Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011
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Wednesday, Feb. 9
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium
Speaker: Leo P. Kadanoff, University of Chicago/Perimeter Institute
Title: Making a Splash - Breaking a Neck: The Making of Complexity in Physical Systems

Thursday, Feb. 10
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Johannes Heinonen, University of Chicago
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR THIS TODAY

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Weather Cold
9°/-11°

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Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, Feb. 9

- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Portobello harvest grain soup
- Santa Fe chicken quesadilla
- Hoisin chicken
- *Parmesan fish
- Cuban panini
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Shrimp pesto

*carb-restricted alternative

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednesday, Feb. 9
Lunch
- Baby-back ribs
- Baked potato
- Tangy BBQ beans
- Sherbet with cookies

Friday, Feb. 11
Valentine's Day dinner

Guest Chef: Joe Walding
Special Time: 6 p.m
.
- Moules marinière
- Marinated lamb chops with honey and coriander
- Winter vegetable tagine
- Blueberry and pear frangipane with thyme ice cream

Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.

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Feature

"Through the Lens" exhibit to showcase the art of physics

Bonnie Fleming and Mitch Soderberg working on the ArgoNeut detector. Photo: Reidar Hahn.

As they uncover the secrets of matter and energy, physics experiments often change our perspective of the world around us. Examining the experiments also can reveal new landscapes of color, symmetry and light.

Beginning on Friday, Feb. 11, the Fermilab Art Gallery will feature “Through the Lens,” an exhibit of photographs by Reidar Hahn and the Particle Physics Photowalk participants. The exhibit showcases the equipment and people who make physics discoveries possible. A public reception takes place from 5-7 p.m. on Friday.

For 23 years, Fermilab photographer Reidar Hahn has been exploring the colorful world of particle physics. Friday’s show features 31 of Hahn’s photographs alongside 20 photos from the 2010 Global Particle Physics Photowalk, which took place in August 2010 at laboratories in Asia, Europe and North America.

Amateur photographers touring five particle accelerator laboratories were able to capture rare views of complex laboratory equipment. Many of their photos are displayed online here.

The upcoming show at Fermilab features the work of nine local photowalk participants and two global contest winners.

“The show will concentrate on the beauty of the devices we use for research,” Hahn said. “One characteristic of Fermilab is that people still put effort into form, not just function.”

Georgia Schwender, Fermilab’s visual arts coordinator, believes a show featuring Hahn’s work has been a long time in coming.

“I’ve always wanted to display Reidar’s work. Our founder, Robert Wilson, believed art and science were connected,” Schwender said. “Reidar gets that connection, and he boils down complicated information into beautiful images that make that connection clear to the viewer.”

“Through the Lens” will remain on display until April 8. After the reception, members of the public may view the gallery by appointment only.

To make an appointment, contact Georgia Schwender at (630) 840-6825. For more information, visit the Fermilab Art Gallery website.

- Cynthia Horwitz

Broken Symmetry sculpture at Fermilab's main entrance. By photowalk winner Ken Duszynski.
In the News

Sizing up the electron

From Science News, Feb. 12, 2011

Long thought to be a simple speck of negative charge, the humble electron may be hiding one more surprise in its depths.

The electron was the first fundamental particle discovered. It was the first to have its charge measured, and it inspired the mathematical equation that first hinted at the existence of antimatter, the exotic, oppositely charged counterpart to ordinary matter.

Now the electron is poised to go one step further, by helping scientists understand why matter triumphed over antimatter in the early universe. In theory, the Big Bang should have created matter and antimatter in equal amounts, but if so they would have annihilated each other and left nothing behind.

Read more

In the News

Science gender gap probed

From Nature, Feb. 7, 2011

Goodbye glass ceiling; so long old-boys club. The metaphor that best describes the challenge facing women in science today is the invisible web. Its multiple strands — some social, some biological, some institutional — can make it significantly harder for female researchers to achieve as much, as fast, as their male counterparts.

