Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!

In good tradition, we'll celebrate Christmas with a quiz. It isn't easy to come up with questions that Google won't answer for you! Below you see images of 5 currently operating physics experiments. Write down their names and enumerate the letters as indicated below the pictures, ie the first experiment's name has 7 letters, the second one 5 etc. I apologize that I'll have to temporarily violate some people's copyrights but it wouldn't be of any use did I link to the picture sources now, I'll add them later. Click on an image to get an enlarged version if available.



1-2-3-4-5-6-7



8-9-10-11-12



13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27



28-29-30-31



32-33-34-35-36 formerly known as 37-38-39-40-41.

The solution we are looking for is 9-7-30-15-5-12 32-14-37-21-41.

This year's price is a BackRe(Action) mug and it will go to the first who submits the right answer in the comments. (For the shipment, we'll need your snail-mail address. If you are not willing to provide your address anyway, please do not spoil the fun.)

If it seems the quiz is more difficult than I thought, I'll leave some hints in the comments later.



Update:

Here's the solution.

1) ICECUBE, a neutrino experiment at the South Pole, picture taken from here, more info here.

2) ATLAS, LHC's largest detector, picture taken from here, more info here.

3) Super-Kamiokande, a neutrino experiment in Japan, picture taken from here, more info here.

4) The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search CDMS in the Soudan Underground Lab, picture taken from here, more info here.

5) Fermi formerly known as GLAST, NASA's Gamma ray space telescope, picture taken from here, more info here

49 comments:

  1. Hi Bee,

    Good luck to everyone and a Merry Christmas as I'm of to Christmas brunch.

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was expecting to get two words with 9-7-30-15-5-12 32-14-37-21-41; nonetheless, I got simply two sets of letters:
    TSMPRS FUGIT

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Stanley,

    That's close, but not quiet right...

    Best,

    B.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I know what I got wrong: my second guess is TEMPRS FUGIT

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh nooooo hitchiker wrote it first..!!!
    Well played, I did not see that coming.

    =(

    It was fun anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's Latin, not Greek, but otherwise correct :)

    Since it's Christmas, you'll both get a mug. Just send your postal address to hossi at nordita dot org

    Enjoy the rest of the holidays!

    ReplyDelete
  7. So the first experiment is not ANTARES?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks Bee!!!
    I have been working like crazy last weeks, including all Christmas eve until 3am... so your quiz (and now the Backreaction mug) made my day.

    Happy holidays and best wishes with your baby.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Nice, before I read this the contest is already won?! Yikes. Well there's always next year. :-)

    Happy Xmas to you too Phil, and your mentor Douglas L. Hemmick PhD.

    Congrats to Stanley and hitchiker.

    Now Bee, please put those remaining cups up for sale so we mere mortals can purchase one.

    Also, if I can make a suggestion, can you post a "Guess the Girls' Names" post? Emily for Emily Noether and Marie for Marie Slodowska Curie would be cool for twins born of twin PhD's in Physics.

    Other than that, the ten most common girl names in Germany (as of 2005) are, in order: Leonie/Leoni, Hanna/Hannah, Anna, Lea/Leah, Lena, Laura, Emily/Emilie, Lara, Sophie/Sofie, and Marie.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oops, I meant Amalie Emmy Noether. Note to self: look correct spellerings up BEFORE you embarrass yourself. Idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Stanley,
    hi hitchhiker -

    congratulations - this was fast! Well... carpe diem is latin also, though it doesn't sound so that much ;-).

    Landon, the experiment is similar to ANTARES, but on ice instead of the warm Mediterranean. Detailed solutions will follow soon - but we are having diner first.

    Merry Christmas to everybody!

    Stefan

    ReplyDelete
  12. Top to Bottom:

    1) ICECUBE

    2) ATLAS

    3) Super-kamiokande

    4) MAMM (Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment, the g2 Muon Experiment at Brookhaven)

    5) FERMI formally known as GLAST

    Not sure about Number 4)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Someone read The Edge of Physics this year. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Landon


    As Steven said it's IceCube Just completed last strand.

    In advance of announcing "maybe a time next year" so we all can get at it at the same time?:)

    Best,

    ReplyDelete
  15. Steven

    I think #2 was CMS(Compact Muon Solenoid) at Cern?

