Michael Daugherity's Archive

Two recent rankings of American universities recognize Abilene Christian University as an outstanding institution:

First, U.S. News & World Report lists ACU as the #1 “Up and Coming” school in the West Region (the very fact that Texas is considered ‘West’ shows the immense size of this region).  The study also puts us at #19 overall in the region, and #12 in the “Great schools at great prices”.

Second, Forbes Magazine ranks ACU in the top 7% of America’s Best Colleges.  In their consideration of 6,600 accredited post-secondary institutions in the U.S., they place ACU at #484 placing us “among the best in the country”.

While the methodologies are highly subjective, I would like to think that our department’s unique research program makes a big difference in national rankings such as these.  However, our real reputation doesn’t come from magazines, but from the people who have passed through the physics department over the years.  Keep up the good work.

-Dr. D

[Contribution by Daniel Pamplin]

My wife and I traveled to Los Alamos National Laboratories for the summer because I was offered an interning position by the laboratory. The work at the lab is great, but what really excited me when I got accepted was the proximity of the Grand Canyon. I have wanted to visit it for some time now.

The opportunity arose on the Fourth of July weekend. My schedule has me off every other Friday and the government gave us that Monday off giving my wife and I a four-day weekend. We packed the car and drove the eight hours to get there. We set up camp, and then a little bit before sunset we struck off to see the canyon. Words really fail me here. It is hard to explain how immense the Grand Canyon is.

Daniel Pamplin at the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is about 4000 to 6000 feet deep with a 6-mile trail that leads down into it. While the temperature at the top is usually around 80 at the height of the day, inside the canyon it gets up to 115 degrees!

Sunset at the Grand Canyon

The rest of the time we were there we camped, hiked into the Grand Canyon, hiked around the edge, interacted with the very bold squirrels that live in and around the canyon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdGTNKdTilU), and climbed out onto a peninsula of rock. This peninsula was only about 4 feet wide and there was a good 300 to 500 foot drop on either side of it.

I am a physics major at ACU and it has definitely made my life a little bit more exciting.

-Daniel

[Editor’s note:  This is the first in a long overdue series introducing the different ACU physics projects.  This story is by ACU students Kyle Gainey and Spenser Lynn.]

Everything in the universe, from the smallest particles to the largest stars, is controlled by the laws and forces of nature.  These forces cause an apple to fall to the ground and even give power to the sun.  Phenomena such as these have fascinated people for ages and their curiosity has led them to ask the question, why?  Physics is a natural science with the goal of explaining the laws of nature in a defined, mathematical way.  The men and women who study physics are called physicists and, using the scientific method, they work to unravel the mysteries of the universe.  To do this, physicists try to find out what everything is made of and how it works.  By now, they have learned a lot: all things are made of tiny bits of matter called molecules.  The smallest drop of water possible is a water molecule (H2O).  Molecules are made of smaller particles called atoms.  Atoms form into different types called elements and are organized on the periodic table of elements.  A water molecule, for example, is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.  Smaller still are protons, neutrons, and electrons which build atoms.  Most high school text books stop at protons, neutrons, and electrons and declare them to be the smallest building blocks of nature, but nuclear physicists are interested in even smaller particles such as quarks and gluons, which make up protons and neutrons.  Observing these microscopic particles with the human eye or even a microscope is impossible, so it is necessary to build large detectors that use high speed technology and computers in order to make observations about these particles.

One such detector is the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment, also known as the PHENIX Experiment.  PHENIX is so large that one person could not operate it alone, so hundreds of physicists from all over the world work together in a team called a collaboration.  PHENIX is the largest of four particle detectors at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island, New York.  PHENIX is made up of many different parts, each of which play a specific role in the experiment.  Altogether, PHENIX weighs more than 6,000,000 pounds and is larger than a house.  By using PHENIX and RHIC, physicists hope to better understand the fundamental laws of physics, the Big Bang, and a new state of matter called Quark-Gluon Plasma that may have existed in the moments after the beginning of the universe.

ACU students and professors standing in front of the PHENIX detector at RHIC (click for a slightly larger version).

