## Wednesday, June 30, 2010

### Balloons and Liquid Nitrogen

Here's one way to inflate your party balloons.

This is probably what Carl should have used to release all those balloons he attached to his house (re: the movie "Up").

Zz.

### Measuring the Speed of Light Using Beating Longitudinal Modes in an Open-Cavity HeNe Laser

I love these kinds of experiments. They can be done in an undergraduate setting, the equipment isn't too expensive or complicated, and you get very accurate results. In this case, they measured the speed of light in air, and the experiment is accurate enough to distinguish that measured speed with the speed of light in vacuum.

Abstract: We describe an undergraduate laboratory that combines an accurate measurement of the speed of light, a fundamental investigation of a basic laser system, and a nontrivial use of statistical analysis. Students grapple with the existence of longitudinal modes in a laser cavity as they change the cavity length of an adjustable-cavity HeNe laser and tune the cavity to produce lasing in the TEM$_{00}$ mode. For appropriate laser cavity lengths, the laser gain curve of a HeNe laser allows simultaneous operation of multiple longitudinal modes. The difference frequency between the modes is measured using a self-heterodyne detection with a diode photodetector and a radio frequency spectrum analyzer. Asymmetric effects due to frequency pushing and frequency pulling, as well as transverse modes, are minimized by simultaneously monitoring and adjusting the mode structure as viewed with a Fabry-Perot interferometer. The frequency spacing of longitudinal modes is proportional to the inverse of the cavity length with a proportionality constant equal to half the speed of light. By changing the length of the cavity, without changing the path length within the HeNe gas, the speed of light in air can be measured to be ($2.9972 \pm0.0002) \times 10^{8}$ m/s, which is to high enough precision to distinguish between the speed of light in air and that in a vacuum.

But I think, equally as important, is the skill that the students could gather out of something like this.

This experiment exposes students to a variety of experimental and mathematical techniques, demonstrates the importance of uncertainty in measurement, provides a meaningful context for using weighted regression, and familiarizes the student with three ubiquitous instruments: the laser, the Fabry-Perot interferometer, and the RF spectrum analyzer.

Those are skills that can't be taught, but rather, acquired.

Zz.

## Monday, June 28, 2010

A series of educational videos from Jefferson Lab on a simple experiment to measure the half-life of a radioactive substance. I think I've seen first year undergraduate lab experiments that resemble something like this, so this should be educational to many students.

Zz.

### Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids

This is a book for kids in middle elementary school to introduce them to Isaac Newton and basic mechanics. There is a brief review of it on Wired.

This year I asked Chicago Review for a review copy of their book Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids. Even though my kids are beyond the target age, I thought it might be a useful reference for our physics homeschool studies this year. (Tip to homeschooling parents: If you want to bone up quickly on a topic, try reading a high-quality middle-grade book. Most times you’ll get all the information you need to get started, without overwhelming amounts of detail.) What I found was an excellent biography on Newton that touched on his physics discoveries but didn’t really focus on them. Nonetheless, it is an excellent book for those who want to read about this eccentric and brilliant thinker.

Zz.

## Saturday, June 26, 2010

### The Sum of All Thrills

The Sum of All Thrills is an attraction inside Innoventions East at Walt Disney World's Epcot theme park. What it does is try to combine a minor lesson in basic kinematics with designing your own thrill ride (half-pipe sled, roller coaster, or jet fighter). Then, after you've finished designing it, you get to ride it in a cool ride simulator.

Unfortunately, the attraction emphasized that these are "engineering" problems. While it is true that designing a roller coaster, for example, can be an engineering problem, these are also physics problems. The basic kinematics of finding the velocity needed to climb up a hill or to complete a loop is basic stuff that we encounter in a physics class. So they could have included that fact with no additional costs. Also, you are given only 2 minutes to design your ride, which is understandable because you want the crowd to move on and not linger too long before the next group comes in. But because of that, you don't pay attention to the kinematics (they display the kinematics equation on the screen when you're designing your ride). So the "learning" value isn't captured here too much.

They also have a website you can go to to continue with your thrills. You can design your ride and win points by answering a few math questions and by clicking on fun facts and trivia.

All in all, it is a fun attraction. In fact, I would say that it is the best attraction inside of the Innoventions pavilions. It is just that the educational content could be a little bit stronger. But then again, people coming here are on vacation. Do they want an education on basic kinematics?

Zz.