    Best,

    ReplyDelete
  16. Steven,

    Glast now Fermi was right as was your #3 along with Icecube. Stefan will of course correct any mistakes we've made.

    Best,

    ReplyDelete
  17. Dear all,

    Steven's list gets it right up to experiment #4, which, as stated by Plato, is at the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Minnesota. The experiment there is the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search CDMS.

    No, we didn't read "The Edge of Physics", but the photos at the books web site are great anyway.


    Cheers, Stefan

    ReplyDelete
  18. Concerning your comment about putting something that is not easily findable on Google: The Internet is already ahead of you :)

    With the excellent reverse image search engine at www.tineye.com you can find 4 of the 5 images, thus making them easily solvable. Good job on #4! :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. janne,

    Steven knew but he just forgot.:)

    Best,

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi Janne,

    I was afraid of this... I had read about people working on that a few times already, so it seems next year I'll have to come up with something else. Best,

    B.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hi All,

    I just updated the post and added the picture sources and links to the experiments.

    As a rule of thumb, if it ends on "us" or "as" it's probably Latin. If it ends on "ios" or "ei" it's probably Greek. Not that I speak either, though I vaguely recall I've been through 3 years Latin in middle school. Best,

    B.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hi Steven,

    Can't put the mugs up for sale coz I have none. As you can easily guess, I didn't make them myself, but ordered them online in a total number of 3, one for Stefan, one for me, one for the winner. If there's a handful of people together I could order some additional ones, but together with the postage fee you'd have to expect a price of about EUR 15 or so, though it somewhat depends on where you live. In small quantities, it's too expensive to actually put them up for sale, otherwise I might have considered it. Best,

    B.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi Bee & Stefan,

    That is certainly a nice looking mug and I had three of experiments written down but ran out of time from my end. No matter as it was solved pretty quickly by Stanley and Hitchiker to which I would like to extend my congratulations. Just as a suggestion for next year, if you are still so inclined to further brighten this special day with your quiz, perhaps offer the same as a prize, only under the Backreaction logo have written smaller in quotations “Mugged by Two Theoretical Physicists” . “Felix dies Nativitatis”, & “Tunc vicis melior fortuna omnibus”.

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  25. Hi Steven,

    Thanks for your best wishes, which I offer mine to you and all yours and if I hear from Doug this year I will pass it along. Oh yes and by the way what is with this mortals stuff, as I have proven lesser beings have a equal chance in all this as to suggest success having more in common with that old Roman saying “Praemonitus praemunitus”, which is to remind you take note of what Bee gives as the start time next year :-)

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  26. Thank you, Plato, I'd forgotten our little conversation from just over a year ago, seems like years. It must be something about my brain that it filters out 1.5 sigma non-results. :-)

    Yes, that was bad my mistake re #4. In my defense your honors I was in a rush to get out to Xmas dinner at the in-laws (and who doesn't like those, hmm?). I knew it was a 4 letter acronym and the 3rd letter was "M" based on TEMPUS FUGIT. Googling "Muon detector" didn't help, so I just googled "muon" and fast digging took me to the g2 experiment at Brookhaven. Oops. Hey at least I know there's such a thing as g2 so I'm the wiser for it. Should have looked at the picture more closely, in which case I'd have noticed that 2341 ft below the surface and 689 below sea level is NOT describing eastern Long Island. :-)

    On a lighter note, an Indian rocket blew up. Fear not India, America's space program had similar growing pains, and Yuri Gagarin was probably the 3rd man launched into space, as the Soviets were not in the habit of advertising their failures.

    On an amusing note, Nige Cook is taking on Electroweak at dorigo's blog. Tommaso's incredulous response is precious, and it looks like Weinberg's and Glashow's Nobel prizes are safe and sound for the time being. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Nearly a decade of 50 kilotonnes of H2O in Super Kamokande detected not a single proton decay event. SUSY then said "oopsie," did studies, and added a couple of zeros to the proton's half-life. See? No problem!

    IceCube is a cubic kilometer of ice that is 18,000 times the reactive mass of Super-K. Will the new, much longer proton half-life re recalculated in time to be timely? Meanwhile, XENON sees nothing that could be dark matter. KISS.