In order to to study quarks, gluons, and other small particles, physicists at PHENIX follow a multi-step procedure that begins with a gold ion beam and ends with a published paper.  Beginning at the Tandem Van de Graff, a gold ion beam is produced.  A gold ion is a gold atom that has some of its electrons stripped away.  The ion beam travels through a pipe that uses magnets to direct the beam to the booster. At the booster, the beam’s energy is increased and the particles are accelerated.  The beam then travels to the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS), where it is accelerated again before traveling to the RHIC beam line.  Once in RHIC, the beam is traveling at 99.995% of the speed of light, which is about 671,000,000 miles per hour.  RHIC is a circle with a circumference of two miles, and located at different location along the ring are the four particle detectors.  Before entering RHIC, the ion beam is split in half, with half of the beam traveling around RHIC clockwise and the other half traveling counterclockwise. The beams are kept in two parallel beam pipes that only intersect at the detectors.  At PHENIX, the two beams collide and the gold ions smash into each other with enormous amounts of heat and energy.  The temperature inside of a collision is greater than one trillion degrees Fahrenheit.  When the ions collide, they create a shower of particles, and different kinds of particles are scattered in all directions.  These particles then travel through the many types of detectors in PHENIX where high speed electronics record what happened.  The signals from the electronics are then sent from the detector and are organized into an event and recorded.  The events are continuously monitored to ensure that nothing has gone wrong.  The data are then sent to the RHIC computing facility for processing.  Supercomputers process the data and reconstruct it so that physicists can learn things such as the particle type, momentum, energy, and charge.  After reconstruction, the data are analyzed.  By looking at the collected data, physicists hope to make new discoveries about elementary particles, the Quark-Gluon Plasma, and proton spin.  Their finding are then published in a scientific paper to be shared with the rest of the scientific community.

The research going on at PHENIX is real and is making an impact on the lives of people all over the world. From medical applications such as cancer treatment and MRI, to improving nuclear energy and other forms of alternative fuels, physicists are working to solve some of the most pressing challenges today. The future looks bright for PHENIX and all fields of physics as physicists continue to probe deeper into the mysteries that exist in our universe and continuously learn new things.

–Kyle Gainey and Spenser Lynn

Who are the greatest physicists of all time?  Well, any self-respecting has to start of with Newton and Einstein, with Newton most likely going first.  But what about number three?  Can you think of the name of a third physicist?  Odds are, unless you recently took some college physics, probably not.  Today’s post is about the greatest physicist that most people have never heard of.

Yesterday, in one of the things I love about summer research, the BNL Physics department hosted Graham Farmelo to discuss his new biography of P. A. M. Dirac, who is my personal choice for the third greatest physicist of all time.  Dirac was driven by his own sense of mathematical beauty, and his work during the development of Quantum Mechanics were shining moments of clarity in the midst of utter confusion and chaos.  Freeman Dyson puts it best:

“His discoveries were like exquisitely carved marble statues falling out of the sky, one after another. He seemed to be able to conjure laws of nature from pure thought.”

Dirac played a pivotal role in the foundations of Quantum Mechanics, predicted antimatter, and invented quantum electrodynamics all in the span of a relatively few years.  A nice testament to his legacy is the number of things which still bear his name: the Dirac equation, Fermi-Dirac statistics, the Dirac delta function, the Dirac monopole, and on it goes.  But enough jargon, let’s get on to the good bits.

Biography of Dirac by Graham Farmelo

So why would Dr. Farmelo call his biography of Dirac The Strangest Man?  Most physicists are a little strange (but delightfully odd in a charming way, we would like to believe), but Dirac outdoes us all.  This is the guy that theoretical physicists consider weird and nerdy.  This is the guy who climbs trees while wearing a three piece suit over his lunch break.  Spend some time googling stories about Dirac and see what I mean.  Tell us about any good stories you find in the comment section.  Better yet, pick up a copy of The Strangest Man this summer and learn more about the greatest physicist that no one has ever heard of.

Consider looking for it at the library–it’s like a NetFlix for books!

-Dr. D

(Contribution by Daniel Pamplin, Senior Physics and Math major.  Daniel is working at Los Alamos National Lab this summer.)

Upon hearing the words linear particle accelerator, it is common to think of a very high tech building connected to a long accelerator.  It is easy to expect very complicated machinery in a modern organized building.  Inside, everything is partitioned off neatly and fairly open.  The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE for short) is nothing like that.

