Thursday, June 09, 2005
Cosmic, man!
Do not be alarmed. My lack of posting since Sunday night was not caused by me sulking due to the almost unanimous resounding silence regarding what *I* thought was an UnUtterably Cool New Hobby (fly-powered paper airplanes).
It's just that we had a string of the usual busy, strange, and/or time-glomping events going on, some of which I will post about later. Most likely. But right now I'm all tired, after catching up on reading about a day and 3/4 of email and LJ.
In local news, yes, where I live IS a center collection point of strange unexplainable events. In the latest one, Lamar is going to be come a world headquarters for scientific study of cosmic rays. Really.
http://www.lamardaily.com/Stories/0,1413,121~7979~2910317,00.html
Excerpts:
A key component of Southeast Colorado's success was to persuade hundreds of local landowners to allow Auger scientists to place detector tanks on their land. Tanks are about four to five feet tall, 12 feet in diameter and are filled with ultrapure water. Incoming cosmic ray particles interact with water in the tanks, emitting small bursts of light which can be detected by special electronic equipment.
The article later mentions the need to develop a tank that can endure the occasional sub-zero temps we get here, but no word on how they might guard against roaming cattle using them for back-scratching posts.
The observatory will be one of only two in the world, and should provide a significant tourist attraction to Southeast Colorado.
This I can't wait to see....
It will take a couple of years for serious construction to unfold, said Harton. The funding for the project is somewhat complex because there are around 60 universities and 20 nations involved, and the budget for the project will be in the tens of millions of dollars. Harton said that he will push for a meeting of the full Auger Collaboration in southeast Colorado, hopefully as soon as next summer. Around 300 scientists from around the world typically attend the collaboration meetings, which last for several days, making the project a boon to local lodging and restaurant businesses.
Science groupies, come on down!!! Caro and I were speculating tonight about the likely riots once the scientists figure out there are only a couple of even halfway decent restaurants in town.... Oooh, maybe they will try to feed them at the college cafeteria!!!
All in all, this project should provide more entertainment that the fly-planes could imagine in their wildest insect-exploiting DREAMS! I can hardly wait!
It's just that we had a string of the usual busy, strange, and/or time-glomping events going on, some of which I will post about later. Most likely. But right now I'm all tired, after catching up on reading about a day and 3/4 of email and LJ.
In local news, yes, where I live IS a center collection point of strange unexplainable events. In the latest one, Lamar is going to be come a world headquarters for scientific study of cosmic rays. Really.
http://www.lamardaily.com/Stories/0,1413,121~7979~2910317,00.html
Excerpts:
A key component of Southeast Colorado's success was to persuade hundreds of local landowners to allow Auger scientists to place detector tanks on their land. Tanks are about four to five feet tall, 12 feet in diameter and are filled with ultrapure water. Incoming cosmic ray particles interact with water in the tanks, emitting small bursts of light which can be detected by special electronic equipment.
The article later mentions the need to develop a tank that can endure the occasional sub-zero temps we get here, but no word on how they might guard against roaming cattle using them for back-scratching posts.
The observatory will be one of only two in the world, and should provide a significant tourist attraction to Southeast Colorado.
This I can't wait to see....
It will take a couple of years for serious construction to unfold, said Harton. The funding for the project is somewhat complex because there are around 60 universities and 20 nations involved, and the budget for the project will be in the tens of millions of dollars. Harton said that he will push for a meeting of the full Auger Collaboration in southeast Colorado, hopefully as soon as next summer. Around 300 scientists from around the world typically attend the collaboration meetings, which last for several days, making the project a boon to local lodging and restaurant businesses.
Science groupies, come on down!!! Caro and I were speculating tonight about the likely riots once the scientists figure out there are only a couple of even halfway decent restaurants in town.... Oooh, maybe they will try to feed them at the college cafeteria!!!
All in all, this project should provide more entertainment that the fly-planes could imagine in their wildest insect-exploiting DREAMS! I can hardly wait!
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