signal to background

Dry run for the money; memories of the top quark discovery; the rise of θ13 in neutrino oscillations; symmetry gets slashdotted; PANIC: the trouble is in the name; new particle physics posters for schools; letters.

United Kingdom 1. Dover

France 1 2. Paris

Spain 2 3. Barcelona 4. Gibraltar (UK)

Morocco 5. Rabat 6. Marrakech 7. Agadir 8. Laâyoune 3 9. Dakhla

Mauritania 10. Nouâdhibou 11. Nouakchott 4 Senegal 12. Saint Louis 5

Gambia 6 13. Banjul 7

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A dry run for money coast of Africa. The three- toward the adventure aspect, Graduate students acclimate week journey, beginning but his Team Gila Monster to sparse levels of comfort, but December 26, includes a two- hopes to raise £3000 for SOS present and former Fermilab day dash by convoy through Children’s Villages. This doctoral students Matt Leslie the Sahara Desert. Austrian-based charity offers (Oxford University, CDF), The Plymouth-Banjul permanent homes and stable James Monk (Manchester Challenge 2006, also known environments for children who University, DZero), and Simon as “The Ultimate Banger have lost their parents. symmetry | volume 02 issue 10 dec 05/jan 06 Waschke (Glasgow University, Challenge,” is raising funds “It is a very sobering subject,” formerly CDF) are reaching for charities in Gambia, one he says, “but I’ve since learned for extremes: Taking a 1987 of many African nations a lot more than I used to know Renault purchased for £100 decimated by AIDS. The ’05 about the problems in Africa, (US$180) and driving it 3000 Challenge raised more than and my priorities have changed miles from Dover, England, to £142,000 (about $255,000). a little. SOS Children are helping Banjul, Gambia, on the west Leslie admits gravitating more than 45,000 children

4 orphaned by the African AIDS epidemic, and they need all the support they can get. AIDS rates are approaching 40% in some areas of Africa, which means there are villages with no adults left. When you hear this kind of information, it suddenly becomes very hard to think of a more deserving cause.” Go to www.gmonsters.com for more information on Team Gila Monster, the Plymouth- Banjul Challenge 2006, and how to support the SOS Children’s Villages. Mike Perricone

Top turns 10, in a manner of speaking After the discovery of a new elementary particle 10 years ago by Fermilab’s CDF and DZero detector collaborations, a group from DZero threw a party. Between bottles of bub- bly celebrating the top quark’s detection, a contest of brains was in full-swing. The chal- lenge: translate the title of the discovery paper, “Observation of the top quark,” into as many languages spoken within the collaboration as possible. The prize: a bottle of wine. Many of those hand-written translations, which had been saved by DZero physicist Meenakshi Narain, were on /jan 06 display at Fermilab in October 5 as scientists honored the 10th anniversary of the top quark discovery. Hundreds of Photos: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab Tevatron collaborators, past and present, gathered with national and international sci- the translations, about 40, in her was University of entists for the Top Turns Ten languages from Korean to California, Riverside, physicist celebration. In addition to a Berber. “The whole party was Ann Heinson, an assistant day of speeches and reflec- into it, walking up to each research physicist at the time. tions, visitors inspected an other and saying ‘Hey, I speak One of Heinson’s translations: symmetry | volume 02 issue 10 dec 0 array of posters highlighting this language, what do you “DZero takes a butchers at the discovery’s technical speak?’” said Narain, a DZero the top quark.” The tongue: aspects, its meaning, and the postdoc at the time of the Cockney. “I figured I might as parties that ensued. discovery. “It was a great way well add my own language,” Next to a poster of DZero to learn about people’s back- she said. collaborators drinking beer and grounds.” With 36 translations, Kendra Snyder toasting champagne appeared Narain won. But just behind

5 signal to background

Neutrinos: a gate- 30,000 symmetry Web traffic Oct. 12th way to new physics October 2005