So concludes a study that set out to explore the persistent gap in the number of women in maths-intensive fields such as physics, computer science and engineering. It finds that overt discrimination of the sort that would make a female candidate less likely to be hired, published or funded when competing against an equally qualified male is largely a thing of the past. Instead, trade-offs between pursuing a career and raising a family, coupled with societal factors and gender expectations that can influence professional choices at a young age, are more likely to account for the shortage of women in some fields.

Read more (Subscription only)

From FESS

Non-scientific upgrades

Randy Ortgiesen

Randy Ortgiesen, head of the Facilities and Engineering Services Section, wrote this week's column.

As the laboratory has now entered the fifth month of this year’s Continuing Resolution, there is still much uncertainty about the final fiscal year 2011 budget, but the laboratory continues to progress towards its future.

We have heard quite a bit about how the continuing resolution does not currently allow for new starts on capital projects and the impact it could have on project engineering and design funds for scientific projects such as LBNE, Mu2e and MicroBooNE. These projects have obtained DOE approval for “mission need” in order to continue to receive funding, but at some level are dependent on a final budget to determine how the projects can progress.

Another project has also received approval, including proposed funding in FY11 for engineering, design and procurements that take a long time. The Utility Upgrade Project, while not as well known as the scientific projects is still very important to the laboratory's future. This project is a line item project, which means that it requires approval by Congress. It is part of the DOE Science Laboratory Infrastructure (SLI) program.

The Utility Upgrade Project will improve the laboratory's industrial cooling water and high-voltage electrical systems. By replacing electrical switches that use oil as an insulator with more modern air switches, we enhance reliability and reduce environmental liability. Likewise, replacing industrial cooling water system components enhances system pressures for fire protection and building sprinkler systems. These improvements also create a backbone from which current operations and future laboratory projects can obtain process cooling water.

The laboratory has historically invested in utility infrastructure through laboratory-funded improvement projects but has made a strong case for line-item capital funding to help satisfy the growing utility requirements. In fact, you can observe some of the results of the laboratory’s utility projects in the excavations currently underway in the Industrial Center areas and for underground piping across the site. You will soon see more evidence of these as we enter the spring construction season. However, the significant increase in funding that will come from the DOE SLI Utility Upgrade Project at Fermilab is from a mission readiness standpoint, perhaps one of the most critical to the laboratory’s future. Without it, we will find it very difficult to sustain current operations and prepare for the future.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Feb. 7

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section lists no recordable incidents.Two employees slipped on snow-covered ice in parking areas.

Find the full report here.

Announcements

Latest Announcements

Urgent plea for blood donors - Feb. 14-15

NALWO arts & crafts show & tell - March 15

On-site housing for summer 2011 - Now taking requests deadline - March 7

Barn dance - Feb. 13

Embedded Design with LabVIEW FPGA and CompactRIO class - Feb. 25

Toastmasters - Feb. 17

NALWO - Piano Concert at noon - Feb. 21

NALWO - Mardi Gras Potluck - March 3

Free stress relief massages for employees - Feb. 11

Lunch and Learn about Acid Reflux

March 4 deadline for The University of Chicago Tuition Remission program

View UEC tax presentation for users online

School's Day Out - Feb. 21 and 25

English country dancing in Oak Park - today

Kyuki-Do Martial Arts classes - Feb. 14

Rapid Hardware Prototyping and Industrial Control Application Development with LabVIEW FPGA, Compact RIO, and FlexRIO by National Instruments course - Feb. 25

Introduction to LabVIEW course - Feb. 25

Floating holiday - Kronos timecard

GSA announced 2011 standard mileage reimbursement rate

Accelerate to a Healthy Lifestyle wrap up

FRA Scholarship 2011

Argentine Tango Classes through Feb. 23

Open basketball at the gym

Disney On Ice presents Toy Story 3 - Feb. 2-13

Project Management Introduction class - Feb. 14, 16 & 18

Apply now for URA Visiting Scholars Awards program deadline - Feb. 18

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