## Friday, June 25, 2010

### Dark Matter: A Primer

This is a very useful review on the phenomenology of Dark Matter. It has a good review on the early and most recent evidence in support of the existence of dark matter. At the very least, it is convenient to have all of the references in one place for easy look-up.

Abstract: Dark matter is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in cosmology at the present time. About 80% of the universe's gravitating matter is non-luminous, and its nature and distribution are for the most part unknown. In this paper, we will outline the history, astrophysical evidence, candidates, and detection methods of dark matter, with the goal to give the reader an accessible but rigorous introduction to the puzzle of dark matter. This review targets advanced students and researchers new to the field of dark matter, and includes an extensive list of references for further study.

Zz.

## Thursday, June 24, 2010

### P.A.M. Dirac and the Discovery of Quantum Mechanics

A thoroughly entertaining manuscript by Kurt Gottfried on P.A.M. Dirac and his contribution to the non-relativistic quantum mechanics. So unlike the biography of Dirac, this article focuses on a very narrow period of his life, but I think we get a lot more in-depth look.

Zz.

## Wednesday, June 23, 2010

### Finding Heroes In Science And Engineering

A very spot-on article by Larry Bock on the need to expose kids to not only the field of science and engineering, but also to the people who are scientists and engineers.

In the study, Moseley and Norris examined the drawings and verbal impressions of 550 current and soon-to-be K-8 teachers about scientists. Although the researchers found that study participants described scientists as intelligent, hardworking and theoretical, many also described them as impersonal, boring and nerdy. Participants also generally portrayed scientists as stern, bespectacled older white men with unfashionable clothes and unkempt hair, and who worked alone.

A teaching student in the study, after reflecting on her drawings and verbal comments, said, these perceptions are "supplied to us by the movie industry and the media. I remember many times as a child watching cartoons or movies that portrayed a scientist much the same as mentioned above. It may seem like an unfair generalization, but then stereotypes usually are."

Such a perception is consistent with what we see in the drawings of scientists done by kids. Such perception can easily be corrected by exposing people to scientists and engineers, and what they do. It is why whenever I read about some open house or festivals where the public can actually get to see and interact with scientists, I try to highlight them here. These are the few opportunities for people to not only see and learn about the research work being done, but to actually get to see the people who do them and, hopefully, dispel some of those stereotypes.

Zz.

## Tuesday, June 22, 2010

### A Triumph for TRIUMF

More update on the issue of a severe shortage of medical isotopes, something that I've mentioned before. It appears that the TRIUMF facility in Canada will get its funding to build an accelerator that will, among other things, generate these needed medical isotopes.

A $63-million accelerator, billed as one of the most powerful in the world, will get the go-ahead Tuesday morning at TRIUMF, the national physics lab based in Vancouver. B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell is set to announce$30.7 million for the project, which could help alleviate future medical-isotope shortages. The Canada Foundation for Innovation has committed $18 million and the remaining$14 million is to come from core federal funding for TRIUMF.

Pay attention to the fact that this is a clear non-high energy physics use of a particle accelerator.

The news report did say something rather puzzling, though, right in the very first sentence.

Canadian scientists hope to beam the country to the forefront of nuclear and isotope research with intense, high-powered light.

Er... I thought they do this by slamming protons or electrons into a target? Where did the "high-powered light" come from?

Zz.

## Monday, June 21, 2010

### No Supersolid Yet?

Another wrench has been thrown into the claim of experimental observation of supersolids. A new paper in PRL[1] is throwing doubt into such observation, and in fact, attribute the apparent observation to quantum plasticity.

Looks like a lot more work needs to be done to verify if we truly have a supersolid in such a system.

Zz.

[1] J. D. Reppy Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 255301 (2010).

## Friday, June 18, 2010

### Bose-Einstein Condensation in Microgravity

A very cool {pun not intended} experiment of using BE condensate in a "microgravity" environment.

T. van Zoest et al., "Bose-Einstein Condensation in Microgravity", Science v.328, p.1540 (2010).

Abstract: Albert Einstein’s insight that it is impossible to distinguish a local experiment in a "freely falling elevator" from one in free space led to the development of the theory of general relativity. The wave nature of matter manifests itself in a striking way in Bose-Einstein condensates, where millions of atoms lose their identity and can be described by a single macroscopic wave function. We combine these two topics and report the preparation and observation of a Bose-Einstein condensate during free fall in a 146-meter-tall evacuated drop tower. During the expansion over 1 second, the atoms form a giant coherent matter wave that is delocalized on a millimeter scale, which represents a promising source for matter-wave interferometry to test the universality of free fall with quantum matter.

