News at work

Frederick Coolidge of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, will give a Zoom-only Colloquium talk titled “The Evolution of Language.” While the presence of different languages throughout the world is undeniable, the origin of language and its evolution is highly contentious. The Colloquium talk explains why Chomsky is wrong, how language did evolve, why people speak, and why the most popular topic in all the world’s cultures is gossip.

In 2010, the Large Hadron Collider research program jumped into full swing as scientists started collecting physics data from particle collisions in the LHC for the first time. How has this gigantic, global scientific effort affected the world? Symmetry pulled together a few numbers to find out.

Missing March Madness? Let Fermilab fill a small part of the void created in these times of social distancing and shelter-in-place. Participate in Fermilab’s sendup of the NCAA tournament: March Magnets. Learn about eight different types of magnets used in particle physics, each with an example from a project or experiment in which Fermilab is a player. Then head over to the Fermilab Twitter feed on March 30 to participate in our March Magnets playoffs.

Only 1% of the mass of the proton comes from the Higgs field. ALICE scientists examine a process that could help explain the rest.

When it comes to social engineering tactics, email scammers will use any means necessary to trick you into giving up your credentials or launching malware on your computer. Most recently, their efforts have been spent capitalizing on the widespread concern and confusion surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. Security researchers have already identified several different types of phishing scams specific to coronavirus, and it is likely there will be variations to these emails coming as the crisis continues.

On Feb. 23, 1981, Ron LeBeau started work at Fermilab as a level-1 technician in the Accelerator Division. Thirty-nine years later, he is retiring as a senior engineering associate. His last day is March 30.

“What’s done cannot be undone.” Look to Shakespeare for a great quote. He had Lady Macbeth murmur these simple but profound words to herself. Who does not wish they had done something differently? But the past is past. A broken teacup will not put itself back together. A dissolved sugar cube will not reassemble itself.

At Fermilab we mentor postdocs to become full-fledged scientists, supporting both the scientific development and the career advancement of postdocs so they can lead our field into the future. The postdoc mentoring program in the CMS Department has served as a model for similar programs throughout the lab. It relies on three basic elements to guide the postdoc to success: a balanced and ambitious research plan, a personal team of supporting scientists, and regularly scheduled mentoring events.

Accelerator magnets — how do they work? Depending on the number of poles a magnet has, it bends, shapes or shores up the stability of particle beams as they shoot at velocities close to the speed of light. Experts design magnets so they can wield the beam in just the right way to yield the physics they’re after. Here’s your primer on particle accelerator magnets.

Fermilab, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have achieved a milestone in magnet technology. Earlier this year, their new magnet reached the highest field strength ever recorded for an accelerator focusing magnet. It will also be the first niobium-tin quadrupole magnet to operate in a particle accelerator — in this case, the future High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Fermilab technology developed for particle accelerators offers a valuable opportunity to search for a hypothesized particle that would resemble a particle of light. These dark photons could help us understand the large part of our universe that we know is there but have yet to observe.

Under a new agreement, the University of Campinas and the São Paulo Research Foundation will play important roles in the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab.