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Smoking Mouse |
A Badge of Honor and Buffalo |
Review - Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics
| Good Natured Community Relations
| The Growth of e-printing |
The doorkeepers of building 280 |
Letters
Photo: Jamie Blowers, Fermilab |
Because particle physicists cannot directly see the objects they study, they
rely on deduction and decay products to detect nature's tiny, ephemeral particles.
At Fermilab, for example, scientists use deduction to discover the presence
of quarks, leptons, bosons and mice–as well as, of course, their anti-particles.
Recently, scientists found evidence for a complex baryonic life form inside a
1200-pound superconducting magnet in Fermilab's Technical Division. Though
no one actually saw a mouse, Fermilab Technician Dan Smith uncovered
nesting material and bird remnants deep within the "H spool" magnet.
According to Smith and other technicians who observed these materials,
the nest pieces and chewed bird head contribute direct evidence for the
existence of a mouse. However, scientists are still trying
to figure out how the mouse got in.
"On the outside of the magnet, there's a stainless steel box," said Smith.
"You have to grind off the weld joints to get inside, and there are a good
couple miles of welds — literally. Inside there's liquid helium,
and then an insulating vacuum. And that's where we found the nest and bird
head, which we still have."
Because many types of particles occur only rarely in collisions, it often
takes years for physicists to detect new forms of matter. "In the 30 years I've
been here," said Smith, "I've never, ever seen something like this."
As for the anti-matter of the mouse, it's actually easier to find than
the real matter version. In an unofficial survey, a wide majority of human
participants were found to be anti-mice.
Lisa Zyga
Reviewed by Elizabeth Clements
Mauro Dardo
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004
Do you know why Louis Victor de Broglie won a Nobel Prize in 1929?
Or why a Nobel Prize wasn't given out in 1934? What about Nils Gustaf Dalen's
invention of an automatic sun valve beating out Max Planck and Albert Einstein
for the Nobel Prize in 1912?
In Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics, Mauro Dardo, a professor of
experimental physics at Amedeo Avogadro University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara,
Italy, goes beyond answering these questions and highlights the greatest
achievements of 20th century physics. Focusing on the individual stories of
each Nobel Prize winner, Dardo uses a unique approach and tells the story of
modern physics in a year-by-year format. Starting with Copernicus, the first
thirty pages of the book lay out the foundation for modern physics and outline
the origins
of the Nobel Prize. From relativity to quantum mechanics to superconductivity,
Dardo uses simple language to explain the accomplishments
of modern physics, and he attempts to decipher some of the more complicated
theories of the past century. Written for the lay reader but also of
interest to scientists, Nobel Laureates and Twentieth-Century Physics will
appeal to history
buffs and physics enthusiasts. It's also the perfect text for a history of
science course.
Now, as for our opening questions: Louis Victor de Broglie won the Nobel Prize
in 1929 for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons. Yet just two years
earlier, in 1927, the Nobel Physics Committee had not considered quantum
mechanics worthy of a prize because it had not yet led to any experimental
discovery of importance.
Even though the 1934 list of Nobel Prize
candidates included Max Born and Wolfgang Pauli, the Nobel Prize Committee
found no
candidate worthy of the prize and decided to
reserve it for the following year. The Academy eventually deposited the
1934 prize money in a special fund for Swedish research.
And Nils Gustaf Dalen beat out Max Planck and
Albert Einstein for the 1912 Nobel Prize because members of the Academy
representing the field of technology felt the awards had become too
academic.
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Fermilab's new Girl Scout badge has troop #312 excited about "atoms and buffalo."
Unlike a field trip where kids visit Fermilab to learn about physics in an
"educational environment," the Girl Scouts' Fermilab outing lets kids
come with their friends and a scout leader to explore the particles and
the prairie through their own eyes.
"We have a big book that we look at to find out what we need to do to get a badge,"
said Kelsey, one of the 10 members of the troop. Their ages range from 10 to 13,
plus 5-year-old Maddie. To earn the Fermilab badge, the scouts had to
pick seeds in the prairie and talk
to various people, including an architect. "We learned about how the
atoms work and how the pipes [accelerators] work," Liana explained.
The girls agreed that the Fermilab badge ranks right up there with badges
they got
for horse riding and cooking.
"The badge reminds you of your experience," said Kelsey,
"and how hard you worked for it. It's a big accomplishment."
Tiffany liked the badge, too.
"It makes me think of funny memories about buffalo," she said,
adding that the buffalo experience was "too personal" to share.
The scouts thought the badge design did a good job of representing Fermilab.
"The buffalo is a big part of Fermilab," Susie explained. However,
the scouts also had a few ideas of their own: Tiffany proposed a "frog badge,"
Liana an "astronomy badge," Amanda a "pyramid of girl scouts," and Taylor
a badge with 99 bottles of pop and a little microphone which would constantly
sing their favorite song throughout the whole trip.
Lisa Zyga
Photo: Joni White, SLAC |
Working at Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center, you never know what projects may come your way.
So when Helen Quinn, head of education outreach at SLAC, asked me
to plant trees with a class of fourth graders, I said sure, it's not
rocket science. Our goal was to plant the trees before January 1 to
allow for enough rainfall for the trees to survive. We also had to protect
the young plants from the deer that wander SLAC's grounds. Though I was
a tree-planting novice, I thought this sounded like a good chance to connect
with a local school and add some new oaks to SLAC's already magnificent collection.
