eLearning Collaborative

Katherine Copic is an American physicist at CERN that my group and I got the pleasure to talk to at lunch. She works as a post doctoral research assistant for the Columbia University group. This group is split between CERN and Fermilab (the particle accelerator in the US). As an exprimentalist, she does physics analysis- looking at the readout electronics of the liquid argon calorimeter (on ATLAS), as well as having worked on the actual construction of ATLAS. She feels that it is important to recognise that there are still questions to answer and that science is not just memorizing things in the cirriculum. Research is a huge part of looking to further modern physics and the continuation of investigation about the things we still don't know about. Our more in depth knowledge of electrons really only goes back 110 years, and so in a hundred years we havn't discovered all there is to know. The thing that she finds most interesting is the three families of particles. Much like the periodic table, these particles are being placed together with similar properties, yet there aren't any rules to it yet. She is convinced there is some pattern and wants to research more of this possible pattern.

As to the question that I tackled earlier about whether a black hole will be produced at CERN which will destroy the earth, Kathy feels people should think about it as long as the portrayal of the "issue" is accurate. The article published in the New York Times made Wagner, a person who brought up the lawsuit, sound like he has more of a background in physics than he does in actuality. The couple we interviewed in the section following this live about 30 miles away from CERN. They are average everyday people and when asked about their opinion, they both said that they had heard of the controversy but weren't very worried, since the size of any black hole would be very tiny. This opinion highlights probably the most important point. If said micro black hole were to be created, it would be just that... micro. A black hole of that size wouldn't have enough gravity to eventually suck up the earth. This is a topic that i love to discuss. 

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