Contact Information
Department of Physics525 Northwestern Avenue
West Lafayette, IN
47907-2036
Map and Directions
Telephone:
(765) 494-2970
Fax:
(765) 494-0706
Purdue's Quarknet Center
QuarkNet is a National program sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. Since its inception in 2003, Purdue’s QuarkNet Center has been dedicated to the engagement of high school physics teachers and their students in cutting-edge high energy particle physics research.
The focus of the QuarkNet Center at Purdue is longitudinal content-based professional development for grade 9-12 teachers, specifically in the areas of Physics and Mathematics, as well as those of broader content areas, such as Integrated Chemistry Physics (ICP) courses. Working in conjunction with the QuarkNet Center, Purdue Physics Outreach takes the lead in the recruitment of teachers for a week-long QuarkNet Teacher Institute and in the coordination and facilitation of summer and academic year activities.
We Did It!
Dateline: Saturday, March 30, 2013
Finally, after eight months of planning, testing, refining, and preparing,
Physics Outreach successfully launched three manned hot air balloons near Indianapolis, Indiana in a centenary
celebration of a series of flights in which Victor Hess discovered cosmic rays.
In a series of experiments from 1911 to 1913, Austrian scientist Victor Hess measured ionizing radiation at altitudes of over 18,000 feet from a hydrogen-filled balloon in the Austrian Alps. Hess’s experiments provided tangible evidence that radiation came not from the ground, as was the thought at the time, but from the sky. Concluding that radiation must be entering the atmosphere from outer space, he named the phenomenon "cosmic radiation." In 1936 Hess was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for this discovery of what are now called "cosmic rays."
We conducted our flight as an extension of the QuarkNet Teacher Professional Development Program at Purdue. Our goal was to engage high school physics students and teachers, using modern technology, in relevant high energy particle research related to the kinds of experiments our QuarkNet teachers are able to conduct in their own classrooms.
The three teams of students and teachers gathered before dawn at the Metropolitan Airport in Fishers, Indiana on the morning of Saturday, March 30, 2013. Temperatures hovered just above freezing. The three balloons lifted off at approximately 7:45 AM.
Our flight consisted of the combined use of three hot air balloons, the first of which carried Purdue Physics senior Chris Kraner and McCutcheon High School student Stephen Claypool. The student pair recorded measurements of cosmic ray data through the duration of their nearly two hour flight, from ground elevation up to over 10,000 feet!
A second balloon carried Winamac High School teacher Jeremy Wegner and Purdue Physics professor Matthew Jones, who along with Daniela Bortoletto, is co-director of the Purdue QuarkNet Center. Wegner and Jones, whose balloon attained altitudes of approximately 6,000 feet, also collected data during their flight.
David Sederberg, Purdue's director of physics outreach, followed in a third, smaller chase balloon to record the event. “One of the many challenges in orchestrating the flight,” recalled Sederberg, “was by virtue of the altitudes we wanted to attain to collect our data. Unlike recreational balloon rides, which might typically reach altitudes of two or three thousand feet, we wanted to be able to go to at least 10,000 feet. That took us into the realm of cross-country ballooning and significantly increased the level of commitment and expertise required of our pilots.”
Data for the mission were recorded using scintillation detectors typical of those provided to participating teachers by QuarkNet for use in their high school classrooms. The software interface for processing the data was initially developed by Frank Roetker, working under the direction of Purdue physics professor Matthew Jones. At the time, Roetker was a high school senior recruited to do a summer research internship with QuarkNet at Purdue.
The data sets all clearly indicate the muon flux increases almost linearly with altitude.
“Stephen Claypool has been working with the Purdue physics outreach team since Summer 2012, after his physics teacher, Cheryl McLean, participated in the weeklong QuarkNet Summer Institute,” said Sederberg. Claypool plans to attend Purdue in Fall 2013 to study computer information technology. Chris Kraner was chosen to participate in the balloon flight based on his contributions to Purdue's QuarkNet program, including his crafting of experiments and supporting teachers in their use of QuarkNet detectors and related classroom materials.
