> Backgrounder: SFU physicists ready for historic science experiment
Backgrounder: SFU physicists ready for historic science experiment
Contact:
Michel Vetterli, 778.782.5488; 604.222.7442 (TRIUMF); vetm@triumf.ca
Dugan O’Neil, 778.782.5623; doneil@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
Michel Vetterli, 778.782.5488; 604.222.7442 (TRIUMF); vetm@triumf.ca
Dugan O’Neil, 778.782.5623; doneil@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
September 10, 2008
The buzz at the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland over the start of the historic ATLAS experiment on Sept. 10 can be felt as far away as Simon Fraser University.
Physicists Michel Vetterli, Bernd Stelzer and Dugan O’Neil are among hundreds of scientists worldwide who will have key roles when the project’s data collection begins in October.
On Sept. 10, they’ll be among Western Canadian participants to gather at Vancouver’s TRIUMF facility to celebrate the first beam circulation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at CERN. No beams will collide, but the crucial first attempt at circulation is being hailed as the project’s official beginning.
The beam will be circulated at 10 a.m. European Time on Sept. 10 but the TRIUMF celebration begins at a more reasonable 10 a.m. PST. Media are welcome (U.S. scientists celebrated with a ‘pajama party’ at midnight).
ATLAS, dubbed the world’s biggest physics experiment, will probe the fundamental forces that have shaped the universe since the beginning of time and could shed light on the origins of mass and other dimensions of space.
The SFU scientists will be working to collect and interpret data produced when proton beams collide at record energy inside the LHC, a gigantic machine spanning 27 kilometers in circumference.
Vetterli, who has devoted several years and expertise to the project, says the event brings a “grab bag” of emotions. “Excitement, of course, because all of our efforts for so many years are about to come to fruition,” says Vetterli, who is the project leader for the ATLAS Canada Data Analysis Centre at TRIUMF — one of 10 data centres worldwide that are all connected via high-speed networks to compute the experiment results.
“Apprehension, as I wonder whether we ‘got it right’ and whether the equipment will work as designed. And oddly, a sense of disbelief that data will be coming soon, after almost two decades of planning. We have been working with simulated data for so long that it is hard to come to grips with the fact that we will actually soon have real data.”
Why should people take notice of physics? “People should care whether we understand Nature or not, or we would be nothing more than animals with limited consciousness,” says Vetterli.
“There are plenty of examples of the benefits of pushing science in general and subatomic physics in particular. I look at such historical advances as the television coming from the first electron accelerators, nuclear medicine as a spin-off of nuclear physics, better electronics because subatomic physics often pushes the requirements beyond what is available, and the World-Wide-Web, which was developed at CERN.
“It’s certainly true that the better we understand the fundamental structure of matter and of interactions, the better we can control and manipulate our surroundings.”
There’s a clear rise in the level of excitement at CERN, says O’Neil, who, like Vetterli, has visited the facility several times and will be there again in early October. He was drawn to the project as a young student 16 years ago.
“There’s a buzz for sure. A recent CERN news release said ‘we’re finishing a marathon with a sprint.’ I think that’s an accurate portrayal of the mood among scientists — at CERN and elsewhere.”
Related events
There will be a second gathering at TRIUMF on Oct. 3 from 8 – 10 a.m. to celebrate the start of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid data analysis and management - a task that will involve more than 5 million Gigabytes of data every year, produced from the hundreds of millions of subatomic collisions expected inside the LHC every second.
The LHC and its detectors will be formally inaugurated on Oct. 21. A ceremony will once again be held at TRIUMF, starting at 9 a.m. Canadian scientists will talk about the project and their hopes for breakthrough discoveries.
Physicists Michel Vetterli, Bernd Stelzer and Dugan O’Neil are among hundreds of scientists worldwide who will have key roles when the project’s data collection begins in October.
On Sept. 10, they’ll be among Western Canadian participants to gather at Vancouver’s TRIUMF facility to celebrate the first beam circulation in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at CERN. No beams will collide, but the crucial first attempt at circulation is being hailed as the project’s official beginning.
The beam will be circulated at 10 a.m. European Time on Sept. 10 but the TRIUMF celebration begins at a more reasonable 10 a.m. PST. Media are welcome (U.S. scientists celebrated with a ‘pajama party’ at midnight).
ATLAS, dubbed the world’s biggest physics experiment, will probe the fundamental forces that have shaped the universe since the beginning of time and could shed light on the origins of mass and other dimensions of space.
The SFU scientists will be working to collect and interpret data produced when proton beams collide at record energy inside the LHC, a gigantic machine spanning 27 kilometers in circumference.
Vetterli, who has devoted several years and expertise to the project, says the event brings a “grab bag” of emotions. “Excitement, of course, because all of our efforts for so many years are about to come to fruition,” says Vetterli, who is the project leader for the ATLAS Canada Data Analysis Centre at TRIUMF — one of 10 data centres worldwide that are all connected via high-speed networks to compute the experiment results.
“Apprehension, as I wonder whether we ‘got it right’ and whether the equipment will work as designed. And oddly, a sense of disbelief that data will be coming soon, after almost two decades of planning. We have been working with simulated data for so long that it is hard to come to grips with the fact that we will actually soon have real data.”
Why should people take notice of physics? “People should care whether we understand Nature or not, or we would be nothing more than animals with limited consciousness,” says Vetterli.
“There are plenty of examples of the benefits of pushing science in general and subatomic physics in particular. I look at such historical advances as the television coming from the first electron accelerators, nuclear medicine as a spin-off of nuclear physics, better electronics because subatomic physics often pushes the requirements beyond what is available, and the World-Wide-Web, which was developed at CERN.
“It’s certainly true that the better we understand the fundamental structure of matter and of interactions, the better we can control and manipulate our surroundings.”
There’s a clear rise in the level of excitement at CERN, says O’Neil, who, like Vetterli, has visited the facility several times and will be there again in early October. He was drawn to the project as a young student 16 years ago.
“There’s a buzz for sure. A recent CERN news release said ‘we’re finishing a marathon with a sprint.’ I think that’s an accurate portrayal of the mood among scientists — at CERN and elsewhere.”
Related events
There will be a second gathering at TRIUMF on Oct. 3 from 8 – 10 a.m. to celebrate the start of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid data analysis and management - a task that will involve more than 5 million Gigabytes of data every year, produced from the hundreds of millions of subatomic collisions expected inside the LHC every second.
The LHC and its detectors will be formally inaugurated on Oct. 21. A ceremony will once again be held at TRIUMF, starting at 9 a.m. Canadian scientists will talk about the project and their hopes for breakthrough discoveries.