External

Physicists often find thrifty, ingenious ways to reuse equipment and resources. What do you do about an 800-ton magnet originally used to discover new particles? Send it off on a months-long journey via truck, train and ship halfway across the world to detect oscillating particles called neutrinos, of course. It’s all part of the vast recycling network of the physics community.

From Kane County Chronicle, Jan. 24, 2019: Families are invited to spend an afternoon learning about science through hands-on activities at Fermilab’s annual open house from 1 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 10.

A new telescope will take a sequence of snapshots with the world’s largest digital camera, covering the entire visible night sky every few days — and repeating the process for an entire decade. What’s the best way to rapidly and automatically identify and categorize all of the stars, galaxies and other objects captured in these images? Data scientists trained have computers to pick out useful information from these hi-res snapshots of the universe.

From the University of Rochester’s Campus Times, Jan. 23, 2019: A University of Rochester undergraduate working on the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment is interested in characterizing neutrinos because of the broad impact the particles may have on the very existence of matter.

From WDCB’s First Light, Jan. 20, 2019: This WDCB interview features Fermilab scientists Brenna Flaugher and Tom Diehl talking about the final nights of the Dark Energy Survey.

A pair of 1964 films detailing the construction of Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were recently remastered and are now available for viewing on YouTube. The films provide a fascinating look back at the origins of SLAC and the history of particle physics in the United States. At the time of the production, SLAC was the largest civilian basic science project ever undertaken in the United States.

From Nature, Jan. 23, 2019: Fermilab’s neutrino program is mentioned positively in this editorial about plans for the next circular collider in Europe.

If you want to visit the Pasner family farm, you’ll need a truck with four-wheel drive. You’ll need to traverse 4 miles of bumpy dirt road deep into the countryside of Penn Valley, California. But once you arrive, you’ll be greeted by fields of organic onions and garlic, nestled between rolling grassy hills speckled with oak trees. For physicist Jake Pasner, this will always be home.

From Slate, Jan. 17, 2019: Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln is quoted in this article on ‘Oumuamua, an object known to have originated outside our solar system.

From Cinema Blend, Jan. 17, 2019: As the episode opens, Amy and Sheldon are filming Fun with Flags, and when Amy goes to check comments on her phone she sees that they’ve gotten a comment from Fermilab, the particle physics and accelerator laboratory in Chicago, letting them know that a team of scientists has confirmed their theory with an experiment.