Sloan Digital Sky Survey received the 2021 ACM SIGMOD Systems Award for its “early and influential demonstration of the power of data science to transform a scientific domain.” The award recognized the contributions of Fermilab’s Bill Boroski, Steve Kent and Brian Yanny, as well as several others, for work done from 2000 to 2008 on the database systems developed to distribute SDSS data.
From Discover Magazine, September 15, 2021: The the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) developed a survey in 2020 to gather information from QED-C member companies about their workforce needs. FermiLab research associate Ciaran Hughes and colleagues surveyed 57 companies involved in the incipient quantum industry to find out what kinds of skills they are looking for and those that are most in demand. This is the largest survey undertaken of the quantum industry and the results offer some surprises.
The Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science helps students and professionals find community.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced $13.7 million in funding for nine research projects that will advance the state of the art in computer science and applied mathematics. One of the recipients of this funding, Fermilab scientist Nhan Tran will lead a project to explore methods for programming custom hardware accelerators for streaming compression.
From Scientific American, September 14, 2021: Fermilab theorist Marcela Carena writes about the ever changing behavior of muons and the first result of the Muon g-2 experiment that suggested muons were not acting as current theory prescribes in an article titled, “Weird muons may point to new particles and forces of nature,” posted in Scientific American.
From Fraction magazine, September 2021: Former Fermilab artist-in-residence Adam Nadel featured striking photos of an electron beam from a particle accelerator. In a recent issue of this magazine, he used a stream of subatomic electron particles interacting with the silver halide salt found in color photographic paper. The beam was generated on a LINAC electron particle accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory when Nadel was the resident artist in 2018.
From Columbia News, September 8, 2021: A Q&A with physicist Georgia Karagiorgi explaining her fascination with neutrinos and particle physics and what she hopes to learn at the Fermilab.
The Fermi Research Alliance, which manages Fermilab on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, announced on Sept. 10 that Nigel Lockyer will step down after eight years as director of the lab.
From Wonderful Engineering, September 8, 2021: When it comes to traveling at the speed of light, Don Lincoln’s video, “How to travel faster than light”, explains how light travels at different speeds in different mediums.
From Forbes, Sept. 8, 2021: The Standard Model provides the framework of all the known and discovered fundamental particles, but has no way of providing expected values for what masses each particle should possess. Fermilab’s Main Ring, in operation for 25 years by physicists who used the accelerator for experiments, helped to create our current picture of the ultimate structure of matter, the Standard Model of particle interactions.