    Contemporary physical theory rigorously derives from even-parity fundamental symmetries. That the universe is chiral at all scales is an accommodated hieriarchy of manually inserted aberrations.

    Bollocks. One cycle of a sine wave might be an odd-order polynomial. It isn't. The manger is empty. Happy Festivus!

    ReplyDelete
  28. Uncle Al, I have two questions for you:

    1) Since you're a Mensan, why aren't you smart enough to figure out how to have somebody actually RUN this Eotvos experiment you keep promoting?

    And before you answer, bear in mind that besides being mathematically gifted, I have an MBA so I actually know that which is lost on 99.999% of intelligentsia, that is to say what an Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Journal, Ledger, and Budget actually are. I'm willing to help, but first you have to contact me by private e-mail, the exact address a Mensan such as yourself should have no trouble finding, it being but 2 keystrokes away.

    As Phil Warnell likes to quote:

    I could never join any organization that would have ME as a member.
    ... Groucho Marx


    And that's why I never joined Mensa. Running my high school Chess Club and being on the Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour was sufficient, if not profitable (which I never intended them to be; I played for the intellectual challenge, that is to say: fun).

    2) How can a wise man such as yourself STAND living in California, land of fruits and nuts, and I'm not just talking about the vegetation, if you know what I mean. :-) It's the geography, right? It is spectacular.

    I will further note that you had the last word at that post by Tommaso Dorigo. Nige Cook too! C'mon Tommaso, man up and reply!

    When Nigel LeSage Cook (who demonstrated once upon a time here at BackRe(Action) that his knowledge of Calculus III is suspect (that is: wrong)), has the last word, what further proof do we need that the Apocalypse of Armageddon is nigh?

    Time to rest, having exhausted my quota of nested parentheses for the day. There's a snow shovel with my name on it, and 20 inches of snow to dig out on my driveway.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Mensa is for fun. ISPE was for fun when Kapnick was editor. With Bee's permission,

    There are at least five geometric parity tests of the vacuum in the massed sector. Four must be conducted hard by 45 latitude:

    1) Parity Eotvos, opposed enantiomorphic single crystals of alpha-quartz or gamma-glycine. Academic physics does not do chemistry.

    U/Washington won't do it, U/Califonia/Irvine won't do it. A Chinese group supposedly ran it. They reported a "dirty null" for space group P3(2)21 quartz vs. amorphous fused silica (net signal but not statistically significant). By that time P3(1)21 quartz was grown (the presumed active enantiomorph), shaped, and loaded vs. commercial P3(2)21 quartz. 35 days into it the group claimed precedent for the experiment, told me to go to Hell, and refused further communication. Perhaps it worked and was Classified.

    That such test masses are appropriate is supported by qualitative crystallography and Michel Petitjean's ab initio quantitative geometric chirality, CHI. David Avnir's group with a very different semi-empirical method, CSM/CCM, independently calculated quartz

    Chem. Mater. 15 464 (2003)
    Acta Cryst. B60 163 (2004)
    Tetrahedron: Asymmetry 17 2723 (2006)

    and kindly did chiral gamma- and achiral alpha-glycine unit cells for me, sent last week. Their numbers agree with crystallography and Petitjean.

    2) Parity calorimetry, repeated differential enthalpies of fusion of enantiomorphic single crystals of benzil over 24 hours. We tried that with a Twin Cities commercial volunteer. It needs two pampered DSCs for sufficient sensitivity. Academic chemistry does not do gravitation.

    3) Parity gyroballs, three Meissner-levitated single crystal balls of quartz enantiomorphs plus fused silica. Look for periodic opposite rotation plus a zero-rotation control over 24 hours. Nobody will build new apparatus.

    4) Parity microwave, seeded skimmed vacuum supersonic-expanded 1 kelvin RR, RS, and SS mixed molecular bi-rotors beam. Look for anomalous divergent temps as aimed in various directions througout the day. I talked with three FT-microwave groups at acceptable latitudes. Chemical spectroscopy does not do gravitation.

    5) Parity Galilean drop 1000 miles high, SR-POEM, Robert Reasenberg, Harvard-Smithsonian. That is the classic experiment writ large and unambiguous. It launches from anywhere. Reasenberg plans aluminum vs. lead. That's guaranteed (be polite!) null result. The Bremen drop tower is insufficient.

    In what does physics believe?

    Phys. Rev. Lett. 105(21) 211304 (2010)
    DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.211304
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.2399
    "Hylogenesis: A Unified Origin for Baryonic Visible Matter and Antibaryonic Dark Matter"
    A new Dirac fermion X Curve fitting.
    A spectacular signature of this mechanism is the baryon-destroying inelastic scattering of dark matter Not observed.

    Contemporary physical theory is fantastical mathematics then empirical excuses. Cowards. Do not look where contrived theory is brightest, look where heterodox observation is most likely.

    NOTHING has dinged the Equivalence Principle since Galileo Galilei and Simon Stevin in the late 1500s. If physics failed for 425 years searching for something that was purple and did not commute, physics should worry less about the grape and more about the Abelian.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Mensa is for fun. ISPE was for fun when Kapnick was editor. With Bee's permission,

    There are at least five geometric parity tests of the vacuum in the massed sector. Four must be conducted hard by 45 latitude:

    1) Parity Eotvos, opposed enantiomorphic single crystals of alpha-quartz or gamma-glycine. Academic physics does not do chemistry.

    U/Washington won't do it, U/Califonia/Irvine won't do it. A Chinese group supposedly ran it. They reported a "dirty null" for space group P3(2)21 quartz vs. amorphous fused silica (net signal but not statistically significant). By that time P3(1)21 quartz was grown (the presumed active enantiomorph), shaped, and loaded vs. commercial P3(2)21 quartz. 35 days into it the group claimed precedent for the experiment, told me to go to Hell, and refused further communication. Perhaps it worked and was Classified.

    That such test masses are appropriate is supported by qualitative crystallography and Michel Petitjean's ab initio quantitative geometric chirality, CHI. David Avnir's group with a very different semi-empirical method, CSM/CCM, independently calculated quartz

    Chem. Mater. 15 464 (2003)
    Acta Cryst. B60 163 (2004)
    Tetrahedron: Asymmetry 17 2723 (2006)

    and kindly did chiral gamma- and achiral alpha-glycine unit cells for me, sent last week. Their numbers agree with crystallography and Petitjean.

    2) Parity calorimetry, repeated differential enthalpies of fusion of enantiomorphic single crystals of benzil over 24 hours. We tried that with a Twin Cities commercial volunteer. It needs two pampered DSCs for sufficient sensitivity. Academic chemistry does not do gravitation.

    3) Parity gyroballs, three Meissner-levitated single crystal balls of quartz enantiomorphs plus fused silica. Look for periodic opposite rotation plus a zero-rotation control over 24 hours. Nobody will build new apparatus.

    4) Parity microwave, seeded skimmed vacuum supersonic-expanded 1 kelvin RR, RS, and SS mixed molecular bi-rotors beam. Look for anomalous divergent temps as aimed in various directions througout the day. I talked with three FT-microwave groups at acceptable latitudes. Chemical spectroscopy does not do gravitation.

    5) Parity Galilean drop 1000 miles high, SR-POEM, Robert Reasenberg, Harvard-Smithsonian. That is the classic experiment writ large and unambiguous. It launches from anywhere. Reasenberg plans aluminum vs. lead. That's guaranteed (be polite!) null result. The Bremen drop tower is insufficient.

    In what does physics believe?

    Phys. Rev. Lett. 105(21) 211304 (2010)
    DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.211304
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.2399
    "Hylogenesis: A Unified Origin for Baryonic Visible Matter and Antibaryonic Dark Matter"
    A new Dirac fermion X Curve fitting.
    A spectacular signature of this mechanism is the baryon-destroying inelastic scattering of dark matter Not observed.

    Contemporary physical theory is fantastical mathematics then empirical excuses. Cowards. Do not look where contrived theory is brightest, look where heterodox observation is most likely.

    NOTHING has dinged the Equivalence Principle since Galileo Galilei and Simon Stevin in the late 1500s. If physics failed for 425 years searching for something that was purple and did not commute, physics should worry less about the grape and more about the Abelian.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Hey Al, you posted your reply not once but FOUR times at this weblog and on 2 different posts. May I suggest you take advantage of that which Phil Warnell and I take advantage of more times than we care to admit and delete 3 of them?

