A little of this and that...

so tonight i had the honor of attending chicago's hyde park historical society's annual dinner, in which dr. larry hawkins - the man in charge of the u of c's office of special programs - was awarded with an achievement award for his work providing low-income students with the opportunity to finish high school, pursue a college education, and be good citizens in their communities. doc hawkins is a spectacular human being who has a tremendous presence and charisma wherever he goes. the south side outreach program that i teach - kicp space explorers - is managed by the office of special program, hence my attendance at this event. well, a few more interesting things happened. first, in discussing the achievements of hyde park citizens, one speaker made the prediction that at next year's dinner, we'll be celebrating the future president of the united states BARACK OBAMA who, as most know, has spent a big part of his life here in hyde park. everyone, of course, cheered at that. secondly, i was fortunate to sit next to professor john carlstrom, one of the absolute nicest people in the astro department (well, after my own advisor, of course). well, john informed me of two very important things. first, the south pole telescope is going to be collecting real data "any day now," the weather has been miserable but apparently hopes remain high. secondly, i of course asked if he was a fan of house, since there had been a recent episode featuring a doctor getting sick while at the south pole without an opportunity to be evacuated. he confirmed a story i had heard recently, that a number of years ago, a female doctor diagnosed herself with a breast tumor, and was forced to perform a biopsy on herself! fortunately, the doctor was able to eventually receive treatment and is now fine, but these days there is a doctor, a surgeon, and a surgeon's assistant down there, so that these sorts of crises may be evaded. interesting stuff. overall, a good night with good food.

Physics Education Resources: Feedback Wanted

i have recently written a resource letter for physics instructors, which contains a number of resources in the form of books, articles, journals, websites, and organizations. this is intended to provide some sort of practical insight into the field of physics education research so that instructors can ground their teaching practices in well-established research. a draft of this document can be found here, and if you have any interest in teaching physics and have feedback, i'd greatly appreciate it. the physics education community at the university of chicago is limited, at best. (image credit: the physics teacher)

The Hunt for the Sterile Neutrino

listen to university of chicago's scott dodelson (who incidentally is also the acting director of the theoretical astrophysics group at fermilab) talk about the search for sterile neutrinos using miniboone as a new scientist podcast (scott starts talking around 18:55). a quick summary: miniboone has been searching for the sterile neutrino, a fourth type of neutrino (beyond the three neutrinos already included in the standard model of particle physics) that doesn't interact via the interactions in the standard model (electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions). however, since this hypothetical particle possesses mass, if it exists it would interact with other particles via gravitational interactions, thereby making it a candidate for dark matter. yeah, scott rocks. the image above shows the interior of the miniboone tank, which is covered with 1280 photomultiplier tubes. there are plenty of smart people you can ask about the setups of these experiments, here are some of the details. (image credit: fermilab)

Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the State of Cosmology

here is a very nice article from the nytimes about the current state of cosmology in its search for dark matter and dark energy. the university of chicago is nicely represented in the article, as it features michael turner, juan collar, josh frieman, and (as always) sean carroll (who is now at caltech). (image credit: here)

South Pole Telescope

great, great news. the south pole telescope (SPT), headed by our own john carlstrom here at the university of chicago kavli institute, saw its first light on february 16th (i'm clearly still a bit behind the news, but i'm catching up!). SPT is a 10m telescope operating in the submillimeter wavelength range (between infrared and radio in the electromagnetic spectrum), with its camera cooled to a mere 1/4 of a degree above absolute zero. the first observations were made of jupiter at wavelengths of 2 and 3mm, and demonstrated that the scope was working as designed. ultimately, the goal of the telescope is to help astronomers understand the nature of dark energy by using the S-Z effect to map galaxy clusters, and to make measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. here is the SPT blog with stories of the assembly of the telescope and lots of nice pictures. here is the nsf press release.

oh and fyi, from march 2007-march 2008 is the international polar year. what a great thing that it's starting off on an astronomical note. see this page for wonderful images from the polar regions.

[ryan, who is part of the SPT team, was in the office the other day telling stories of the assembly of the telescope. i clearly immediately asked if they had seen any penguins, but apparently penguins don't live on the south pole. huge disappointment!]