eLearning Collaborative

    Today we interviewed three scientists today. At first, I was nervous that I wouldn't know what to ask, but the scientists were friendly and explained things in terms we (as high school students) could understand-it was actually pretty easy.

      Robert Clare was the first scientist we interviewed. He is an experimentalist at the CMS and works with the University of California. He has been working on CMS since 2000, which he jokingly calls a 'short amount of time.' He was raised throughout the United States, and now does research and teaches (undergraduate and graduate students). He has been working on the control system for the "M cap muon chambers." So pretty much, he helps to make sure that the muon detectors are working properly. Once everything starts running, Clare will work with analyzing the data found by the detectors and also doing 'shift work,' just monitoring to make sure everything is working properly. Of all the things CERN is looking for, Clare is most looking forward to the potential discovery of the higgs boson. The higgs boson is a theoretical particle, that gives things mass. We currently believe that the higgs is attracted towards certain particles giving them more mass; whereas, particles that attract the higgs less, have a lower mass. Muons are the signature of the higgs boson, they can signify that a higgs may have been there. As Clare describes about the CMS, "MUON IS OUR MIDDLE NAME!" When asked about working with scientists from all over the world, he described it as slightly difficult, but mostly it is "neat" being exposed to all the different cultures. People tend to have fears about cultures that they don't understand, but working with different sorts of people opens your eyes. He has seen people from countries that are at war with another, work together for science. Before the Iron Curtain came down, there were people from the USSR working with people from the US; and Pakistans working with Isrealites. And I truly think that this is amazing...how people can put aside their cultural differences for a common goal of science. 

 Higgs Boson

The second scientist we interviewed was Alessandra Ciocio, as research physicist from Berkley National Lab in California. She was born and raised in Italy. She has been working at ATLAS (another experiment within CERN-which we are visiting tomorrow!) since 1993, she has helped build the inner detector and before that, she was helping to improve prototypes and designs. When ATLAS begins it run, she will be involved in operation and "hopefully have time to be apart of data analysis." She believes that this experiment has been developed through teamwork and passion. The passion of the physicsts and engineers has been remarkable to keep everything going, despite how complex it is. Also, every single part of the experiment is a collaboration (international, at that). Every single group working on one part is connected to another group working on a different part. All of this couldn't have happened without everybody working together and their desire to make it happen. Ciocio describes the language barrier as making the work difficult, but almost everybody now speaks English. However, Ciocio finds it interesting to work with people from so many different backgrounds and cultures. She is currently working on a youtube piece for the highlights of the work she has done on ATLAS, once it has been posted I will edit to add the link :]

The ATLAS detector: the one Ciocio helped build

The other ATLAS: Greek mythology-he holds the entire world on his shoulders

 The last scientist we interviewed was Malcolm Fairbairn, a theorist specializing in dark matter. He (originally) lives in Manchester, England. Now you may wonder what a theorist does; he describes the work he does as "complimenting the work of the experimentalists." He hopes to compare the results from CERN to astronomical observations (something along the lines of "oh look this does this here...so it must do it there too"). Now what dark matter is literally, matter we can not see. Baryonic matter (meaning the matter made of protons and neutrons...like us!) only makes up about 4% of the entire mass of the Universe. Now the question is .... what about the other 96% of the mass in the universe...what is that? Well, the answer (we believe) may be dark matter, which is matter that has mass, but does not emit any light. We know that dark matter has mass because we can see in space its effects on objects around it. Possible candidates for dark matter are particles called neutrinos (which are [practically] massless particles that emit no light).  CERN maybe able to detect signs of dark matter by finding the mass of the particles colliding, and then after the collision, finding the sum mass of all the new particles. If there is any mass missing, it could be a sign of dark matter. Now you may wonder why dark matter, well matters. In Fairbairn's words, "it matters, because it's there." There is also something Fairbairn is studying called dark energy, but it is a bit complicated, maybe I'll update in the future about it when I understand more.

Dark Matter & Energry: Pie chart of mass distribution of the Universe

References