Fermilab Today Monday, Sept. 14, 2009
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Monday, Sept. 14
2:30 p.m.
Particle Astrophysics Seminar - One West
Speaker: Josh Frieman, Fermilab/University of Chicago
Title: Constraining Dark Energy: First Results from the SDSS-II Supernova Survey
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
All Experimenters' Meeting - Curia II
Special Topic: CMS/LHC Report

Tuesday, September 15
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

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Wilson Hall Cafe

Monday, Sept. 14
- French Quarter gumbo
- French dip w/horseradish cream sauce
- Santa Fe pork stew
- Country baked chicken
- Popcorn shrimp wrap
- Assorted slice pizza
- Sweet n' sour chicken w/egg roll

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Sept. 16
Lunch
- Northern Italian lasagna
- Mixed green salad
- Almond orange cake

Thursday, Sept. 17
Dinner
- Beet and Roquefort salad w/walnuts
- Chilean sea bass w/spicy red pepper sauce
- Lemongrass rice
- Sautéed spinach with garlic & lemon
- Fresh fruit tart

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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From symmetry breaking

Inventing a thingamajig for NuMI's "mission impossible"

Vladimir Sidorov, an Accelerator Division engineer, and Jerry Judd from the Particle Physics Division's Mechanical Support Department measure a piece of the thingamajig, a device created to help NuMI/MINOS collaborators replace a key piece of equipment.

Sometimes, it takes doing the nearly impossible to keep physics experiments running smoothly. It also takes a sense of humor. And a thingamajig.

Crews in Fermilab's NuMI/MINOS experiment recently extracted and replaced a difficult to access piece of equipment using a homemade device. They replaced the experiment's hadron monitor, a key piece of equipment that helps to align and monitor the beam quality.

In order for particles to get to the hadron monitor, protons enter the experiment, collide with a graphite target and then break apart. Another piece of equipment then focuses these resulting particles into a pipe, called the decay pipe, where the particles decay, or transform into other particles. The monitor is located in front of the decay pipe, an area where workers can't go and that is difficult for machines to access.

"The hadron monitor wasn't designed to be replaced, and now we have to replace it. This is a challenge," said NuMI Shutdown Coordinator Mike Andrews before the repair.

A remotely operable device created by a cross-division team of engineers and technicians was used last month to extract and replace the NuMI experiment's hadron monitor.

When problems started to exist with the hadron monitor two years ago, NuMI/MINOS collaborators solicited the help of an expert team of engineers and technicians from the accelerator and particle physics divisions to conceive, design, and create a device that could remotely extract and replace the monitor.

The answer was an Erector Set-looking device with no name. The one-of-a-kind 3,000-pound device stood about 14 feet tall, was 5 feet long and 5 feet wide, and had its nickname, thingamajig, scrawled on its center steel beam in permanent marker.

"We didn't know what to call it," said Al Legan of the Accelerator Division Controls Department.

Legan, who used to work on manipulators and fixed-target experiments, designed seven motors for the device-one for each of its movable parts. He worked with Vladimir Sidorov, an Accelerator Division engineer, and Jerry Judd from the Particle Physics Division's mechanical support department.

Sidorov designed the device's structure and mechanics, while Judd was responsible for the device's assembly. Both previously worked on the Main Injector's collimator system.

The expert team spent six months working in constant communication to create the device-sharing designs and ideas via e-mail and in person.

Read more

Personnel who worked on the device: Greg Stradal, PPD; Otto Alvarez, PPD; Wojciech Blaszynski, PPD; Ralph Ford, AD; Shaun Langford, contractor; Tony Busch, AD; Mike Andrews, AD; Al Legan, AD; Mike Coburn, AD; Patrick Hurh, AD; Ban Galan, AD; Dave Erickson, PPD; Vladimir Sidorov, AD; and Jerry Judd, PPD.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

In the News

Last days of big American physics: one more triumph, or just another heartbreak?