The LANSCE accelerator begins in a very organized fashion.  Upon driving past the guard gate there is a bend in the road and then the beginning of the accelerator comes to view.  The road turns past the main complex and follows the accelerator down its half mile length, then the unexpected happens.  What was one long building blossoms into a hodgepodge of structures that seem to be placed randomly.  To traverse the path between any of these edifices it is often necessary to travel through an obstacle course of 3 ton concrete bricks, makeshift stairways, beam dumps, barbed wire fences, precolombian ruins and beam pipes.  The photo below shows one such obstacle, and in case you can not read the two signs posted near the pipe they say, “DANGER, HIGH RADIATION AREA” and “Beam Pipe Do Not Linger.”

The LANSCE particle beam--do not linger.

Taken aback by the bizarre layout and the hive network of dirt paths, it would be easy to dismiss LANSCE as a backyard science project that has grown out of control, but  the proton accelerator has one more surprise.  The design may be random, but some of the most cutting edge experiments take place in these odd buildings.

After the protons are accelerated to 84% of the speed of light in just a half mile, they strike a target that spews out neutrons in all directions.  The energy of the neutrons depends on the angle that they leave the target.  This explains the seemingly random placement of some of the structures.  Each different building is receiving neutrons with different energy levels that are then used by the scientists for their own purposes.  Anything from cross-section data to irradiating microchips can be examined with this exceptional facility.

LANSCE is a very district place to work with awesome science and technology perched on the edge of a  plateau with a great view, and where ducking under a radioactive beam pipe is just another day at the office.

-Daniel

(Contribution by Brandon Coombes, Junior from Fort Worth, TX.  Brandon is working at Lawerence Livermore National Lab this summer)

Security is tight here and the restrictions on what you can do at the lab are even tighter.  This is what makes the world we live in here at the lab move so slow.  If you need computer access, give it a couple of days.  If you need a part, give it a couple of weeks. Let’s not even get started on the S word.  You can’t put this word in any of your titles because of the legalities it would invoke.  This word (in a whisper) is SAFETY.  Let me tell you, through all the rigorous tests and processes, I can guarantee that our experiment at the lab is being performed safely.

Brandon and Tyler work with Dr. Towell, who forgot his lab coat again!

Our experiment, NIFFTE, has been going pretty well and progressing to the point that we will be sending the prototype Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to Los Alamos.  This also means that there is a lot of work to do with getting our online software to work so that they can take real data when it gets there.  Sarvagya Sharma has been working on getting the reconstruction of data to work correctly while also working on making a test stand for the preamp cards.  Tyler Thornton’s work has been effectively paused until we know what we are going to do with Slow Controls.  Dr. Qu has locked himself in the lab and is beating the Event Builder and Packet Receiver into submission.  Brandon Coombes is working on a way to read out the cathode on the TPC faster, but unfortunately some parts need to be ordered and some things are needing to be fixed (Uh Oh! See 1st Paragraph).  Not to worry, with our bright young minds we will be able accomplish everything this summer!

Outside of the lab, Sarvagya, Tyler, and Brandon are all staying with families from a local church here in Livermore, Tri-Valley Church of Christ.  Free time for Sarvagya consists of riding his bike around trails and getting away from trails that have snakes lurking.  For Tyler, he spends his time buttering up his newly endowed fiance, Holly, and also trying to beat Sarvagya and Brandon in as many variations of basketball as he can.  As for Brandon, he goes home and plays Xbox 360 and continues drawing his graphic novel.  One thing that has kept the mornings busy is World Cup.  Tyler and Brandon come to the lab at 9 am instead of 8 on days the US team plays and they do play well (if the refs do not call ridiculous things).

That is about all we have from the West Coast. California weather beats Texas weather and the trees and hills aren’t bad either.

-Brandon

One of the perks of working at Brookhaven National Lab is the proximity to New York City.  We can hop on a train and get to Penn Station in Manhattan in an hour and twenty minutes (well… more like two hours this particular trip, largely thanks to someone who got arrested on board).  This trip centered around dear friend and ACU alum Lyndsey Goode, who has been a stage manager in New York City for quite some time.  With last-minute tickets and heroic babysitting we were able to see her current project, This Wide Night, as a desperate eight block dash got us to the theater two minutes before curtain.

The play was an intelligent, moving, and deeply psychological study of two women recently released from prison.  The entire show takes place in a brilliantly set shabby studio apartment, providing the backdrop for themes of brokenness and nearly impossible attempts of reconciliation.  The writing is such that this play rests entirely on the ability of the actors.  With lesser talents this could potentially devolve to be insurmountably slow-moving and dreary.  Fortunately this was not the case.  The acting was phenomenal with two of the highest caliber actors I have ever seen on stage: Edie Falco (yes, from the Sopranos) and Alison Pill.  (For a nice bonus win, this NYT review starts off with Einstein and the laws of physics.)  A truly remarkable experience overall.  Tomorrow is the last performance of the show, though it seems likely that it will be picked up for Broadway in the near future.