Purdue’s QuarkNet Teacher Professional Development Program is conducted in partnership with the University of Notre Dame and is supported with funds from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy. We are also extremely grateful to our enthusiastic balloon pilots, Tony Sandlin, Mark Westra, and Mike Nelson, for their professional and technical expertise and their undying commitment to the fulfillment of our dream and the success of our project!
Related story:
http://www.science.purdue.edu/news_and_publications/articles/articleid_2005.html
Related video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYZzrmWYHNw#Cosmic%20Ray%20detector%20video
Re-making History — The Centenary Flight of Victor Hess
Throughout the history of scientific discovery, many of the most notable contributions to the advancement of science arose from serendipitous roots. That does not necessarily imply that scientists stumbled across their discoveries by accident. More likely, what became clear to them was the result of a laborious and systematic approach, often based in collaboration, intuition and creativity. Such was the case with Victor Hess.
Our upcoming balloon flight is the brainchild of Physics Outreach and the community of teachers that participated in the summer 2012 Purdue QuarkNet Institute.
Who was Victor Hess?
Victor Hess was an Austrian physicist who, in August of 1912, commanded a hydrogen-filled balloon through Northern
Bohemia on a scientific expedition. Ascending to an altitude of over 17,000 feet, Hess provided the first evidence
that penetrating ionizing radiation detected on the Earth’s surface was actually raining down from outer space. He
had unexpectedly discovered cosmic rays! Hess’s work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936.
Our goal
With modern technology, a team of physics teachers and students will measure cosmic rays across a range of altitudes
the same way Hess did – from the basket of a balloon! Our target altitude – 10,000 feet!This commemorative flight will provide an exciting way for teachers to engage students, reinforce the serendipitous nature of scientific discovery, and to use real data to teach fundamental concepts of cosmic rays and particle physics.
Initial preparations
High school physics teachers in the Purdue QuarkNet Summer Institute learned how to use a scintillation detector to measure radiation coming from space, but unanswered questions remained, among them: (1) Would the flux of cosmic radiation detected be affected by the motion of the detector? and (2) How sensitive would our detector be to changes in flux at different altitudes? We have already begun to find answers to our questions! |
McCutcheon High School physics student Stephen Claypool and Director of Purdue Physics Outreach David Sederberg took to the road with the QuarkNet detector to determine possible effects of motion and speed on cosmic ray data. |
In addition to these field tests providing opportunities to record data under the kinds of conditions we would experience in a balloon flight, they also necessitated the need to devise ways to package and safely secure the detectors and electronic hardware, and to come up with a practical and reliable way to provide electrical power to operate them.
The data that the two students recorded and analyzed show a definite trend in cosmic ray flux, more than doubling from ground
level to an altitude of approximately 9000 feet. Right on Victor Hess!
Logistics
Unlike a typical recreational balloon ride, which may reach altitudes of only a few thousand feet, the nature of our flight, in terms of preparation, weather constraints, and altitudes we need to attain, qualify this as a cross-country flight. While we expect a duration of the actual flight to be approximately 90 minutes, beginning at sunrise. Crews, pilots and participants will assemble and begin work hours before. We are also targeting an altitude of 10,000 feet, almost two miles above the surface of the Earth! The Purdue team and the students who will be conducting the research will travel to our take-off point the evening prior to the flight for briefing and to be available first thing in the morning.The primary factor controlling when we fly, how high we can go, and where we take off and land, is the weather. The direction of the winds aloft will determine where we take off, based on where we would expect to land. Our flight will most likely originate from the Indianapolis area. An advance team will go out in advance to scout and secure the area where we expect to land.
Our pilots, ground crew, advance and chase teams come from two professional operations, Tony Sandlin of Midwest Balloon Rides, and Mark Westra of Stars and Heights. Tony and Mark will be our pilots.
Timeline
While it would be convenient to have all details, including the date of our flight, in place weeks or months in advance, the strong dependence of balloon aviation on weather makes that impossible. We expect to conduct our flight some time beginning in early January and on into the spring. Based on predictions of weather and winds, our pilots, Tony and Mark, expect to put us on alert about 72 hours out. At that point we all swing into action.Once the countdown begins, we will be regularly updated on conditions. There is always the chance that, if even after lift-off the pilots encounter unexpected conditions aloft that might jeopardize the safety of those involved, we may have to scrub the mission for another time. That’s just one of the parameters of ballooning.