From Wired Science, Sept. 9, 2009

High-energy particle physicists around the world are collectively holding their breath waiting for the Large Hadron Collider to come online and start unlocking the most elusive secrets of the universe. It's as if time is standing still until their shiny new toy is ready to play with.

But not at Fermilab. Here, physicists are in the scientific equivalent of an all-out sprint, still clinging to the ever-thinning hope that before the LHC ramps up to full power, their own 28-year old particle collider, the Tevatron, will catch the coveted Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that is at the heart of the Standard Model of physics.

"It's a worthy fight," said physicist Roy Schwitters of the University of Texas at Austin. "Their chances are certainly not zero, but they're not great."

 

Read more

ES&H Tips of the Week - Environment ecology

Environmental protection question? Contact your EO

Fermilab's Environmental Officers can help you determine if your work has an impact on the environment.

Fermilab has a strong history of interacting positively with our environment. We have more than 1,100 acres of restored natural Illinois prairie, conduct regular prairie burns to get rid of invasive plant species and rebuild natural habitats, such as the award-winning Nepese marsh on site.

To help maintain our natural resources, you need to know the impact your work has on the environment and work to minimize it. Do you know whom to talk to if you have a question about the environmental protection aspects of your work at Fermilab? Do your activities have the potential to pollute the water or air? Are you sure that the way you dispose of waste is appropriate? Even when you work in an office, do you use chemicals or other substances that must be treated as hazardous waste?

Answers to these questions are important and often complicated. Every division and section has an environmental officer, whose role is similar to the senior safety officer. Your environmental officer can help you to determine answers to your questions about environmental protection and coordinate any necessary actions with the ES&H Section. Fermilab environmental officers for each division, section and center and their contact information are listed below:

ES&H, DO Eric Mieland x2248
AD, APC Barry Fritz x2230
BSS, FI Greg Mitchell x8002
CD Amy Pavnica x8493
FESS Rod Walton x2565
PPD, CPA Rob Bushek x2399
TD Bridget Scerini x3382
WDRS Mike Bonkalski x8448

 

Another reason to gauge the impact your work has on the environment is to be sure that the work is within legal limits. Legal mandates control how we manage water on the site, what we are permitted to release into the air, how we dispose of waste and how we site and design new construction. You can check with your environmental officer for answers about the impact your work has on the environment or to determine if your work is in compliance with the federal or state laws that constrain environmental issues. Many of the laws are implemented by formal permits issued by government agencies whose job it is to protect our environmental resources.

-- Rod Walton, ecologist

Safety Tip of the Week Archive

Shutdown Update

Sept. 9-11
- MiniBooNE continues to take beam when available
- TeV safety system test completed
- Beam established to MI, Recycler and Pbar
- TeV and NuMI should receive beam on Friday

Read the Current Accelerator Update
Read the Early Bird Report
View the Tevatron Luminosity Charts

Announcements

Argentine Tango through Sept. 30

Barn dance - Sept. 13

Bowlers wanted Wednesday nights

Thai Village restaurant discount

Robotics for Fermilab employees' children

Scrapbooking Open House - Sept. 14

New Lo Cardio Class - Sept. 14 - Nov. 16

New Tai Chi For Health class - Sept. 14 - Nov. 16

URA Visiting Scholars Program now accepting applications

Six Flags Great America discount tickets

Fermilab Toastmasters can help you find your voice - Sept. 17

S&T Policy: A View from Washington, D.C. - Sept. 18

Mosaico Hispanico - celebrating Hispanic music and dance - Sept. 19

English Country Dancing - Sept. 20

MathWorks and Avnet demonstration Sept. 23

Sign up for fall Science Adventures classes

Office 2007 New Features class offered in September

Buttered Rum performs on Fermilab Arts Series Oct. 24

Fred Garbo Inflatable Theatre - at Fermilab Arts Series - Nov. 7

Process piping (ASME B31.3) class offered in October and November

"The Night Before Christmas Carol" at Fermilab Arts Series - Dec. 5

Chicago Field Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence to offer counterintelligence cyber awareness seminar - Sept. 15

 
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