BATAVIA, Ill. – The Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will host the next Virtual Ask-a-Scientist on-line chat session on December 12, 2002 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Central Time. Physicists Brenna Flaugher, of Fermilab’s CDF experiment, and Tom Diehl, of Fermilab’s DZero experiment, will respond to questions live on-line. This upcoming chat session should be unique because the featured scientists also happen to be husband and wife, which is a first for this program.
Virtual Ask-a-Scientist is an on-line chat session with Fermilab scientists that gives participants the opportunity to ask questions about high-energy physics from: “What is a neutrino?” to “Can I build a particle detector at home?” Fermilab invites people of all ages and all science backgrounds to participate.
“I think that it is important for practicing scientists to share the excitement of discovery with those people who are interested in science, but not directly involved. Why should scientists have all the fun?” said Don Lincoln, a Scientist for Fermilab’s DZero project, who participated in the most recent Virtual Ask-a-Scientist on October 9, 2002. “I had a wonderful time speaking with a number of people during the Virtual Ask a Scientist chat session. The questioners were mostly like us…seekers of the truth.” Transcripts from this and other chat sessions are available online at: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/virtual/.
Interested participants may join the Virtual Ask-a-Scientist chatroom on the evening of December 12, 2002 by clicking a link on the Fermilab homepage (http://www.fnal.gov) and following the directions to log in and ask questions. Java enabled browsers are required. Internet Explorer version 4 or higher is recommended, but Netscape’s browsers may also be used. (Netscape is not recommended for Macintosh users.)
For more information about Virtual Ask-a-Scientist, please visit http://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/virtual/.
Fermilab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory, operated under contract by Universities Research Association, Inc.