Have a safe day!
Wednesday, June 20
12:30 p.m.
Physics for Everyone (NOTE LOCATION) - Curia II
Speaker: Ruth Pordes and Derek Weitzel, Fermilab
Title: Connecting the World's Scientists with Computing Power
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Fermilab Colloquium - One West
Speaker: Xiang Zhang, University of California, Berkeley
Topic: Optical Metamaterials: Negative Refraction, Superlens and Plasmon Lasers
Thursday, June 21
3:30 p.m.
DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK -
2nd Flr X-Over
4 p.m.
Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar (NOTE LOCATION) - Curia II
Speaker: Ian Pong, ITER
Title: From Nb, Ti and Sn to NbTi and Ti-doped Nb3Sn, from Raw Material to Full-Size Conductor
THERE WILL BE NO THEORETICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR THIS WEEK
Click here for NALCAL,
a weekly calendar with links to additional information.
Upcoming conferences
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Wednesday, June 20
- Breakfast: English muffin sandwich
- Smart cuisine: Cajun style lentil soup
- Cajun chicken ranch
- Caribbean jerk pork chops
- Chicken Parmesan
- Smoked-turkey panini w/ pesto mayo
- Assorted sliced pizza
- Chicken fettuccine Alfredo
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu |
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Wednesday, June 20
Lunch
- Pork satay w/ peanut sauce
- Asian noodles
- Sautéed pea pods
- Rice pudding
Friday, June 22
Dinner
Closed
Chez Leon Menu
Call x3524 to make your reservation.
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DASTOW and Physics for Everyone - today
Today is Daughters and Sons to Work Day. It begins promptly at 8:30 a.m. with a group photo in front of Wilson Hall. The day's events will take place in the Wilson Hall atrium, in Ramsey Auditorium, at the Fermilab Fire Department and at the bison farm. A full schedule for DASTOW can be found here.
This month's Physics for Everyone lecture also takes place today at 12:30 p.m. in Curia II. The featured speakers, Ruth Pordes and Derek Weitzel, will give a lecture entitled "Connecting the world's scientists with computing power."
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Staying competitive in
the 21st century
Vladimir Shiltsev, director of the Accelerator Physics Center, wrote this column.
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Vladimir Shiltsev
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Last week I traveled to Austin, Texas, to attend the Advanced Accelerator Concept workshop. Participants heard about the great progress in various accelerator R&D activities, ranging from laser plasma acceleration to new methods to improve the performance of radio-frequency cavities. I noticed that attendees reported significant advances in these fields in Europe and China.
Fermilab participants gave several well-received presentations on the progress made on the assembly of our Advanced Superconducting Test Accelerator, our plans for a new type of storage ring in the ASTA facility and R&D toward a muon collider. The talks about our ASTA facility especially drew interest from prospective collaborators.
The most frequently cited talk of the conference was the presentation by our Associate Director Stuart Henderson. He outlined what the U.S. particle physics community expects from the advanced accelerator research community in order to reach our common goal of “socially responsible and financially affordable” accelerators that achieve the scientific goals of the Energy and Intensity Frontiers.
On my flight back to Chicago I read the latest issue of Physics World magazine. An article (registration required) by Manjit Kumar titled “When physics was ‘made in the USA’” caught my attention. The author reviewed David Cassidy’s book “A short history of physics in the American century” and posed the question, “Would an equivalent history of physics in the 21st century be all about China?” Despite all the arguments presented in Kumar’s article, I think the answer is not yet clear. If we act, the United States has the chance to maintain its leadership in many areas of science. In particle physics, in particular, the construction of a dedicated accelerator facility at Fermilab – Project X – would keep us competitive for several decades.
With such thoughts I landed in Chicago, the city of big shoulders. Upon my arrival at Fermilab, I was fired up to dive back into the work that the APC carries out for Project X. The very next day, I attended the Project X Physics Study workshop at Fermilab, which runs until June 23. I was pleased to see particle physicists from the United States and around the globe with great excitement laying out their plans for future experiments using Project X, which would provide multi-megawatt proton beams at various energies.
With strong collaborators, support from our funding agencies and our trademark “can do” spirit, Fermilab will remain a world-class particle physics laboratory for the decades to come. Together we can do our share to make sure that the United States will remain a leader in physics research in the 21st century.
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Europe overtakes U.S. in physics pursuing God particle
From Bloomberg News, June 20, 2012
The nations of Europe, home to Galileo and Newton, are poised to reclaim the lead in physics from the U.S., as scientists around the world flock to Geneva in search of the so-called God particle.
More than 10,000 scientists are working at the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer (17-mile) circumference particle accelerator buried beneath France and Switzerland, in search of the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle believed to create mass and hold together the universe. Discovery of the particle -- if it exists -- may be announced this year.
While the U.S. has contributed $531 million to the $10.5 billion project and supplied 1,708 researchers, it doesn't participate in running it and can't fully share in commercial technologies from it. The U.S., which canceled funding for its own accelerator in 1993, risks ceding the lead in science to Europe, even with its economic woes, because the U.S. is no longer investing in large projects like the collider, said Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York.
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ICFA appoints Lyn Evans as first Linear Collider Director
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Fermilab Director
Pier Oddone |
At its February meeting earlier this year, the International Committee on Future Accelerators agreed that the world's undertakings to build a linear collider would benefit from a reorganization. For the last couple of years the Global Design Effort, which runs the International Linear Collider program, and the Compact Linear Collider organization have been collaborating on issues that are common to both efforts, such as damping rings, positron sources, conventional facilities, final-focus systems, detector configurations and costing studies. ICFA concluded it was time to proceed with a new organization that would unify both efforts.
ICFA has now taken the next significant step toward unification. It has appointed CERN's Lyn Evans to be the overall leader for the combined linear collider programs.
As Linear Collider Director, Lyn will represent the united linear collider effort to the worldwide science community and the funding agencies. Reporting to this linear collider director will be three associate directors: one for the ILC, one for CLIC, and one for physics and detectors for both ILC and CLIC. The transition to the new organization will take place over the next several months.
Over the past few months, a nominating committee appointed by ICFA sought input on suggestions across the European, American and Asian particle physics community on suggestions for the leadership of the unified linear collider effort. ICFA received an outstanding list of names, demonstrating the high caliber of science leaders in our field.
Lyn brings tremendous experience in the design and construction of accelerators. Most recently he led the construction of the Large Hadron Collider, which has achieved marvelous performance, with luminosity better than its design after only a short time in operation. The flood of results coming from the LHC is a testament to its enormous scientific and engineering success.
The linear collider community is indeed fortunate to have Lyn at the helm. At the upcoming ICHEP meeting in July, ICFA will start discussions on the appointment of the associate directors for the ILC, CLIC and physics research for both machines.
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ES&H weekly report, June 19
This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, contains three incidents. An employee received first-aid treatment after suffering minor abrasions after falling off his bike. Another employee strained his back while moving a pallet. Medical treatment makes this case recordable. Another employee received first-aid treatment after his knee popped as he entered a work vehicle.
Find the full report here. |
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Mostly sunny