A Perspective article on this work can also be found in the same issue of Science. I also found what appears to be a presentation viewgraphs on this work by one of the authors of the paper. But what is even cooler is that Wired has an article on this that includes a video of the drop.

I only wish that Wired didn't go along that sensationalistic approach by making the suggestion that Eintein's equivalence principle has been shown to be wrong. No such thing was done here. As with many other advancement in accuracy, it simply opens the door for us to test something more precisely. If and when we find discrepancy between measurement and theory, only THEN do we start making the suggestion that something isn't fully kosher here. But not before then.

Zz.

## Thursday, June 17, 2010

### Do Advanced Physics Students Learn From Their Mistakes Without Explicit Intervention?

The scenario is rather intriguing. You have a group of advanced physics majors (a few being seniors about to graduate) in a honors QM class. You have them a number of questions for a Midterm exam.

Then, after a few weeks, you give them another exam, but using the identical set of questions as the Midterm exam! So what do you expect to happen? It's not what you think, and that is what was tested in this rather intriguing paper[1].

Abstract: We discuss a case study in which 14 advanced undergraduate physics students taking an honor-level quantum mechanics course were given the same four problems on midterm and final exams. The solutions to the midterm problems were provided to students. Their performance on the final exam shows that although some advanced students performed equally well or improved compared to their performance on the midterm exam on the problems given twice, a comparable number performed less well on the final than on the midterm exam. The wide distribution of students' performance on problems given again suggests that most advanced students do not automatically use their mistakes as an opportunity for learning, repairing, extending, and organizing their knowledge structure. Interviews with a subset of the students revealed attitudes toward problem solving and gave insight into their approach to learning.

The interviews conducted gave a bit of an insight on why a few of the students performed worst in the second exams, and after reading them, it certainly is plausible for that to happen.

I think that for instructors, this might be something to consider, that the ability of a student to do something or answer a question may not reflect on his or her ability to carry that knowledge at a different time. This is not surprising either. I am sure that if someone drops in front of me a QM problem that I used to be able to do when I was an undergraduate student, I won't be surprised if I have regressed and got stuck. There are many instances where our ability to solve or do something is based on how sharp our skill is on that particular area at that given moment. And I haven't looked at an undergraduate QM text in ages. So it is a bit understandable for a few of those students to simply "let go" of some of the stuff they were learning for the Midterm exam when they think it won't come up again.

Zz.

[1] A. Mason and C. Singh Am. J. Phys. v78, p.760 (2010).

### Can You Draw Me A Physicist?

CERN asked children from the age of 9 to 11 to draw what they see as a physicist. And then, after they get to meet real-life physicists, they were asked to draw again.

It is interesting to see how physicists are perceived by the kids from these drawings. For one thing, there were a few pictures where we are in better outfits! :) The article mentioned a similar program done at Fermilab a while back.

I think the public also has a lot of misconception about scientists, and maybe the adults should be asked to go through the same drawing project!

Zz.

## Wednesday, June 16, 2010

### First Real Space Observation of a Skyrmion

Nature just published a paper claiming the first real-space observation of 2D skyrmion[1]. This was observed in a magnetic crystal system, i.e. this is out of condensed matter.

As in the earlier discovery of the "magnetic monopole", these exotic and fundamental physics are coming out of condensed matter physics, an area that many outside of that field do not consider to be "fundamental". Yet, it has produced a tremendous amount of physics that permeates into areas of physics that people usually consider as basic science and "fundamental".

Zz.

[1] X.Z. Yu et al., Nature v.465, p.901(2010).

### Brookhaven's Summer Sunday Tours

It's time once again for the yearly Summer Sunday Tours at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY. If you're in the neighborhood, this is a tremendous opportunity for you to see major research facility at a prestigious national lab, not to mention, being able to engage with world class scientists.

Take note that while there are 5 Sunday tours, each one has a particular "theme", highlighted by a specific facility that will be open for that day.

A more detailed description of the tour can be found here.

Zz.

## Tuesday, June 15, 2010

### Rejection and Ridicule

Science Career section has a very nice article on what happens when you (i.e. a scientist) try to challenge a prevalent idea.

