Quantum Diaries

Leon Lederman

The National Science Board announced Monday that it chose Leon Lederman as the 2012 recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award.

The award is given to people who are lifelong leaders in science and technology and who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the nation.

While the general public might know him best for his book “The God Particle” about the search for the Higgs boson, Lederman has improved the lives of millions through his efforts in science, eduction and cultural outreach.

His early award-winning research in high-energy physics brought him into national science policy circles and in 1963 he proposed the idea that became the National Accelerator Laboratory, which was later renamed Fermilab. In 1977 Lederman led the team that discovered the bottom quark at Fermilab. The following year he was named director of the laboratory and his administration brought Fermilab into its position of scientific prominence by 1983 with the achievement of the then world’s most powerful superconducting accelerator, the Tevatron. In 1988 Lederman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

During his term as director, Lederman emphasized the importance of math and science education as outreach to the neighboring communities. He initiated the Saturday Morning Physics lectures, which have drawn thousands of students to the laboratory to meet and question physicists. He subsequently founded the Friends of Fermilab, which raises money for science education; the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; and the Teacher’s Academy for Mathematics and Science, which provides in-service training and professional development for K-8 math and science teachers. Lederman is also one of the main proponents of the Physics First initiative to introduce physics earlier in the high school curriculum. His contributions to eduction have been memorialized at Fermilab with the naming of a hands-on K-12 science education center after him. The Leon Lederman Science Center is host to hundreds of field trips by schools and scout troops each year and supports Science Adventure classes during school breaks.

In about 1980, Lederman also made it a mission to include Mexican and Latin American researchers in high-energy physics experiments. Prior to that, the involvement by those countries was limited theoretical research not hands-on experimentation. Lederman subscribed to the philosophy of the more minds the better. He helped Hispanic scientists find a foothold in experimental programs and encouraged internships at Fermilab for Hispanic youth. The outreach has been successful and Fermilab now counts many Latin American countries as collaborators on science experiments. One example is Mexico, which  is Fermilab’s ninth most prolific partnering country in terms of collaboration results.

– Tona Kunz

Fermilab’s Linda Purcell-Taylor explains what she does in her job to a group of girls from Sawyer Elementary School in Chicago. Credit: Christine Herman

This article first appeared in Fermilab Today May 31.

In a large, open space in the northwest wing of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, scientists and engineers staffed tables that lined the room. With their science demos in place and smiles on their faces, they welcomed more than 1,000 people to the museum’s Spring into Science career expo on Saturday, May 21.

“The event was a huge success,” said Lizza Igoe, education coordinator at the museum and event organizer, in an email to the volunteers. “[Everyone] thoroughly enjoyed learning about different career opportunities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and medicine, as well as getting a glimpse into the working world.”

Fermilab’s Mike Albrow, a particle physicist, and Linda Purcell-Taylor, a senior technician, volunteered at the event.

Purcell-Taylor placed a secondary emission monitor, also known as a beam profile monitor, on the Fermilab table.

The round, metallic device has a 4-inch diameter hole through the middle, which allows the particle beam to pass through. At the push of a button, a wire mesh material moves into the pathway of the particle beam. As particles pass through the mesh, they interact with the wires and create electrical signals that are collected and processed by a computer.

“This is part of a system we use to see the shape of the beam and where it is going through the beamline so that we can adjust magnets to steer it,” Purcell-Taylor explained to a group of girls from Sawyer Elementary School in Chicago, who crowded around the table to take a look.

One of the girls, Giselle Castañeda, a sixth grader, said she is part of the science club at her school and wants to be a teacher when she grows up. Castañeda and her friends jotted down notes as Purcell-Taylor talked about her job.

“I like that every day I’m learning something new about science,” Purcell-Taylor said to the girls.

Albrow also captured the students’ attention with a real-time cosmic ray detector. The device, which is about the size of a narrow shoe box and is filled with plastic particle-detecting fibers, was connected to a camera that transmitted the image to his laptop.

Fermilab’s Mike Albrow explains how a cosmic detector works to Israel Vargas and his son, Kai Vargas, a third grader from Daniel Zizumbo Charter School in Chicago. Credit: Christine Herman
“Their eyes lit up and they stared at that scintillating fiber bundle,” Albrow said. “When a cosmic ray came through we’d all say, ‘Wow!’”

Kai Vargas, an enthusiastic third grader from Daniel Zizumbo Charter School in Chicago, visited the Fermilab table with his dad, Israel Vargas.

When stars trillions of miles away explode, they shoot off cosmic rays that travel thousands of years before they reach the Earth, Albrow explained to them.

Israel said he brought Kai to the event to help further his interest in science.

Fermilab’s Mike Albrow explains how a cosmic detector works to Israel Vargas and his son, Kai Vargas, a third grader from Daniel Zizumbo Charter School in Chicago. Credit: Christine Herman

“I love science, it’s my favorite subject,” Kai Vargas said. When asked what kind of science he liked best, he said excitedly, “All science. I love all of it.”

Albrow is a firm believer in making science fun for kids and said it is extremely rewarding for the scientists who get involved.

“We get so tied up talking complicated physics to our peers, so it is very refreshing to go back to the simple things that got most of us interested in it when we were kids,” Albrow said.

For Purcell-Taylor, science outreach events like these are opportunities to encourage children to go for science.

“It is only takes a little bit of time to make a positive impression that can last a lifetime,” she said.

— Christine Herman

Related information:

*Fermilab fills science fair void

*Inaugural U.S. Science and Engineering Festival draws more than 1 million people