Fermilab Today Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008
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Wednesday, Oct. 22
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO FERMILAB COLLOQUIUM THIS WEEK

Thursday, Oct. 23
THERE WILL BE NO PHYSICS AND DETECTOR SEMINAR THIS WEEK
2:30 p.m.
Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: Enno Scholz, Fermilab
Title: Physical Results from 2+1 Flavor Lattice Domain Wall QCD
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
THERE WILL BE NO ACCELERATOR PHYSICS AND TECHNOLOGY SEMINAR TODAY

Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.

Weather

Weather

Cloudy
54°/37°

Extended Forecast
Weather at Fermilab

Current Security Status

Secon Level 3

Wilson Hall Cafe

Wednesday, Oct. 22
- Chicken noodle
- Pizza burger
- *Maple dijon salmon
- Mongolian beef
- California club
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken cajun pasta

*Carb restricted alternative

Wilson Hall Cafe Menu

Chez Leon

Wednedsay, Oct. 22
Lunch
- Grilled salmon w/scallion sauce
- Lemongrass rice
- Pineapple upside down cake

Thursday, Oct. 23
Dinner
- Closed

Chez Leon Menu
Call x4598 to make your reservation.

Archives

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Info

Fermilab Today
is online at:
www.fnal.gov/today/

Send comments and suggestions to:
today@fnal.gov

Feature

Adopt-a-Physicist program puts a new face on science

Adopt-a-Physicist helps students communicate with physicists online.

When your average student pictures a scientist, he or she might draw from images in movies.

But the Society of Physics Students has found a way to connect students with real scientists through the computer screen instead of the silver screen.

For three weeks, high school students participating in the society's Adopt-a-Physicist program communicated with physicists through an online forum about the scientists' lives, work and aspirations.

"Many people don't have a sense of what you can do with a major in physics," wrote Kendra Rand, Society of Physics Students program coordinator. "In fact, we've heard stories of people whose guidance counselors have told them not to major in physics because it's not very marketable."

More than 120 working physicists who participated in the forum beg to differ.

Fermilab physicist David Harding participated in the program to make science and scientists more real to the students.

"That way, they may be able to think of themselves as possibly being scientists one day," he said.

Harding said many students are put off by science when teachers present it as an academic exercise rather than a concrete way to understand the world.

But "most of them have a natural interest, if they know what science is," he said.

Students on the forum asked physicists questions ranging from "Will the Large Hadron Collider create a black hole?" to "Do you think time travel is possible?" to "Does being a physicist get you more dates?"

Gary White, director of the Society of Physics Students, wryly answered that last question: "Probably less."

But students were most interested in getting to know their "adopted" physicists as people, said participant and Fermilab physicist Michael Syphers.

"I thought they might want help with their homework," he said. But in addition to asking questions about science and society, "they wanted to know; Am I a real person? Do I have kids?"

-- Kathryn Grim

In the News

CERN inaugurates the LHC

From Interactions.org, Oct. 21, 2008

Swiss President Pascal Couchepin and French Prime Minister François Fillon were joined at CERN* today by science ministers from CERN's Member States and around the world to inaugurate the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most complex scientific instrument.

"Today is a day for CERN to thank its Member States for their continued support for basic science, and for providing the stable framework that makes science of this kind possible," said CERN Director General Robert Aymar. "It is also a day for CERN and the global particle physics community to take a sense of pride in the achievement of bringing this unique facility from dream to reality, a process that has taken over two decades of careful planning, prototyping and construction, culminating with the successful circulation of the machine's first protons in front of a global audience on 10 September this year."

Read more

Photos of the Day

Celebrations, continued

Partygoers enjoy Fermilab's Labwide Party, held Friday, Oct. 17.

CD's Dave Ritchie and Directorate's Monica Sasse announce raffle winners during the Labwide Party Friday.
Gir K. Leung from China plays a PiPa solo. More images from Friday's Diversity Fair are now available online. View the images.
Director's Corner

An important day

U.S. Delegation to the LHC Inauguration and members of the CMS Collaboration in front of the CMS detector. Front row, from left to right: Moishe Pripstein, NSF; NSF Director Arden Bement, Jr.; DOE Under Secretary for Science Raymond Orbach; US CMS Project Manager Joel Butler; Otto Van Maerssen, U.S. Mission to the UN in Geneva. Back row, left to right: Bob Cousins, CMS Deputy Spokesperson; Fermilab Director Pier Oddone; Head of the NSF Europe Office David Stonner; John Ellis, CERN; Dennis Kovar, DOE; Michelangelo Mangano, CERN. Courtesy of Kathleen Yurkewicz.

