Session S2: Physics Outreach and Physics History

The IceCube MasterClass: providing high school students an authentic research experience

In May 2014, the first one-day long IceCube Masterclass for high school students was offered. The program was inspired by the masterclasses started in 2005 by the International Particle Physics Outreach Group and supported in the U.S. by QuarkNet. Participation in the IceCube masterclasses has grown each year, with a total of over 500 students in three U.S states and three European countries after three editions. In a masterclass, students join an IceCube research team to learn about astrophysics and replicate the results of a published paper, such as the discovery of astrophysical neutrinos or a measurement of the cosmic ray flux. We will discuss both the scientific and educational goals of the program as well as the organizational challenges. Data from the program evaluation will be used to support the need of educational activities based on actual research as a powerful approach for motivating more students to pursue STEM college programs, making science and scientists more approachable to teenagers, and helping students envision a career in science.   

Science Behind Bars: Reaching Inmates from Rikers Island

I report on the project "Science Behind Bars: Reaching Inmates on Rikers Island" partially funded through an APS \textit{Public Outreach and Informing the Public} grant. This project involves developing leave-behind materials and setting up meetings to speak with Rikers Island inmates about science, evidence-based reasoning, and the dangers of stereotype threat.   

Growing Physics and Astronomy Public Outreach in Montreal

AstroMcGill was founded in 2011 by an enthusiastic group of undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. It serves as the education and public outreach (EPO) branch of the astronomy group within the Physics Department at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Over the last five years, AstroMcGill has grown from organizing sporadic visits in a couple primary schools to running a successful inquiry-based outreach programme for grade 4-6 students, the McGill Space Explorers. During the same time span, the attendance at public AstroNight lectures ramped up from attracting a few dozen people to over 500 people each month. We will highlight the recent successes of the programme and our best guesses for the reasons behind this success. We will also discuss the challenges of working in a bilingual city as we juggle our majority anglophone volunteers, a mandatory french science curriculum for primary school children and the (somewhat) overlapping English- and French-speaking communities in the city.   

Sharing the Wonder of Gravitational Waves

To share as widely as possible the excitement of the new discovery of gravitational waves, scientists in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) and Virgo Collaboration prepared communication tools for a worldwide and diverse audience. This work included resources for traditional and social media outlets, preparing to engage at a wide range of levels and interests. The response to the LIGO discovery announcement indicated that the public is eager to engage with frontier physics. The LSC and Virgo outreach efforts hold lessons for broad STEM outreach including examples of citizen science initiatives and art$+$science collaboration as a way to inspire and engage a wide range of audiences.   

Quantum Mechanics for Everybody: An autonomous MOOC on EdX for nonscientists

We have launched a MOOC for nonscientists that teaches quantum mechanics using the Feynman methodology as outlined in his QED book and in a similar book by Daniel Styer. Using a combination of videos, voice-over powerpoint animations, computer simulations and interactive tutorials, we teach the fundamentals of quantum mechanics employing a minimum of math (high school algebra, square roots, and a little trigonometry) but going into detail on a number of complex quantum ideas. We begin with the Stern-Gerlach experiment, including delayed choice and Bell's inequality variants. Then we focus on light developing the quantum theory for partial reflection and diffraction. At this point we demonstrate the complexity of quantum physics by showing how watched and unwatched two-slit experiments behave differently and how quantum particles interfere. The four week course ends with advanced topics in light where we cover the idea of an interaction free measurement, the quantum Zeno effect and indistinguishable particles via the Hong-Ou-Mandel experiment. We hope this MOOC will reach thousands of students interesting in learning quantum mechanics without any dumbing down or the need to learn complex math. It can also be used with undergraduates to help with conceptual understanding.   

Reviving Complementarity: John Wheeler's efforts to apply complementarity toward a quantum description of gravitation.

In 1978, John Wheeler proposed the delayed-choice thought experiment as a generalization of the classic double slit experiment intended to help elucidate the nature of decision making in quantum measurement. In particular, he wished to illustrate how a decision made after a quantum system was prepared might retrospectively affect the outcome. He extended his methods to the universe itself, raising the question of whether the universe is a ``self-excited circuit'' in which scientific measurements in the present affect the quantum dynamics in the past. In this talk we'll show how Wheeler's approach revived the notion of Bohr's complementarity, which had by then faded from the prevailing discourse of quantum measurement theory. Wheeler's advocacy reflected, in part, his wish to eliminate the divide in quantum theory between measurer and what was being measured, bringing greater consistency to the ideas of Bohr, a mentor whom he deeply respected.   

Discrete Space-Time: History and Recent Developments

Discussed in this work is the long history and debate of whether space and time are discrete or continuous. Starting from Zeno of Elea and progressing to Heisenberg and others, the issues with discrete space are discussed, including: Lorentz contraction (time dilation) of the ostensibly smallest spatial (temporal) interval, maintaining isotropy, violations of causality, and conservation of energy and momentum. It is shown that there are solutions to all these issues, such that discrete space is a viable model, yet the solution require strict non-absolute space (i.e., Mach's principle) and a re-analysis of the concept of measurement and the foundations of special relativity. In developing these solutions, the long forgotten but important debate between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson concerning time will be discussed. Also discussed is the resolution to the Weyl tile argument against discrete space; however, the solution involves a modified version of the typical distance formula. One example effect of discrete space is then discussed, namely how it necessarily imposes order upon Wheeler's quantum foam, changing the foam into a gravity crystal and yielding crystalline properties of bandgaps, Brilluoin zones and negative inertial mass for astronomical bodies.   

Soviet Hadron Collider

Rapid growth of the high energy physics program in the USSR during 1960s-1970s culminated with a decision to build the Accelerating and Storage Complex (UNK) to carry out fixed target and colliding beam experiments. The UNK was to have three rings. One ring was to be built with conventional magnets to accelerate protons up to the energy of 600 GeV. The other two rings were to be made from superconducting magnets, each ring was supposed to accelerate protons up to the energy of 3 TeV. The accelerating rings were to be placed in an underground tunnel with a circumference of 21 km. As a 3 x 3 TeV collider, the UNK would make proton-proton collisions with a luminosity of 4 x 10$^{34}$ cm$^{-1}$s$^{-1}$. Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino was a project leading institution and a site of the UNK. Accelerator and detector research and development studies were commenced in the second half of 1970s. State Committee for Utilization of Atomic Energy of the USSR approved the project in 1980, and the construction of the UNK started in 1983. Political turmoil in the Soviet Union during late 1980s and early 1990s resulted in disintegration of the USSR and subsequent collapse of the Russian economy. As a result of drastic reduction of funding for the UNK, in 1993 the project was restructured to be a 600 GeV fixed target accelerator only. While the ring tunnel and proton injection line were completed by 1995, and 70{\%} of all magnets and associated accelerator equipment were fabricated, lack of Russian federal funding for high energy physics halted the project at the end of 1990s.