Hello everybody and welcome back from the weekend. I've got one story up today on the website and it's about the two-week summer workshop called the SLAC Summer Institute, or SSI for short. Student workers have been running around the office for weeks getting everything ready for this massive event.
This year's topic? Dark matter. If you haven't heard, allow me to enlighten you. (ha ha ha I'm so clever!)
When scientists observe the way galaxies move throughout the universe—such as the way they spin—they find that the mechanics are all wrong according to Newton's laws of gravity and Einstein's of relativity. The only way the universe can behave as observed is if there is about 20 times as much matter and energy that we can't see than what we can see.
That's right folks, visible matter accounts for only 4% of the stuff in the universe.
So take the entire solar system, the entire galaxy, and all of the trillions and trillions of stars and other galaxies that we can see through our massive telescopes and multiply it by 20.
That's a lot of invisible stuff.
And out of that invisible stuff, roughly 2/3 of it is a substance known as "dark energy" or "vacuum energy." This stuff is causing the universe to accelerate its expansion. You would think that gravity would be pulling everything back together eventually in, say, a couple of trillion years. But no, this stuff is causing the universe to expand faster and faster and faster…
The remaining third is dark matter. Again, we know its there because its gravity effects that of the matter we can see. But we can't detect it. Nobody knows what its made out of. There are a bunch of experiments that are trying to find out, but that is another topic for another day.
Why?
Well because I said so. And because I have an article coming out for the website in the near future about that exact topic…
So I won't waste a good idea for a future reference to satisfy your curiosity now. If you want to know… go find out! Or stick around and keep reading this blog for a few more days.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
At the Mercy of Sources
Just one story online today about computer outages because of monthly server updates. The story isn't really all that interesting, it's just to let the lab know when and why they won't be able to use certain site computing functions. But the story behind the story is kind of interesting…
My editor asked me to go to the computing help desk to ask about the topic. The entire site had received an email saying when the outages were occurring, but not really explaining why very well. Seems like a simple enough assignment to go to the help desk and ask a few questions and write it up… right?
Wrong!
The first guy I talked to was pretty helpful, but informed me he wasn't really the guy to talk about it, and all the information was second hand. Instead I contacted the person who sent the email out originally, but he was not easy to get a hold of. And because I was on deadline, I badgered him, probably to the point of stalking, with phone calls, emails, and notes left taped to his office chair…
Hey, a writer has got to do what a writer has got to do…
Eventually he got back to me, I whipped something out, got it edited, and sent it back to him asking for any revisions to be sent to me by 10:00 am on Wednesday morning.
So far, so good.
Get an email Wednesday morning saying he has sent it to some other people in his group for edits and suggestions and will have it to me soon. Super, I can wait. But then 11:00 rolls around, and nothing. Lunch come and goes with no word. And then before I know it, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and my editor has to have the story to publish the next day! It's extremely bad form to publish something without letting the contacts have their say in this line of work.
So I go into panic mode and start stalking…
Eventually, at around 4:15, I get the edits back. They have basically doubled the length of the article and ruined the creative flow I had so delicately pieced together! (OK, so it wasn't really that bad, but it did contain a lot more information that probably wasn't necessary…)
But if they think people need to know it, then I need to leave it in. So after some editing, I chop out some words, rearrange some lines, and soften some of the language. I send it off to my editor and back to the source and head for home…
Next morning I find out that my source had sent me yet another edit after I had left work. Ahhhhh!!! I hope they're all happy with what we published that morning…
"Ken,
Allowing us to shed some light on our internal processes definitely helps to keep our users informed and feel more empowered. Thank you for writing the article, you did a great job."
Whew! Another crisis averted. But it just goes to show you, in this line of journalism when you really want to make everyone as happy as possible, sometimes you are at the mercy of your sources. This usually isn't a problem, but occasionally, they are either busy or you're simply not at the top of their to-do list, and things can get hairy.
All of these problems would go away if there simply weren't any deadlines…
Hmmmm….
My editor asked me to go to the computing help desk to ask about the topic. The entire site had received an email saying when the outages were occurring, but not really explaining why very well. Seems like a simple enough assignment to go to the help desk and ask a few questions and write it up… right?
Wrong!
The first guy I talked to was pretty helpful, but informed me he wasn't really the guy to talk about it, and all the information was second hand. Instead I contacted the person who sent the email out originally, but he was not easy to get a hold of. And because I was on deadline, I badgered him, probably to the point of stalking, with phone calls, emails, and notes left taped to his office chair…
Hey, a writer has got to do what a writer has got to do…
Eventually he got back to me, I whipped something out, got it edited, and sent it back to him asking for any revisions to be sent to me by 10:00 am on Wednesday morning.
So far, so good.
Get an email Wednesday morning saying he has sent it to some other people in his group for edits and suggestions and will have it to me soon. Super, I can wait. But then 11:00 rolls around, and nothing. Lunch come and goes with no word. And then before I know it, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and my editor has to have the story to publish the next day! It's extremely bad form to publish something without letting the contacts have their say in this line of work.