Yesterday was the much-anticipated inauguration of the Large Hadron Collider. It was an extraordinary day in which CERN hosted 42 delegations from member countries, observer states and collaborating countries. CERN staff piloted all these delegations through the LHC detectors in a beautifully organized fashion, with enough time to appreciate the layout and main design features of the detectors. The delegations arrived in perfect timing to the afternoon ceremony.

Before the visit to the detectors and the formal ceremony, the NSF participants led by NSF Director Dr. Ardent Bement, and the DOE participants, led by Undersecretary for Science Ray Orbach, attended a briefing by the U.S. groups participating in the accelerator and the two principal detectors CMS and ATLAS. The U.S. contribution has been very large. Now nearly 1,100 U.S. scientific authors will get the physics out of CMS and ATLAS. Many U.S. scientists play leading roles in these collaborations. They host nearly 350 U.S. Ph.D. students. The detectors are powerful and complex, each the product of intricate management to bring nearly 40 countries together. They are models of international collaboration and participation. We at Fermilab are very proud of the role we play in CMS where Fermilab has made the U.S. participation enormously effective. On the machine front, Fermilab accelerator physicists are helping commission the machine and are much appreciated for their experience and contributions.

In the afternoon the President of Switzerland, the prime minister of France, and several science minister from member countries participated in the inauguration ceremony. Fourteen hundred guests filled one of the big assembly halls where CERN had assembled and tested the LHC magnets. The various talks gave a view of the scientific discoveries possible with the LHC, the long road to the construction of the LHC and the great institution that is CERN, an alliance of 20 member states that support the institution through thick and thin. The strong statements of support by the representatives of many member countries for the pursuit of knowledge, for particle physics and for CERN were heartening. Everyone understood that we now have to make the machine work and that CERN can count on their unwavering support fixing the damage from the September 19 event.

The ceremony concluded with the premier of "Origins," a "visual concert" commissioned by CERN and adapted from "LIFE: a Journey through Life" produced by the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Santa Cruz. Thee Orchestre de la Suisse Romande played a new composition by Philip Glass while giant screens showed photographs and videos by Frans Lanting of the marvels of the universe and the earth we inhabit. This was a fitting ending for a beautiful ceremony carried out with élan in the face of the arduous work that remains to bring the machine to life next spring.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, Oct. 21

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, lists three injuries reported last week. One injury, in which an employee's leg was pinned between a die table and a motorized jack, is reportable. We have now worked 11 days since the last recordable injury. Find the full report here.

Safety report archive

Announcements

Have a safe day!

Town hall meeting with future director general of CERN
Fermilab will host an open town hall meeting with Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the designated director general of CERN, Oct. 28, at 10:45 a.m. in Ramsey Auditorium, followed by a reception in the WH Art Gallery (2nd floor) at noon. The town hall meeting includes a 10-minute talk by Heuer and a 60-minute Q&A session. Everyone is invited. Heuer would like to meet with all members of the U.S. particle physics community.

DreamWeaver CS3: Advanced Nov. 5
An advanced course in Dreamweaver CS3 will take place Nov. 5. Attendees can learn to establish database connectivity, work with record sets, create interactive page elements and administer database records and Web sites. Attendees can also learn to create a user authentication system. Learn more and enroll

PowerPoint 2003 class Nov. 11
A course in PowerPoint will take place Nov. 11. Attendees can learn to apply multimedia techniques to a PowerPoint presentation in order to create a slide show that will appeal to any audience. Learn more and enroll.

Traffic safety poster contest
The Traffic Safety Subcommittee is sponsoring a traffic safety poster contest for fourth and fifth grade students of Fermilab employees, users and contractors. The posters should promote increased traffic safety awareness. Entries are due Oct. 31. The contest winner will be announced in Fermilab Today. The top posters will be displayed in the Wilson Hall atrium. For more information and an entry form, click here.

Interpersonal Communication Skills course Nov. 11
A course in interpersonal communication skills will take place Nov. 11 for scientific, computing, engineering and technical staff. Attendees can increase their awareness of their communication skills and personality type. Attendees can also develop skills for more productive work relationships. Learn more and enroll

 
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