The class gathered acorns from their neighborhoods and sprouted them into
saplings. The children, many prepared with trowels and gloves, walked over
from their nearby school, carefully carrying a dozen small trees growing
in milk cartons. The volunteer team at SLAC was waiting in the meadow adjacent
to the front gate, ready
to assist.
The class paired off and walked out into the meadow where we showed them where
to plant the saplings. Vicente Gomez from SLAC's landscaping staff supplied a
few shovels and the kids began digging. They were excited to learn they could
jump on the shovel
and really move some ground! Seeing that, and the satisfaction of having
planted a new meadow full of oak trees,
we all enjoyed the time outside away from our desks and agreed that this
sort of outreach is especially worthwhile.
Joni White, SLAC
Before the days of the World Wide Web, scientists would mail their colleagues preprints,
hard copies of papers submitted to scientific journals. In 1991, particle physicists
began posting these papers on
the Web, calling them e-prints. Today, the e-print archive at arXiv.org
includes archives of all fields of physics.
In the accompanying chart, comparing the number of
e-print submissions since 1991 with the submissions made
in 2004 gives an indication of the pace at which e-printing was
adopted by fields related to particle and high-energy physics.
Scientists in lattice gauge theory (hep-lat), among the first to
use an e-print archive,
had already posted half their
preprints (by 2004 standards) in 1992. Lattice gauge theory
is a relatively small community of highly computer-literate
researchers with a strong tradition of collaboration. By
1996, the lattice community had posted 90% of its annual number
of preprints on the
e-print archive, using the 2004 submission numbers as
comparison.
Source: SPIRES
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The earlier a field has reached the 90% point, the more likely the field
has reached
full adoption. Fields that have reached the 90% mark rather late have
been either slow at adopting e-printing or have experienced strong growth
in the number of e-prints produced in recent years. These latter fields
include astrophysics (astro-ph), general relativity
and quantum cosmology (gr-qc), and nuclear experiments (nucl-ex).
The widely-practiced field of general relativity and quantum cosmology,
with scientists distributed around the world, has the longest time span
(8 years) between reaching the 50% and the 90% marks. Adoption of
e-printing may have been slow in some of the contributing countries.
In fact, only 21% of gr-qc papers in 2004 had an author based in the
United States, the smallest percentage of any archive.
Heath O’Connell, Fermilab
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Photos: Diana Rogers, SLAC |
They are easy to miss. The building's architecture, dominated by corrugated
metal siding and right angles, makes the rooftop an unlikely place to
find these stoic granite sentries. It
is, after all, about the farthest from gothic style imaginable.
But Tom Himel, who had a hand in assigning the guards to their post in
1996, disagrees.
"This building absolutely cries out for gargoyles," he says.
Iron girders along the outside walls, retrofitted to enhance earthquake
safety, reminded Himel and co-conspirator Bruce Feerick of flying buttresses.
"If you have flying buttresses,
you have to have gargoyles," he says.
Himel procured the gargoyles from a mail order catalog, and Feerick machined
a pair of base plates to anchor them in position. Under cover of early morning,
Himel and Feerick furtively clambered up to the roof and fastened the statues
in place. Since most of building 280's occupants
hadn’t yet arrived, Himel and Feerick were confident their secret was safe.
But Tonya Boysen, the building supervisor at the time, noticed the addition right
away. Her main concern? Himel says, "she wanted to know if they were an earthquake
hazard."
Matthew Early Wright
Muons, gluons, futons
When my wife is intrigued by the cover of a particle physics magazine,
as she was with the February issue of symmetry, you know your
editors and designers are doing a good job.
In regard to John Womersley's article, "Beyond the Standard Model,"
let me suggest that
physicists might find some of the missing matter in the cobwebs and dust
bunnies that
mysteriously appear in my office. I've also pondered the whereabouts of
thoughts that fly
out of my head, and perhaps the next Einstein can explain where they go.
Finally, in addition
to muons, gluons, futons and the like, might
I suggest you look for the do-over, which would
be a handy particle to have.
Bill Dietrich, Anacortes, WA
Teaching art with physics
I teach physics to college art students at the School of
the Art Institute of Chicago. You have published three issues
of symmetry, and each time I've found something in it to point out to
my students. From the first issue, the article "Extreme Neutrinos"
was used by a student last semester
for a paper he wrote. A current student, interested in how science
influences art, was intrigued by the paintings of Dawn Meson reproduced
in the second issue. And, finally, in an ongoing effort to show my students
what science is really like, I'm having current students scan the
"Quantum Diaries" blogs that were mentioned in the third issue. They are
to look for something in a scientist's day that they find unexpected or
surprising. I'm sure it will be interesting to see what they bring in.
It's really very nice to have a magazine that deals with contemporary events
in science
be appealing and accessible to the non-scientist. I'm sure I'll make more use
of the past issues, and I'm looking forward to taking future ones to
my students as well.
Lastly, I told my husband (a condensed
matter physicist) that the high-energy physicists are way
ahead of them in terms of demystifying the career. The CM physicists had better
watch out or all the young people will want
to study HEP!
Elizabeth Freeland, Chicago, IL
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Letters can be submitted via
letters@symmetrymagazine.org
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