Interactions News Wire #23-08
27 March 2008 http://www.interactions.org
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Source: US LHC Communications
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 27 March 2008
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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Dr. Michael Barnett, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
barnett@LBL.gov, 510-486-5650
Prof. Randy Ruchti, University of Notre Dame, ruchti.1@nd.edu, 574-631-7143
Dr. Katie Yurkewicz, US LHC Communications, katie.yurkewicz@cern.ch,
630-864-0074 or +41 22 767 0988
Student Journalists Witness the Excitement of the Large Hadron Collider
The world anticipates incredible discoveries when the Large Hadron
Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, starts
running later this year at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.
As scientists and journalists around the globe gear up for the big
event, six teams of American high school students will travel to CERN
April 2-7 and report back to their peers across the country via blogs
and videos.
The 18 student journalists will witness the same excitement as the
professional news media that have flocked to CERN in recent months,
including the New York Times, National Geographic and the Discovery
Channel. The six teams from five states across the U.S. were the winners
of a competition sponsored and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's
Office of Science and the National Science Foundation. Each team
consists of a teacher and three students who combine their expertise in
physics, communications and video production.
The LHC is a particle accelerator seven times more powerful than
anything previously built. The accelerator, a circular machine 27
kilometers in circumference, is located 100 meters underground and spans
the border between Switzerland and France. More than 1,300 scientists
from 94 universities and national laboratories across the United States
participate in the design, construction and operation of the LHC
accelerator and experiments.
The LHC experiments will search for new discoveries in the head-on
collisions of protons with extraordinarily high energy. These
collisions, which will happen 40 million times a second, will recreate
the conditions present at the birth of the universe. Physicists from the
United States and around the world will use the data from these
collisions to learn about the basic forces that have shaped our universe
and that will determine its fate. Among the mysteries scientists hope to
solve are the origin of mass, the existence of extra dimensions of space
and microscopic black holes, and the composition of dark matter. Most
exciting will be the completely unknown surprises – new processes and
particles that would transform our understanding of energy and matter.
The teams will report on their interviews with physicists and the
public, tours of the gigantic particle detectors and the LHC
accelerator, and their cultural experiences. Professional news and
information staff in Switzerland will provide training for the students,
who will have access to video recording and editing equipment at CERN.
The LHC project is an achievement in international cooperation as well
as scientific collaboration. Approximately 10,000 people from almost 60
countries, including students from high school to graduate school, have
contributed to the construction of the gigantic machine and its four
experiments.
Education is a major component of LHC physicists' efforts. The
excitement of the LHC and particle physics inspires young people to
study and appreciate science. These students will eventually use their
skills in many fields including science, education, industry, finance,
and public policy.
For more information on the LHC project, visit CERN's LHC Web pages
(http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html) and the US LHC Web
site (http://www.uslhc.us). Information on the ATLAS and CMS Experiments
is at http://atlas.ch and http://cms.cern.ch.
U.S. participation in the LHC project is supported by the Department of
Energy's Office of Science and the National Science Foundation.
Participants:
Florida
Lincoln High School, Tallahassee, FL
Teacher: Adam LaMee
Minnesota
Centennial Senior High School, Minneapolis, MN
Teacher: Jon Anderson
New York
Rush-Henrietta Senior High School, Rochester, NY
Teacher: Jeffrey Paradis
Texas
J. Frank Dobie High School, Houston, TX
Teacher: Susan Fontanilla
South Houston High School, South Houston, TX
Teacher: Michelle Johnson
Utah
Payson High School, Payson, UT
Teacher: Linda Walters
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