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Formerly known as the Engineering Education Advocate
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Archives
Books by Celeste Baine
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Engineering Principles Teacher's Guide |
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Engineering Graphics Teacher's Guide |
Aeronautical Engineering Teacher's Guide |
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Civil Engineering Teacher's Guide |
Teaching Engineering Made Easy: A Friendly Introduction to Engineering Activities for Middle School Teachers |
The Musical Engineer: A Music Enthusiast's Guide to Engineering and Technology Careers |
The Fantastical Engineer: A Thrillseeker's Guide to Careers in Theme Park Engineering - Second Edition |
High Tech Hot Shots: Careers in Sports Engineering |
Is There an Engineer Inside You?: A Comprehensive Guide to Career Decisions in Engineering |
Wednesday is the Big Day! Countdown starts in quest to pierce secrets of Universe
 | Tomorrow is the big day! The most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then smash them together, with the aim of filling gaps in our understanding of the cosmos. |
Particle physicists believe they will throw open a new frontier of knowledge on Wednesday when, 100 metres (325 feet) below ground, they switch on a mega-machine crafted to unveil the deepest mysteries of matter.
It may also determine the outcome of novel theories about space-time: does another dimension -- or dimensions -- exist in parallel to our own?
After nearly two decades and six billion Swiss francs (3.76 billion euros, 5.46 billion dollars), an army of 5,000 scientists, engineers and technicians drawn from nearly three dozen countries have brought the mammoth project close to fruition.At 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) on Wednesday, the first protons will be injected into a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel, straddling the Swiss-French border at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Whizzed to within a millionth of a percent of the speed of the light, the particles will be the first step in a long-term experiment to smash sub-atomic components together, briefly generating temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the Sun in a microscopic space.
It has the power to smash protons or ions -- particles known as hadrons -- together at a whopping 14 teraelectron volts (TeV), seven times the record held by Fermilab's Tevatron.
The leviathan scale of the project is neatly juxtaposed by its goal, which is to explore the infinitely small.
If this sounds difficult to convey to students, you can relax because the CERN engineers and scientists put together a catchy and technically accurate rap song that you can show your students to celebrate the big event! Thankfully, the words to the song are on the bottom of the screen and they expalin what is happening and what CERN is trying to accomplish. Bravo CERN!
World's biggest atom-smasher: Mission profile
Following is a mission profile of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest atom-smasher, which is due to start operations on Wednesday:
- Hunt for the HIGGS BOSON, a theorised particle that would explain why other particles have mass. Confirming the Higgs would fill a huge gap in the so-called Standard Model, the theory that summarises our present knowledge of particles. Over the years, scientists have whittled down the ranges of mass that the Higgs is likely to have. But they have lacked a machine capable of generating collisions powerful enough to to confirm whether this so-called God particle really does exist.
- Explore SUPERSYMMETRY, the notion that a whole bestiary of related but more massive particles exists beyond those in the Standard Model. Supersymmetry could explain one of the weirdest discoveries of recent years -- that visible matter only accounts for some four percent of the cosmos. Dark matter (23 percent) and dark energy (73 percent) account for the rest. A popular theory is that dark matter comprises supersymmetric particles called neutralinos.
- Investigate the mystery of MATTER AND ANTI-MATTER. When energy transforms into matter, it produces a particle and its mirror image -- called an anti-particle -- which holds the opposite electrical charge. When particles and anti-particles collide, they annihilate each other in a small flash of energy. According to conventional theories of the cosmos, matter and anti-matter should exist in equal amounts, but the puzzle is that anti-matter is rare.
- Replicate the earliest moments after the BIG BANG that created the Universe. At its primal stage, matter existed as a sort of hot, dense soup called quark-gluon plasma. As it cooled, sub-atomic particles called quarks clumped together to form protons and neutrons and other composite particles. The LHC will smash heavy ions together, briefly generating temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun and freeing quarks from their confinent. The researchers can then see how the liberated quarks aggregate to form ordinary matter.
The CERN atom-smasher: A factfile
Here is a snapshot of the world's biggest atom-smasher, due to start operations on Wednesday at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) near Geneva:
-- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will accelerate hydrogen protons or lead ions to more than 99.9999 percent of the speed of light. The experiments will take place in a ring-shaped tunnel 27 kilometres (16.9 miles) long and up to 175 metres (568 feet) below the ground. The tunnel stretches out from Swiss territory and into France, looping back into Switzerland.
-- The beams run in parallel in opposite directions. Powerful superconducting magnets then "bend" the beams so that streams of particles collide within four large chambers. The smashups will fleetingly generate temperatures 100,000 hotter than the Sun, replicating the conditions that prevailed just after the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
Read more about it at Physorg.com
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Mind Reading 101
Back when I was a kid, we lived in a time of content scarcity. If we wanted to research something, we went to the library. If we wanted to watch a cartoon, we waited until Saturday morning. If we wanted to listen to a new song, we waited for the radio to play it again.
Today, kids live in a world of content infinity. When they have a question, they ask Google, Ask.com or Wikipedia. When they want to watch a specific cartoon, they push the “play” button on their on-demand system or they visit the channel’s website to watch it on the Internet. When they hear a song they like, they download it from iTunes. They live in a world of made-to-order instant gratification.
For us engineering education advocates, the problem isn’t about finding information on engineering careers, locating hands-on activities, or helping students decide which college to attend. It’s more about figuring out:
- What is appealing to students (what drives this generation);
- Getting that tailored information to them (books, DVDs, hands-on projects, posters, websites, or something else);
- Answering the questions that they haven’t even asked yet (Will I like engineering? How hard will I have to work?, Is it worth the hard work?, etc.).
To find what is appealing to students, The National Academy of Engineering conducted a major study to address the messages we portray to pre-college students about engineering. The findings (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12187) show that young people want jobs that make a difference. Additional recommendations from the research study are as follows:
- Stop reinforcing the images of ‘nerdy and boring’
- Stop focusing on math and science as the needed inputs and instead focus on the outputs, career opportunities, and making a difference in the world
- Use the word ‘create’ not ‘build’
- Use images of people, not things: especially avoid using gears and mechanical looking things
- Use the following five words in describing engineering: discovery, design, imagination, innovation, contribution
- Describe engineer as creative problem solvers, essential to health, happiness and safety
- Emphasize that engineers shape the future
Now you just have to figure out when and how to use the recommendations. They are affordable (they focus on communicating) and just require that you update your terminology when talking about engineering.
The other day, when I made a mistake in a conversation, I said, “Sorry, that was my mistake.” That same day, when my teenage son made a mistake, he said, “my bad”.
When we saw a man walking that was wearing lots of jewelry, my kids said, “Look at that Bling!” At first, I thought that was derogatory – then they explained it.
Learning a new form of communication is like learning a new language. It takes patience and practice before it sounds and feels right. The important thing is that you keep trying.