Nature provides three kinds 20,000 Visits Oct. 13th of neutrinos. In the last ten years, physicists have gathered increasingly strong evidence 10,000 for neutrino oscillations, the transformation of one kind of neutrino into another one. Studying these oscillations in Slashdotted PANIC trouble more detail, scientists hope When the 10th issue of When physicists organized to learn more about the neutri- symmetry magazine came out the first Particles and Nuclei nos’ masses and the role of on October 12, the magazine’s International Conference in these ghost-like particles in Web server crashed unexpect- 1963, nobody thought that the the evolution of the universe. edly. Looking at the Web traffic acronym PANIC could cause A crucial quantity related to statistics, the reason became trouble in getting the word out the mathematical description obvious: symmetry had been about the meeting. That was of these oscillations is the mix- “slashdotted.” before the now-common use ing angle θ13 (pronounced Well-known to tech-savvy of email. Sending out informa- theta-one-three). Its value is Web users, slashdot.org high- tion about the 17th PANIC the gateway to understanding lights sites of interest around conference, held in Santa Fe whether neutrinos exhibit CP the Web, leading tens of thou- in October 2005, organizers violation, which explains why sands of devoted readers to discovered that email mes- matter and antimatter behave check out its recommenda- sages with a subject line con- in slightly different ways. tions. Bombarded like this, Web taining the word PANIC often Theoretical models predict that servers regularly crash: the “/. did not reach their destination. the value of θ13 is nonzero, but phenomen.” And so, when the Welcome to the world of current experiments have had front page of slashdot featured spam filters. no success at pinpointing the a link to symmetry’s gallery Of course, organizers quickly actual value. Scientists have of particle physics art from learned to avoid the problem. proposed new experiments to the issue, the server couldn’t More than 500 physicists and determine θ13 and to explore initially handle the resulting 80 students accepted the invita- CP violation. demand; it was set to only tion and attended the meeting, In the last five years, the accept 175 simultaneous con- bringing together nuclear and number of papers with θ13 in nections, usually more than particle physicists from over 20 the title has grown rapidly (see enough. Within minutes, the countries. From neutrino physics chart). There are 81 papers Web server was reconfigured to the strong force to high- with such a title in the spires and ready to handle the flow energy collisions, speakers sum- database, and two of these of readers from slashdot. And marized research results from papers already have over 50 flow they did. around the world. The students /jan 06 citations, proof that θ13 has The chart shows the num- were the judges for the best 5 become a hot topic in neutrino ber of visitors per day through talk, voting for Boris Kayser, research. the start of October. It peaks Fermilab, and his talk on “Status Heath O’Connell, Fermilab at nearly 30,000 on October 12, and New Opportunities in Neu- with another 20,000 visitors trino Physics.” Angela Olinto, on the following day. Traffic has University of Chicago, and Mark The number of papers with dropped off since the story Trodden, University of Syracuse, θ13 in the title left slashdot’s front page, but were runners-up. *data for 2005 are not yet complete residual traffic is still higher The next PANIC conference than earlier in the month. will take place in Eilat, Israel, in

30 symmetry | volume 02 issue 10 dec 0 If there is any good reason 2008. The first PANIC confer- 20 for a Web server to crash, it is ence in Israel took place in because of sudden great inter- 1967—long before the introduc- 10 est. For the symmetry team, tion of spam filters. Conference it was a welcome way to cele- organizers, please take note.

brate one year of publishing Kurt Riesselmann 00 99 99 the magazine. 2001 19 20 2002 2003 2004 *2005 David Harris

6 Particle physics goes sent to 3600 French high Featuring fewer details and to school schools on October 10. The a new design, the French Students around the world are schools also received copies poster is a simplified version of familiar with the periodic table of an eight-page leaflet and CPEP’s Chart of Fundamental of elements, a chart that out- a CD that provide teachers Particles and Interactions. lines how protons, neutrons, and students with additional CPEP’s award-winning Web and electrons form more than information. feature “The Particle Adven- 100 different types of atoms. The French initiative fol- ture” (www.particleadventure. But do students know that lowed the groundbreaking org) provided the basis for the quarks, gluons, and other fun- work of the Contemporary content on the French CD. damental building blocks of Physics Education Project, Other nations are welcome to matter also have a table of a US-based non-profit orga- reprint or adapt the new poster their own? In honor of the nization that has created free of charge (available in World Year of Physics, a group educational material for French and English at http:// of French physicists and more than ten years (www. sfp.in2p3.fr/affiche). Canada teachers set out to provide all cpepweb.org). CPEP is well- has already distributed high school classes in France known for its series of post- 6000 posters among its high with a new poster representing ers that explain the funda- schools, and several other the elementary components mental nature of matter and countries have shown interest. of matter. A team of graphic energy, and it has distributed For information, contact design students from École more than 200,000 posters Guy Wormser, LAL Orsay, at Éstienne in Paris created the and other educational prod- [email protected]. poster, and 20,000 copies were ucts around the world. Kurt Riesselmann /jan 06 L etters 5

Career advice In response to the letter headed “Careers in particle physics,” by Tomo Lazovich (symmetry, October 2005).

In the recent book of the letters of Richard P. Feynman, there are many letters asking him for advice such as Mr. Lazovich seeks on pursuing a career in physics. Feyman’s responses are valuable for any career in any field. Anyone who has not yet read this book, Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From

the Beaten Track, edited by his daughter Michelle Feynman, will find this close association with a symmetry | volume 02 issue 10 dec 0 great Renaissance mind most rewarding.

Suzanne H. Cutts Providence, Rhode Island

Letters can be submitted via [email protected]

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