For further announcements as they develop, check http://www.physics.purdue.edu/outreach/, or follow the Purdue College of Science Facebook feed.
Purdue's Quarknet Teacher Institute
The QuarkNet Teacher Institute at Purdue is a week-long on-campus program that provides teachers with multiple opportunities to hear and interact with scientists engaged in research in high energy particle physics, cosmology, and practical application of high energy particle concepts. Teachers work together to develop instructional materials that can be incorporated into their teaching, thus engaging their students in aspects of physics often difficult to address in traditional curricula. The Speed of Muons experiment, for example, provides a tangible way to introduce students to relativistic behavior.
The QuarkNet Teacher Institute provides teachers multiple opportunities to share and exchange ideas, discuss related
topics and to cooperatively create instructional materials and assessments. One of the goals of Physics Outreach is
to promote the building of a professional community among teachers and to support them throughout the academic year.
Our goals for teachers include a deeper understanding of physics content, an appreciation for the machinery of modern science, an introduction to inquiry-based teaching as well as evolution in practice to encourage student-centered modes of instruction.
Examples of Experiments With the Cosmic Ray Detector
Muon lifetime- How much data do you need to achieve a certain precision on τ, the muon lifetime?
- How does the measured value of τ depend on assumptions used in the fit?
- Can you measure the speed of cosmic rays from the time difference measurements?
- Coincidence rates with detector oriented N-S or E-W or as a function of angle.
- Coincidence rates for air showers as a function of separation between scintillators
- Count rates on different floors of the building?
- Can we fly a cosmic ray detector on an airplane and measure rates as a function of altitude?
- Does muon flux rate depend on barometric pressure?
- Can you see evidence for solar flares?
- Are muon count rates at different locations correlated?
- Calculate probability of random coincidence compared with observed 3-fold coincidence rate
Quarknet Teacher Institute — Summer 2012
Purdue University Physics Outreach recruited nine teachers for the 2012 QuarkNet professional development institute, over half of which had never before participated in QuarkNet! Participating teachers learned about the origins of cosmic rays and their ubiquitous presence throughout the cosmos. Teachers also learned ways of observing the effects of cosmic rays and conducted hands-on experiments using cosmic ray detectors.
Presentations from QuarkNet 2012
- Introduction to QuarkNet (PDF)
- Introduction to Cosmic Ray Physics (PDF)
- Cosmic Ray Detector Hardware (PDF)
- Cosmic Ray Detector Software (PDF)
- Ultra-high-energy Cosmic Ray Experiments (Powerpoint|.pptx)
- Cosmogenic Nuclides (PDF)
- Observation of the Higgs Boson (Powerpoint|.pptx)
Software available for download
Screen shots from the experiments
QuarkNet International Masterclasses for High School Students
Each year about 5000 high school students in 22 countries come to one of about 80 nearby universities or research centers for one day to learn about unraveling the mysteries of particle physics. Lectures from active scientists give insight in topics and methods of basic research at the fundaments of matter and forces, enabling the students to perform measurements on real data from particle physics experiments themselves.
The QuarkNet Masterclass at Purdue engages high school students in personal interaction with Purdue
research scientists and staff. With Professor Matthew Jones and Rossville High School teacher Marla Glover
looking on, high school students are categorizing actual particle interactions from the CMS (Compact Muon
Solenoid) experiment at CERN!
At the end of the day, the participating students join a video conference for discussion and combination of their results with other student groups from around the world! Pictured below, students participating in the 2012 Masterclass talked to other high school students and researchers from Brazil, Australia and Puerto Rico about their ideas.
The International Masterclass provides a tangible way for high school teachers and their students to come
together with the high energy particle physics research community, dedicated to the exploration of still
answered questions about origins of matter and forces in our universe. Additional information is available
at:
http://quarknet.us/library/index.php/Mentors_and_Teachers_2012.