"Final Theory" part science fiction, part physics lesson

"Final Theory," a new book by Scientific American writer Mark Alpert, spins a science fiction tale, while giving brief physics lessons along the way. As part of his research, Alpert toured Fermilab experiments, including MiniBooNE, pictured here.

In Mark Alpert's book "Final Theory," released June 3, Fermilab provides the setting for a climactic battle between good and evil over finding Albert Einstein's Theory of Everything.

Scientific American writer Mark Alpert's new book, "Final Theory," involves Fermilab and high-energy physics.

The idea for the novel sprang from research Alpert was doing on Einstein for Scientific American, and from a trip to Fermilab to research a story on neutrinos. Alpert was wowed by the different approaches to physics beyond the Standard Model, the current recipe for matter and the forces of nature.

At the energy frontier, the Tevatron and its detectors produce and analyze sprays of millions of particles each second from collisions at nearly the speed of light. The particles could hold the key to extra dimensions and new never-before-seen constituents of matter.

At the intensity frontier, Alpert toured the BooNE/MiniBooNE experiment. Neutrinos and their antiparticles could be the key to a universe made entirely of matter.

"In the back of my mind, I was thinking this is great thriller material. It is very James Bond. There is so much going on here," Alpert said. "I really had so much fun on the tour and the excitement that is going on there. I tried to inject that into the book."

"I was just so impressed with the Tevatron," said Alpert in choosing Fermilab as the setting. "Until the LHC comes on, this is the most powerful (accelerator) in the world, and there may still be some amazing physics to come out of here in the next few years."

The Tevatron control room, CDF collision hall, accelerator tunnels, Wilson Hall and MiniBooNE's 40-foot-diameter detector create, unique settings for the book.

"I tried really hard to make it accurate, but for narrative reasons I changed little stuff," he said.

--Tona Kunz

Read the full article on the symmetry breaking blog.

At the end of the rainbow

CMS collaborator Mark Ruschman submitted this photo of two rainbows ending at CERN's Point 5 (CMS). "There is something far more valuable than a mere pot of gold at the end of the rainbows!" Ruschman said.

Physicists in Congress calculate their influence

From New York Times, June 10, 2008

According to the Congressional Research Service, there are only about 30 scientists among the 535 senators and representatives in the 110th Congress, and that is counting the psychologist, the psychiatrist, a dozen other M.D.'s, three nurses, an engineer, two veterinarians, a pharmacist and an optometrist.

But physics is on a roll.

"Go back 15 years, and there weren't any physicists," said Vernon J. Ehlers, a Republican who taught the subject at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., until he was elected to Congress in 1993.

His was a lone voice until 1998, when Rush Holt, assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics laboratory, won election from New Jersey as a Democrat. And today there are three, adding Bill Foster, a physicist at Fermilab and another Democrat, who won a special election in March in Illinois.

"If we continue to reproduce in this manner," Mr. Foster began, and Mr. Ehlers finished the thought, "the entire Congress would consist of physicists!"

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Batavia laboratory contributes key component of NASA telescope

From Chicago Tribune, June 12, 2008

Box zeros in on gamma rays

Fermilab has sought for years to penetrate the secrets of the universe, exploring mysteries of the physics that led to atoms, stars and galaxies.

But on Wednesday the earthbound laboratory in Batavia found its handiwork floating in space for what officials believe is the first time. The lab contributed a key component of National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), which was launched into orbit by a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The GLAST-now orbiting 350 miles above Earth, circling the planet every 90 minutes-is a powerful space observatory that will study the most extreme environments in the universe, including pulsars and supermassive black holes that fire jets of material at nearly light speed, scientists say.

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