I didn’t intend to write a review of the show, instead I’m merely trying to convey the experience of temporarily leaving Abilene to work in New York.  As I’m off to Washington D.C. next week for a physics workshop (along with Dr. Head and Dr. Willis), I’ll be finding a few students to write about their own experiences of research labs in different parts of the country.  Assuming, of course, the 600 mile round-trip drive through the Northeast with two small children doesn’t kill me first.  Onward ho!

-Dr. D

(Contribution from Dr. Towell)

I’ve always been amazed when two things that are extremely different have so much in common.  While examples are abundant, I’d like to highlight two.

Example one:  Our sun and the state of matter created in the collision of gold nuclei traveling at almost the speed of light.  Both of these are sometimes loosely referred to as ‘fireballs’ because they are hot and round.  Studying these objects helps us learn more about how the basic forces in nature work and how matter is structured.  Of course studying these objects, especially the inside of these objects is extremely difficult.  So these two objects have lots in common.

If you’d like to know a bit more about the core of the collision of nuclei, check out this story.  We call this state of matter a quark-gluon plasma or QGP.

On the other hand, these objects are worlds apart.  The core of the sun is hot, about 16 million degrees.  The core of the collision of nuclei is 250,000 times hotter.  That means the QGP is about 4 trillion degrees.  There is also a size difference.  The sun is about 1,400,000,000 meters in diameter.  The QGP formed in the collision of gold nuclei is about 0.000 000 000 000 001 meters in diameter.  That’s right.  The sun is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times bigger than the QGP.  I don’t even know the name of that number.

So how do we study something as small and as hot as the QGP?  We build big detectors and study the particles that are emitted from it.  Again, this is similar to studying the sun since we don’t have the option of getting close to or inside of it either.  So we study the sun by viewing the particles it emits. More »

Did you know that there is an ACU Physics Facebook group?   I just uploaded some old pictures of our trebuchet from 10 years ago, but that is another story…

We are not responsible for any content you find on Facebook; I often whether anyone actually is. Your mileage may vary. Some settling may occur during shipment. Void where prohibited.

-Dr. D

Last week marked the tenth anniversary of the first recorded collision of the nuclei from two gold atoms by the PHENIX collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory.  This collision (shown below) and the billions of billions that followed, have deepened our understanding of the structure of matter and what holds it together on the smallest size scales and the largest energy scales.  From the beginning, ACU and our Nuclear Physics Research Team have been part of this work.

The first PHENIX event–June 15, 2000!

Event display of the first Au+Au collision recorded by the PHENIX detector.

In an email to the PHENIX collaboration, the spokeswoman, Barbara Jacak said, “Precisely ten years ago, PHENIX recorded our very first collision. It has been quite a journey from that day to now. Our accomplishments include 88 papers published and several more in the refereeing process.  The many thousands of citations garnered by these papers are a testament not only to our productivity, but also to the importance of our data.  In the incredibly successful Run-10, we recorded almost exactly one petabyte of data! Such volumes seemed downright scary a decade ago, and now we have blazed a trail wherein it is simply normal.  Our scientific and technical impact from the first decade is enormous, and I am confident that the impact from the next decade will be as well!”

I joined the PHENIX collaboration in 1999 and have been an active member ever since that time.  During the past ten years 36 ACU students have been involved with this research.  Most of these students and 4 ACU faculty members have contributed sufficiently to be listed as authors on the papers published by PHENIX.  In fact, there has not been a PHENIX publication that does not include a member of our team as an author.

It is worth noting that the students that got experience working on PHENIX have followed very different but also very successful career paths.  While some students have continued in graduate school to pursue a degree in nuclear physics, other students have decided to specialize in other fields of physics.  Other students have gone to graduate school in fields of engineering, math, and computer science.  Some students have gone to medical school or even medical physics.  Of course several students sought employment after graduating from ACU and found great jobs in education and industry.  What all of these students have in common is that while they were helping us learn more about the nature of the world around us, they were also gaining a valuable experience that helped them prepare for their future.

-Dr. Towell