Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2013
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Have a safe day!

Tuesday, Aug. 6

Noon
Undergraduate Lecture Series - Auditorium
Speaker: Jin-Yuan Wu, Fermilab
Title: Wave Phenomena

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Wednesday, Aug. 7

3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over

THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

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85°/68°

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Secon Level 3

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Flags at full staff

Wilson Hall Cafe

Tuesday, Aug. 6

- Breakfast: All-American breakfast
- Breakfast: bacon, egg and cheese bagel
- Chopped-barbecue-pork sandwich
- Smart cuisine: honey dijon baked pork chops
- Chicken pot pie
- Gourmet chicken salad croissant
- Kiwi pecan chicken salad
- Mexican lime chicken soup
- Chef's choice soup
- Assorted pizza by the slice

Wilson Hall Cafe menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Aug. 7
Lunch
- Chicken vindaloo
- Plum tart with goat cheese and walnut-thyme streusel

Friday, Aug. 9
Dinner
Special serving time of 6 p.m.
- Vichyssoise
- Filet mignon with red-pepper coulis
- Sauteed spinach
- Parmesan orzo
- Tiramisu

Chez Leon menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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From symmetry

Scientists compete in first physics slam on ice

Six scientists battled in a Minnesota hockey arena to be named the best physics entertainer. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Last weekend Ridder Arena—home to the University of Minnesota's back-to-back-NCAA-championship-winning women's hockey team—hosted a competition a bit different from the norm.

Taking the ice in place of the Gophers (who in March finished their 41-game season undefeated), six scientists went head-to-head in front of an audience of almost 900 spectators to find out who was the best physicist-performer.

As part of this so-called physics slam, scientists took 10 minutes each to entice the crowd with talks on topics such as dark matter, neutrinos and the Higgs boson. The audience then chose the winner by rounds of applause.

In the end, victorious Vladimir Savinov of the University of Pittsburgh gained the spectators' favor by adopting an entertainingly conspiratorial tone while explaining the mysterious abundance of matter over antimatter in the universe.

"I'm going to tell you some really secret stuff," he said early in his talk. "You should not have brought children here."

Read more

Kathryn Jepsen

Death

In memoriam: Wade Muranyi

Wade Muranyi

With deep sadness we announce the death of Wade Muranyi on Saturday, Aug. 3. He was 49.

Wade started his career at Fermilab in the Accelerator Division in 1998. In the words of Elvin Harms, Superconducting Radiofrequency Electron Linac Department, "Wade was instrumental, actually invaluable, in getting superconducting RF work off the ground here in the AD. His expertise had a ripple effect all over Fermilab, and you could safely say he had an international impact, as evidenced by the success of the 3.9-GHz cryomodule operating at DESY. We're all the better for having gotten to work with Wade and especially to count him as a friend."

In August 2010 Wade transferred to the Technical Division as a technical specialist. He quickly became part of the team and was given supervisory responsibility over a group of mechanical technicians. He continued to make invaluable individual contributions while effectively leading his team in support of magnets and SRF cavities test facilities upgrades. Wade is characterized by co-workers as the type of person who asked "what needs to be done" and did it, as opposed to one who says "tell me what to do."

"We all valued him not only because Wade was the nucleus of so many critical activities, but also because interacting with him made coming to work so much more enjoyable," said Allan Rowe of the SRF Development Department. "We will all miss his colorful sense of humor and his willingness to share that humor with anyone who happened by."

His untimely passing is a tremendous loss to the Fermilab family. It will be extremely difficult to fill his shoes, and he will be greatly missed.

A memorial service for Wade will take place at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 8, at the Moss Family Funeral Home located at 209 South Batavia Avenue in Batavia. See Wade's obituary and memorial page for details, or call the memorial home at 630-879-7900 for more information.

Ruben Carcagno and Cosmore Sylvester, TD

In Brief

TIAA-CREF workshop: Tomorrow in Focus: Saving for your ideal retirement

Believe it or not, your retirement starts now. No matter how old or young you are or where you are in your career, your retirement begins when you start saving for it.

On Thursday, Aug. 15, at noon, TIAA-CREF will host an interactive workshop at Fermilab on retirement saving and creating an effective plan to help maximize your retirement potential. The workshop takes place in One West. Register online today. You can also reserve a seat by calling 1-800-732-8353 between Monday and Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT.

The workshop will help you understand the benefit of time in regard to saving, learn the essential features of retirement investments and gain the confidence you need to create or modify your own retirement plan.

Feel free to invite a colleague who will also benefit from this workshop.

In the News

Better, faster, stronger: Large Hadron Collider gets a major upgrade to help scientists learn more about the God particle

From the Daily Mail, Aug. 1, 2013

A year ago, the world's largest particle collider made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science, identifying what is believed to be the Higgs boson—the long-sought maker of mass.

Today, its computer screens are dark, the control desks unstaffed and the giant, supercooled tunnel empty of the crashing proton beams whose snapshots of the Big Bang helped flush out the elusive particle.

But the silence is an illusion. Behind the scenes, work is pushing ahead to give the vast machine a mighty upgrade, enabling it to advance the frontiers of knowledge even farther.

Read more

Director's Corner

Planning meetings with DOE leadership

Jack Anderson

Last week I spent three days in Washington, D.C., meeting with DOE officials on a variety of topics. Of primary importance was a meeting in which invited national laboratory representatives, including myself, had the pleasure of hosting Secretary Moniz and two new members of his staff: David Klaus, deputy undersecretary for management and performance, and Melanie Kenderdine, executive director for energy policy and systems analysis.

During our meeting, Secretary Moniz elaborated on several of his key management initiatives. First, he is quickly embarking on preparing a new comprehensive strategic plan that will establish Department of Energy priorities and also help inform planning for the FY15 budget. This effort is just beginning, and Moniz has already requested input from the laboratory directors on key themes to include in the planning.

Second, he continues to provide avenues for feedback and input to his management agenda. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board is being reconstituted and will be co-chaired by John Deutch, emeritus institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Persis Drell, SLAC director emeritus. The SEAB will include four subcommittees: science, energy, national security and environmental stewardship. The Secretary will personally chair the new Laboratory Policy Council, which will include four laboratory directors as well as the DOE undersecretaries and other key members of the department.

Third, a key near-term priority for DOE will be the formulation of the Quadrennial Energy Review. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has recommended that the United States develop a government-wide federal energy policy and update the policy regularly with strategic QERs. The QER will be coordinated within the department by Melanie Kenderdine and is intended to establish integrated, government-wide national energy objectives in the context of economic, environmental and security priorities, as well as identify the resources needed for the invention, adoption and diffusion of energy technologies.

Next step in the planning? We will continue to look for every appropriate opportunity to engage with DOE on issues involving planning and strategy. The national laboratory chief research officers are already working on assembling a workshop this fall to provide support to Melanie Kenderdine for the QER.

Photos of the Day

Prairie wildflowers

A purple flower known as a hairy vetch attracts a bumblebee in the prairie between the eastbound and westbound Pine Street lanes. Photo: Barb Kristen, PPD
These yellow flowers, which can be seen off Pine Street, are compass plants, so named because their basal leaves orient themselves in a north-to-south direction to avoid the direct rays of the midday sun. Photo: Barb Kristen, PPD
Construction Update

Muon catcher installed in NOvA Near-Detector Cavern

NOvA's first near-detector block, the muon catcher, is now installed in the underground detector hall. Photo: Cindy Arnold

PPD engineers and technicians completed the installation of the NOvA experiment's first near-detector block, the muon catcher, in the underground detector hall on Aug. 1. The muon catcher consists of 10 layers of 4-inch-thick heavy steel plates sandwiched by two layers of PVC plastic calorimetry modules. This picture shows one steel unit sitting on a pair of channel guide tracks and in the process of being moved to its final position.

Announcements

Today's New Announcements

An Honest Approach to Weight Management - register by Aug. 22

All 2013 summer interns photo - Aug. 7

Fermilab Heartland Blood Drive - Aug. 12 and 13

UChicago Tuition Remission program deadline - Aug. 22

URA Visiting Scholars program deadline - Aug. 26

Outdoor soccer at the Village

International folk dancing in Auditorium for summer

Chicago Fire discount tickets

Fermilab discount at Don's Auto Ade Inc.

Bristol Renaissance Faire discount