 | Monday, March 13, 2006 |
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Monday, March 13 2:30 p.m. Particle Astrophysics Seminar - Curia II Speaker: P. Mannheim, University of Connecticut Title: Dark Matter and Dark Energy 3:30 p.m. DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over THERE WILL BE NO ALL EXPERIMENTERS' MEETING THIS WEEK
Tuesday, March 14 |
Chance of Snow/Rain 49º/25º
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Secon Level 3 |
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Monday, March 13 -Wisconsin Cheese -Corned Beef Reuben -Stuffed Chicken Breast -Shepherd's Pie -Turkey Craisins Wrap -Meatlover's Pizza -Pacific Rim Rice Bowl The Wilson Hall Cafe accepts Visa, Master Card, Discover and American Express. |
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Wednesday, March 15
Thursday, March 16
Chez Leon Menu |
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| After 40 Years of Service, Jolly Green Giant May Retire | ||
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| In biology, there is a loose rule of thumb that says the bigger an organism, the longer its life will be. If Fermilab's "Jolly Green Giant" is any indication, the rule may also apply to equipment in high-energy physics. The Jolly Green Giant is a 250-ton magnet, named for its size and bright green color, that may finally be retiring after a 40-year career steering particles in HEP experiments. A few weeks ago, two of JGG's four pancake-shaped coils shorted and started leaking water. "The magnet is not dead yet, but badly wounded," said Leon Beverly, of the Particle Physics Division. In magnet-years, 40 is really old. After performing in four different experiments, and getting a variety of patch jobs and face-lifts, the magnet has outlived the US industrial base that created it.
The JGG magnet was born at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator at Harvard. A famous engineer named Dave Jacobus designed it in 1964 to guide electrons in the Strauch-Walker experiment, which studied the photo-production of electron pairs involving a large momentum transfer. After 20 years of steering electrons at Harvard, the JGG was broken into pieces and transported to Brookhaven National Laboratory for the E776 experiment. Ed Hartouni, a University of Massachusetts physicist working at BNL at the time, remembers how the supervising engineer turned the rusty giant into a spectrometer magnet for the experiment. "There were a number of very cool rigging tasks that Al had to accomplish. The best was getting the coils onto the steel without damage," he said. "He set the magnet out on a grassy field and packed the place where the lower coils would rest with dry ice, and set the coils down on it. As the ice evaporated, it settled them gently into place." Even then, 20 years ago, Hartouni remembers a sign affixed to the magnet that read: "Congratulations, you are the proud owner of an historic relic."
In 1988, the BNL experiment was transferred to Fermilab's Lab-G, and the Jolly Green Giant came with it. Fermilab physicist Dave Christian remembers when the magnet first arrived. "We made the entire floor of thick reinforced concrete, like a very
high-quality U.S. interstate highway, so we could put the magnet
anywhere in the lab," he said. After helping the E690 experiment
study proton-proton diffraction in Lab G, the magnet moved to Fermilab's MIPP experiment in 2002. "Now we use JGG to bend the particles we've produced in collisions so we can track them," said Rajendran Raja, MIPP spokesperson. Raja admitted that the magnet would be expensive to fix, and possibly impractical, but he isn't quite ready to say goodbye. "We can't quite write JGG off as dead," he said. "We just don't know yet."
Click here to see a video of the JGG magnet being installed at MIPP (must have Quicktime player). | ||
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Above: One of the magnet's four pancake-shaped coils. This coil shorted soon after the JGG arrived at the MIPP experiment. It was shipped to California and repaired at a cost of 150 thousand dollars. Two of the four coils are currently broken. (Click image for larger version.) |
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| Above: The Jolly Green Giant was installed at MIPP in 2002. (Click image for larger version.) |
| Crosswalks | |
Use crosswalks - There are 15 marked crosswalks on the Fermilab site: most are around Wilson Hall and along Road D. According to Illinois Law, vehicle operators are required to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Alternatively, pedestrians crossing at other locations are required to yield to vehicles, (see Illinois Vehicle Code) Pay attention at crosswalks - Drivers should familiarize themselves with Fermilab's marked locations and be alert for people trying to cross the street. Pedestrians should remain alert any time they share a surface used by vehicles. See and be seen - Because walking is such a routine part of everyday life, many people do not consider the safety aspects of walking. Pedestrians need to keep in mind that they need to be seen to be avoided. For example, consider wearing light colors or bright clothing, especially in low-light conditions. |
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March 3 - 10 - Linac resumed operation on March 9. Read the Current Accelerator Update Read the Early Bird Report View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts |
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Forbes, March issue, 2006: Big Bang It will be the world’s largest machine. It could explain the origins of the universe. But first a team of engineers has the gargantuan logistic challenge of putting the Large Hadron Collider together For physicists the large Hadron Collider will be the ultimate blackboard. This particle accelerator will have 1,700 enormous superconducting magnets stretched along a 17-mile-long underground tunnel spanning the French-Swiss border. The magnets, weighing up to 37 tons each, will accelerate two beams of protons in opposite directions to nearly the speed of light. These protons will collide in four giant particle detectors, the largest of which will occupy an underground cavern as big as Notre Dame Cathedral, producing a spray of particles that scientists hope will unlock profound secrets about the origins of the universe and the nature of matter itself. |
Found: Red Gloves
Blackhawks Hockey Discounts
Rocketry Meeting |