Not everyone who thinks they've made a game-changing discovery is right. Many -- perhaps most -- apparent breakthroughs are just wrong. Here, the input of peers brings to light inconsistencies in data or errors of interpretation. The process works best when scientists stand up -- with integrity, perseverance, and a certain degree of open-mindedness -- right up until it becomes clear that they're wrong.

But what if you're not wrong? Thick skin and persistence are keys to making the process play out well. Progress is made when good scientists keep working -- and keep supporting what they believe is true -- despite the criticism. Following are some coping strategies gleaned from our cohort of audacious scientists.

This is an important aspect in how science is done that a lot of the general public does not know. Certainly, when something new is presented that contradicts an current understanding, one EXPECTS a challenge, and one expects that the new idea or conclusion must have strong backing to survive. Even Einstein had to go through this rigorous process.

But when you read the article, keep a couple things in mind that are very clear:

1. These game-changing ideas were published in peer-reviewed journals. So crackpots who can't even get their "theory" into such a medium can't complain that the "system" will only publish papers that only follow the status quo. These are clear evidence to falsify such faulty claims.

2. That time and further refinement of evidence will eventually support you if you are correct. This is a crucial characteristic of a valid idea, whereby further studies will produce more evidence in favor of it, and will refine it even more. This is in contrast with "evidence" from pseudoscience where over time, the validity of its existence is under question.

Perhaps the best advice in the whole article can be summed up in this paragraph:

"At the end of the day, it's an empirical process," says David Botstein, the biologist at Princeton University who figured out how to map human genes, laying the foundation for the Human Genome Project. "If you disagree with conventional wisdom and the data are on your side, then you've got to persist. If on the other hand, you have a crackpot idea and the data are on the other side, you have to not be in love with your own idea."

This article adds another dimension to a similar and excellent article written by the late Dan Koshland in Science a while back.

Zz.

### The Standard Model Explained - Briefly

The Telegraph has this "cheat sheet" for the public. It is a very, VERY, brief description (I wouldn't call it an explanation) of the Standard Model.

It isn't a bad description. It is just that, as with other news item for the public, it appeals to the short-attention-span crowd who only likes sound bites. There's A LOT missing here, which are the details. But who cares about the details, right?

Zz.

## Monday, June 14, 2010

### Inside the LHC

We all have read so many popular and media articles on the physics of the LHC. However, we don't see many articles on how it actually works, and what's under the covers. That's why this article is rather interesting. It describes the nuts and bolts of the operation at the LHC. In particular, it gives a rather concise description of the acceleration mechanism, beam dynamics, and diagnostics at the LHC. This, of course, is not a "sexy" piece of information and therefore, does not get a lot of media coverage and the public's attention. Still, it is a crucial piece to the LHC, without which, they can't hunt for the sexy science.

Zz.

## Friday, June 11, 2010

### Bubble Physics Video

A cool video about how bubbles actually pop. This is based on the recent Nature paper on this subject[1].

Zz.

[1] J.C. Bird et al. Nature v.465, p.759 (2010).

## Thursday, June 10, 2010

### Vector Potential, Electromagnetic Induction and 'Physical Meaning'

This is a nice paper exploring the "meaning" of the vector potential that every physics student encounter in classical E&M.

"Vector potential, electromagnetic induction and 'physical meaning'", G. Giuliani, Eur. J. Phys. 31 871 (2010).

{the paper is available for free downloads during the first 30 days of online publication. Paper was published online on 8 June 2010}

This is a good paper for undergraduate students to read, because it clearly shows why the vector potential is not only amazingly useful, but also why it is important. One only needs to see that the vector potential is one of the few quantities that are involved in the quantum Hamiltonian.

What is also interesting about this paper is that there is quite a discussion on what is meant, at least in physics, by the phrase "physical meaning".

These considerations lead us to the crucial point; the physical meaning of a theoretical term relies, primarily, on theoretical grounds. We suggest that a theoretical term has a physical meaning if

(C1) its elimination reduces the predictions—experimentally testable—of a theory; or, in a weaker sense, if

(C2) its elimination reduces the descriptive proficiency of a theory.

Maybe this is a more meaningful definition, rather than discussing what is "real". It reduces the criteria of what has a physical meaning to something more testable, rather than just simply being a matter of tastes or personal preference. This then puts new light into the maddening discussion on whether time is an "illusion". As I've argued earlier, try removing any time dimension out of the Lagrangian/Hamiltonian formulation. Now, do you still have a complete description of the dynamics of the system? Does the removal of time reduces the predictions of a large section of physics, if not all?

