Minutes of the ATLAS Education/Outreach Committee meeting

9 September 1997

In attendance were about 12 committee members plus Peter Jenni and Torsten Akesson.

The following projects were discussed:

  1. Video of 15-20 minutes. Aimed perhaps at people with the science knowledge of a 15- or 16-year-old. The video would have two sound tracks; the second track would be multilingual. Described by Cornelius Daum and Jacques Visser (NIKHEF). Committee was enthusiastic about making a ATLAS video, and a follow-up meeting on the video was held the same day. For some early thoughts about the contents, see remarks at the bottom. We are requesting all committee members (and others) to send us their ideas as soon as possible about the content, themes, images, etc.
    Please send them to Lynn.Silverman @cern.ch who is coordinating the responses.
  2. Hands on CERN An outstanding project was described by Erik Johansson (Stockholm). It provides students with almost live data on Z and W events from LEP. Students analyze the events and thus "take part in a sophisticated scientific experiment and explore the innermost parts of matter at the same time as the scientists." The committee wishes to create an ATLAS tie-in. The website is http://vanh.physto.se/~hoc/hub/welcome.html or http://vanh.physto.se/~hoc/
    • Barnett has been considering another possible project that might be connected with Hands on CERN. We could allow teams of students to design a virtual ATLAS detector. Each team of students would be from a class in a different school and perhaps in a different country. They would be given a fixed sum of virtual money, and various guidelines about what is needed in order to study the physics of ATLAS. To create a useable detector, they would need 1) to understand the physics and 2) to cooperate in this joint venture. Perhaps virtual beam test studies would be allowed. Once completed, they could generate events (via Hands of CERN?) and see whether their detector worked well.
  3. Poster and Brochure about ATLAS Physics Would emphasize the physics of ATLAS: Great Mysteries of Particle Physics (perhaps: origin of mass, flavor, supersymmetry, unification, new forces, top and new particles). The poster would also show images of ATLAS and the LHC. Depending on funding, versions would be available in other languages. CERN is producing a brochure about ATLAS, and it was not clear whether or not our effort would duplicate that effort.
  4. ATLAS education/outreach Website
    • Now linked to main ATLAS homepage.
    • Still very much under construction, but has many pages.
    • Suggestions, comments, artwork, pictures, are strongly encouraged.
      Send to Barnett @lbl.gov
    • Still to be added: More "sociological" aspects about how 1700 people from 33 countries work together to build and carry out an experiment.
  5. Transparencies for public and school talks by ATLAS members For use by ATLAS members giving public and school talks; can also use the video, poster, and brochure for such occasions.
  6. CERN Travelling Exhibition (two versions) Peggie Rimmer described the travelling exhibition of CERN which includes LHC descriptions. US ATLAS may be interested in a clone. CERN also has an ultra-cheap travelling 'show' which is a stylish folding panel. It can be installed in an hour or so. It costs about 7KSfr.
  7. Activities by ATLAS physicists at their home institutions
    • workshops for students and teachers
    • activities for women and minorities
    • educational materials development
    • undergraduate student involvement in ATLAS research

ATLAS video -- Preliminary Ideas expressed at the meeting

Further discussion of ideas will occur via email until the next ATLAS Education/Outreach meeting (Monday during November ATLAS week). Given the short length of the video, it is essential to be realistic about how much can be conveyed.

Main themes (order random):

  • Large International Collaboration
  • ATLAS detector
  • Particle Acceleration
  • Particle Processes
  • Students at Work
  • Physics Mysteries that ATLAS will try to resolve

Possible scenes suggested

  1. Large group of people working together
    ==> some 1700 people!
  2. Particle collision
    • follow the particles from the collision point outwards
    • repeat the process adding layer after layer of detectors
  3. Acceleration sequence
    • rather nice sequences exist
  4. Illustrate particle processes as an exchange mechanism
    • electromagnetism
    • weak interaction
    • strong interaction
  5. Students studying particle collisions on the Web with a physicist.
  6. Hypothetical process: - with the Higgs particle