkNet Staff:
Mark Adams: adams@fnal.gov
Ken Cecire: kcecire@nd.edu
Shane Wood: swood5@nd.edu