Damn right it does!

Time has a physical meaning, and that statement is physically meaningful.

Zz.

## Wednesday, June 09, 2010

### Stolen Galileo's Finger On Display

I mentioned this earlier about the discovery of the missing Galileo's finger. It seems that it is more than just a finger. There's a tooth, and a thumb (which is also a finger too, no?).

In any case, they will now be on display in Florence.

A tooth, thumb and finger cut from the body of the famous renaissance astronomer Galileo will go on display this week in Florence after an art collector found them by chance last year.

The body parts, along with another finger and a vertebrae, were cut from Galileo's corpse by scientists and historians during a burial ceremony 95 years after his death in 1642.

'The laymen and masons that were attending the ceremony thought that they should have some souvenir of Galileo's body,' Paolo Galluzzi, director of Florence's Galileo Museum said.

I think I'll pass on this one...

Zz.

## Tuesday, June 08, 2010

### Dimensional Analysis in Physics and the Buckingham Theorem

Here's a paper that might be useful to physics students:

"Dimensional analysis in physics and the Buckingham theorem", T. Misic et al., Eur. J. Phys. 31 893 (2010).

Abstract: Dimensional analysis is a simple, clear and intuitive method for determining the functional dependence of physical quantities that are of importance to a certain process. However, in physics textbooks, very little space is usually given to this approach and it is often presented only as a diagnostic tool used to determine the validity of dependences otherwise obtained. This paper presents the basics of dimensional analysis in two cases: the resistance force of the fluid that occurs when a body moves through it and the speed of propagation of waves on water. After that, a general approach to dimensional analysis based on the Buckingham theorem is shown. The material presented in the paper could be useful to both students of physics and physics graduates.

You can get a free download of the actual paper during the first 30 days that it appears online. This paper appeared on 8 June 2010.

Zz.

### Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry is FREE This Week

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry offers free admission only this week! (ends Friday, June 11, 2010).

So if you want a good excuse to go, this might be it.

Zz.

### The Search For Dark Matter

Two videos from PhysicsWorld on the search for dark matter. Both of these are looking for dark matter in underground laboratories.

Zz.

### Street Corner Science: Ask A Nobel Laureate - Follow-Up

I mentioned earlier about Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman setting up a table in downtown Chicago this past Sunday to answer questions from all-comers. This is a news report on that occasion.

Those were some of the burning questions dozens of science fans asked Nobel laureate Leon Lederman, who set up shop Sunday near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. The Chicago Council on Science and Technology sponsored the event to show people that science is accessible, said President Alan Schriesheim.

Jonathan Shobrook, 11, of Highland Park, asked about a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson, known as the "God particle." Physicists believe Higgs may give mass to all things and could explain how the universe is put together. Shobrook, who will enter seventh grade this fall, showed Lederman a chart he made about the particle.

I hope they do this again, either with Lederman, or with someone else.

Zz.

## Saturday, June 05, 2010

### The Physics of Hockey

... as in ICE hockey, in case people from other parts of the world get confused since many areas consider "hockey" to be FIELD hockey.

With the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers tied in their Stanley Cup championship series, a reporter from the Chicago Tribune decided to ask a University of Chicago physicist on the "physics" of hockey.

A couple of good ones that were asked are:

Q: What principles of physics are at play with the slap shot?

A: Hockey players are taught to swing the blade so it hits the ice about one foot behind the puck. As the hockey stick slides across the ice, it can bend to almost a 30-degree angle. When the blade strikes the puck, it launches the puck at more than 100 miles an hour because of all the energy in the bent stick. If the player cleanly strokes the puck without striking the ice, the maximum speed would be much lower. You really have to get the stick bent.

Q: Why is ice slippery, allowing both skates and puck to glide across it?

A: That question has a long, interesting history that goes back to the 1860s, when (renowned physicist ) Michael Faraday theorized there is a very thin layer of water on ice, demonstrating it by holding two ice cubes together, resulting in them freezing together.

Later there was a theory that skaters could glide across the surface of ice because the pressure of the skater's weight on the blade causes the ice surface to melt. That proved not to be true.