    Well thanks for your reply, I'm the wiser man and more knowledgeable for it, as my intellectually poverty-stricken knowledge of Eotvos is confined to the original Eotvos experiments being an attempt to see if inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same (yes, they are, as far as we can tell), but I do believe I asked you to reply via private e-mail, as yes I do believe Bee and Stefan have bigger things on their plate at the moment, such as the doubling in size of their family in the next 2 days or maybe today, and then there's the comment rules, heh.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Bee, why is the current mood of the internet "sad"? Seems pretty happy to me. It's Yule/Xmas/New Year's season, and most of the posts on the internet are upbeat from what I'm seeing on my feeds.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hey Everybody!

    Sabine is so quiet! Does anybody has some news on her and the babies? I don't know whether I should email her...

    Thanks!

    Christine

    ReplyDelete
  34. Everybody!!

    See her latest tweet (1 h ago!)

    Congrats Sabine!!!!

    Christine

    ReplyDelete
  35. ... And Stefan, of course!

    Now Sabine is a mother and Stefan a father!

    All the best for the new family!

    Christine

    ReplyDelete
  36. Dear Sabine and Stefan,

    Heart-meant congratulations on this day that will be remembered !
    Wishing you all the luck and happyness in the world !

    Denis

    ReplyDelete
  37. Hi Bee & Stefan,


    Congratulations and best wishes to the new Mom and Dad and thier wonderful new daughters !!!!!!. I’ve been waiting some time to udder those words.

    Kindest Regards,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  38. Goodness, congratulations! Lying next to a newborn is surely one of those immeasurable experiences and you must somehow multiply it by two. Best wishes.

    ReplyDelete
  39. They're ... parents ? How did that happen ?!

    Stefan, you bastard! NOW you've done it! :-)

    Big Congrats all around. Hope you remembered to buy a diaper pail.

    Congrats to the Grandparents as well.

    Now the fun REALLY begins.

    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  40. Bee and Stefan, huzzah! Now it is everybody else's task to configure a usable future for Delta and Epsilon. Seven billion people are mandated to upload the new screen saver.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Hi Steven,

    You said:“”Now the fun REALLY begins.”

    This is certainly true and yet as that tweet reported a 48 hour labour, I hope the fun for now can be kept to a minimum, as to have most of it enjoyed by Bee’s care givers for at least a few more days. I suspect Stefan as of now could benefit from a little rest as well. Its times like these that have one more fully appreciate this virtual reality thing as not being real enough to be beneficial as the actual one; for Bee and Stefan that is. Imagine if actually present what help you, I and their many other admirers out there could offer, as empowered to provide aid and support beyond simply being able to wish them our best.

    ”We have a secret in our culture, it’s not that birth is painful, it’s that women are strong."

    -Laura Stavoe Harm

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  42. I hear you Phil but I did have a smiley after that. Stefan is probably sleeping right now (with a big grin on his face), after being up for 48 hours plus with Bee.

    48 hrs! Our first was 36 hours. I had my Master's Ceremony scheduled 5 hours later, and went home to "nap." I missed it of course. :-)

    Let sleeping Fathers lie, I say, and that goes double for the Mothers. Hooboy, she must be exhausted.

    Twins!

    :-) :-) :-)

    And a Happy New Year.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Hi Steven,

    Sorry never meant that it be understood you held anything but the best for our two Backreactors and their two lovely Postcreations:-) What I mean't is I bet you wished as I do having a way to even send some flowers, a box of chocolates or run an errand or two as to have things made just a little nicer and easier as of now. One thing for certain what Bee with the aid of Stefan pulled off at least for now exceeds the abilities of science and thus has those experiments highlighted in this post seem pale in comparison.

    ”When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.”

    -Gracie Allen

    Best,

    Phil

    ReplyDelete
  44. Bee and Stefan,
    Congratulations to both of you. I can finally exhale on your behalf. Though not a father myself I still know what a big event this is in the life of any person. Now the real work begins.

    Eric habegger

    ReplyDelete

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