In my opening post on Quantum Diaries I talked in very fuzzy terms about a new experiment at Fermilab, Mu2e. We now have a real web site: http://mu2e.fnal.gov . Have a look; the site is far from complete but I hope it’s enough to whet your appetites.
Yesterday’s colloquium was both scientifically exciting and really fun to watch. The speaker was Isabelle Grenier, from CEA/Paris VII, talking about early results from the satellite observatory formerly known as GLAST, now known as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Their name has nothing to do with Fermilab, save that we both celebrate the accomplishments of Enrico Fermi.
Their instrument has a much smaller point spread function than did its predecessors, which allows the identification of point sources that previously could not be resolved. Morevover they cover the whole sky every 3 hours, which allows them to catch many transient effects. They will have a lot of fun exploiting the power of this new instrument. I wish them every success and am looking forward to seeing many exciting results in the coming years.
Fermilab makes videos of all colloquia and each video usually shows up on the lab web site a few weeks after the colloquium was given:
http://www-ppd.fnal.gov/EPPOffice-w/colloq/colloq.html
I highly recommend this one.