Faraday was right, there is a thin layer of water on the ice surface even at 328 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, but we still don't know why. Because it is so ubiquitous, it's hard to think of water as a weird organic chemical with a lot of strange properties. Ice floats because water in its solid state is less dense than in its liquid state — for example, the opposite of alcohol.

Of course, this is sports. There has to be some silly moments.

Q: Why is Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger such a jerk?

A: There are some questions that physics simply has no answers for. This is one of them.

Zz.

## Friday, June 04, 2010

### More Exercise = Higher GPA?

It is difficult to differentiate between the cause-and-effect observation versus the correlation observation when we deal with public health. So I wouldn't pass this out as a fact, but I'll just mention it.

It seems that the latest study presented at American College of Sport Medicine's annual meeting shows a correlation between college students who engages in daily 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity and higher GPA.

A study presented Thursday at the American College of Sport Medicine's annual meeting demonstrated the relationship and reinforced the notion that exercise reduces stress, improves performance and increases a sense of well-being.

Joshua Ode supervised the study at a university in the northern U.S., of students ages 18-22. Ode said, "If the students are improving in the classroom, it may create a better campus environment. You're creating more successful students, which is the goal of universities."

Researchers studied 266 undergraduates and defined moderate activity as those exercises which don't make you sweat or breathe hard, and vigorous activity for those which do, of any type. Their findings were consistent regardless of gender or major.

So then, let's examine this in light of the common stereotypes. We associate engineers, physicists, etc. as nerdy, wimpy looking guys, which presumably are thought to be smart and, therefore, would tend to have higher GPA. Don't look like they exercise much. Yet, we also often associate muscular, athletic, and physically fit guys as dumb jocks, not someone who would tend to have higher GPA.

So the stereotypes are in contradiction to the study, assuming that we buy into one or the other, or none. And yes, I'm being wishy-washy here. :)

Zz.

## Thursday, June 03, 2010

### Q&A with Nobelist George Smoot

A very informative (and somewhat "entertaining", depending on what you deem as entertaining) video of a series of questions and answers with Nobel Laureate George Smoot.

Zz.

## Wednesday, June 02, 2010

### James Franck

In this month's issue of Physics Today, there is a short biography of James Franck. This is another example of one of the giants in physics that most of the public are not aware of. So it is a good article to read just to familiarize yourself on the contribution that this person has made. It also gives you some background on name given to the institute at the University of Chicago that focuses on condensed matter physics.

Zz.

## Tuesday, June 01, 2010

### Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter - 2009 Highlights

The IoP's Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter has produced its highlight papers from 2009. And the good news is, you get to read all of the highlighted papers for free until end of 2010.

So don't miss it. There are some very good ones here.

Zz.

### 2010 World Science Festival

The third annual World Science Festival in NY City is upon us again. Check out their website for all the amazing events being planned for this year's festivities.

The presence of Stephen Hawking will certainly jack up the interest in this event.

As the presence of Dr. Hawking suggests, this year’s festival has a decidedly cosmic flavor. The Webb telescope model will preside over a star-gazing party hosted by, among others, John Grunsfeld, the former NASA astronaut and Hubble Space Telescope repairman, on Friday night. Telescopes will be available, or you can bring your own. Meanwhile throughout the week visitors to the Broad Street Ballroom in Lower Manhattan can hear what black holes might sound like as they are being formed. Astronomers hope to record them with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, a vast expanse of lasers and mirrors set up in Washington State and Louisiana to measure the twitching and pulsing of space-time in response to cosmic catastrophes.

Don't miss it if you're in The Big Apple.

Zz.

### OPERA Made First Detection of the Tau Neutrino

The collaboration between Italy's INFN and CERN has announced the first ever detection of the tau neutrino, and the muon-tau neutrino oscillation.

The project's source of neutrinos is a proton accelerator at CERN in Geneva that slams protons into a graphite target, producing particles called pions and kaons that quickly decay into muon neutrinos.

Because the neutrino beam that is created is not affected by electrical or magnetic fields, the proton accelerator must be pointed directly at detectors in the laboratory under Gran Sasso mountain 453 miles away in central Italy, between the towns of L'Aquila and Teramo. When neutrinos are produced, they continue in the same direction of the proton beam, arriving at Gran Sasso in 2.4 milliseconds.

A splendid discovery that confirms one of the aspect of the Standard Model, but ironically, also confirms that the Standard Model needs to be tweaked. This is on top of the electron neutrino-muon neutrino oscillation that was confirmed several years ago.

Zz.