Particle detectors:
theyÕre nearer than you think
When he was in Amsterdam, Marcel Demarteau was a Bijzonder Hoogleraar. ThatÕs Ôprofessor of physicsÕ
to you. Marcel deals
in particle detectors, which means he takes pictures of particle collisions and
figures out ways to make the picture clearer. People often comment that Marcel
should stop recording collisions and start recording something less messy and
violent, but Marcel understands that, when particles collide, they reveal life
forces that, if well understood, make for a better, more grandly unified world.
Marcel is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago.
Seeking hidden
dimensions
Brian Foster is so in demand as a physicist, he
has to put up with the attendant, involuntary habit of spending an inordinate
amount of time in and around airplanes, airports and departure lounges. This
also keeps him from fully pursuing other interests – playing violin, reading
modern novels and watching soccer games. Despite these deprivations, he is
faithful to his profession, seeking what the universe hasnÕt yet revealed to
us. Brian is a professor of experimental physics at the University of Oxford.
Stimulating particle
simulations
Junpei Fujimoto uses his computer as the crystal
ball that predicts particle behavior. Of course, unlike a crystal ball, the
computer has to be fed some information before it can say anything useful,
which renders it somewhat less user-friendly than a crystal ball. However,
Junpei is such a master at feeding it information and so fluent in computer
languages, he puts other fortunetellers to shame. A passionate advocate for
physics outreach, Junpei is a physicist at KEK laboratory in Japan.
Neutrinos from outer
space!
Garabed Halladjian was fascinated when he
realized that the most beautiful symphonies and the stars follow the same laws.
To comprehend the nature of time, he started to submerge himself in physics and
philosophy. Currently, he is a post-doctoral physicist with the University of
Iowa and is stationed at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory based
in Switzerland. There, he searches for new unknown particles to uncover new and
mysterious laws of nature. While earning his PhD, Garabed taught special relativity,
quantum mechanics, non-Euclidian geometry... and he studied the high-energy
cosmic neutrinos emitted from the most violent regions of the universe. And if
you donÕt know what neutrinos are, he can tell you all about them.
An illumination of dark matter
JoAnne Hewett took her first physics class as a
sophomore in college, was immediately hooked, and embarked on a career of
performing esoteric theoretical calculations. Her research probes the
fundamental nature of space, matter, and energy, where she most enjoys devising
experimental tests for preposterous theoretical models. JoAnne works at the SLAC
National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford, where she is a professor of
theoretical physics.
Why physics, dude?
When Marc Wenskat was a child, he a broke a
lot of stuff because he was always curious. At least that was his excuse. In
school he was kind of lazy and dumped a few science courses until he started to
understand how fascinating and interesting, funny and philosophical science,
and especially physics, can be. Now he wants his PhD. As a scientist at the
German laboratory called DESY (pronounced ÔdaisyÕ), he deals with
superconducting cavities, the components in a particle accelerator that bring the
energy, the 'speed', to particles. If youÕre lucky, heÕll also bring you up to
speed.