So I go into panic mode and start stalking…
Eventually, at around 4:15, I get the edits back. They have basically doubled the length of the article and ruined the creative flow I had so delicately pieced together! (OK, so it wasn't really that bad, but it did contain a lot more information that probably wasn't necessary…)
But if they think people need to know it, then I need to leave it in. So after some editing, I chop out some words, rearrange some lines, and soften some of the language. I send it off to my editor and back to the source and head for home…
Next morning I find out that my source had sent me yet another edit after I had left work. Ahhhhh!!! I hope they're all happy with what we published that morning…
"Ken,
Allowing us to shed some light on our internal processes definitely helps to keep our users informed and feel more empowered. Thank you for writing the article, you did a great job."
Whew! Another crisis averted. But it just goes to show you, in this line of journalism when you really want to make everyone as happy as possible, sometimes you are at the mercy of your sources. This usually isn't a problem, but occasionally, they are either busy or you're simply not at the top of their to-do list, and things can get hairy.
All of these problems would go away if there simply weren't any deadlines…
Hmmmm….
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Science and Art
Two short articles today on the web. One is a short profile about a former Summer Undergraduate Laboratory Intern (SULI) summer intern who has done very well for himself. I did that a couple of weeks ago when stories were very slow…
The second is much cooler. It’s a short piece, with a killer photo I might add, that describes a barbecue held on-site yesterday. The Mexican-style meats, rice, stuffed peppers, grilled tortillas, and mmmmmmmmmmm it smelled amazing!
Later yesterday afternoon, I went and sat in on a meeting between the director of SLAC, Jonathan Dorfan, and a local artist originally from Australia named Lylie Fisher, who recently had an art display in one of the buildings on site for several months.
I now regret never having made it over to that building to look at all of her pieces, because they are gorgeous. And they're also very interesting because they used photographs taken from physics research four decades old.
Bubble chambers use superheated, pressurized liquid that cause particles passing through to leave behind bubbly trails that are then captured by cameras. The resulting picture looks a lot like computer produced events of today's particle detectors, except they are actual pictures of trails left by particles and not just recreations on a screen.
Fisher took enlargements of these photos, cropped them, and painted directly on the photo with acrylic paints. The colors are bright, vibrant, and I love them. You can read more about her work and look at some of the pieces at her website here, or on SLAC Today here, or on Symmetry magazine here (this last one has lots of great images).
Anyways, they got into a long conversation about science and art, about how they both explore different sides of the same coin. Particle physics asks, "Why are we here?" by investigating the very essence of how matter is created, while art takes the philosophical approach. Fisher said her goal was to combine these two elements into single pieces of art that would not only generate thoughts about existence, but raise interest in physics.
I think its interesting that so many scientists at SLAC have artistic backgrounds, whether in music or in art, and so many have deep appreciations for the arts. It would be a great initiative to find some way of combining the two in schools throughout the country. Sadly, with art programs disappearing every year, this probably won't happen. But one can always hope for a future push, because they really are not all that dissimilar.
The second is much cooler. It’s a short piece, with a killer photo I might add, that describes a barbecue held on-site yesterday. The Mexican-style meats, rice, stuffed peppers, grilled tortillas, and mmmmmmmmmmm it smelled amazing!
Later yesterday afternoon, I went and sat in on a meeting between the director of SLAC, Jonathan Dorfan, and a local artist originally from Australia named Lylie Fisher, who recently had an art display in one of the buildings on site for several months.
I now regret never having made it over to that building to look at all of her pieces, because they are gorgeous. And they're also very interesting because they used photographs taken from physics research four decades old.
Bubble chambers use superheated, pressurized liquid that cause particles passing through to leave behind bubbly trails that are then captured by cameras. The resulting picture looks a lot like computer produced events of today's particle detectors, except they are actual pictures of trails left by particles and not just recreations on a screen.
Fisher took enlargements of these photos, cropped them, and painted directly on the photo with acrylic paints. The colors are bright, vibrant, and I love them. You can read more about her work and look at some of the pieces at her website here, or on SLAC Today here, or on Symmetry magazine here (this last one has lots of great images).
Anyways, they got into a long conversation about science and art, about how they both explore different sides of the same coin. Particle physics asks, "Why are we here?" by investigating the very essence of how matter is created, while art takes the philosophical approach. Fisher said her goal was to combine these two elements into single pieces of art that would not only generate thoughts about existence, but raise interest in physics.
I think its interesting that so many scientists at SLAC have artistic backgrounds, whether in music or in art, and so many have deep appreciations for the arts. It would be a great initiative to find some way of combining the two in schools throughout the country. Sadly, with art programs disappearing every year, this probably won't happen. But one can always hope for a future push, because they really are not all that dissimilar.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Progress Thus Far
Today I've got one short story about an art display that was recently put up in an office building here at SLAC. The photographs are aerial views of beautifully colored salt marshes in the near-bye bay. Check them out if you have the time.
It recently occurred to me that I am now more than half-way done with my internship here at SLAC. Partly because of this, and partly because the professor overseeing this project asked, I'm going to take a look back at where I am compared to where I started.
First, I've learned that no story is too small to make a difference to somebody. Some of the most complimented pieces I've written haven't been about cutting-edge science or amazing experiments. Instead, I get feedback on profiles and human interest pieces. Sometimes writing these types of articles gets monotonous, but praise from the SLAC community helps a lot.
I've learned to tighten my writing style. I now pay more attention to passive verbs and I try to get the point across in fewer words. The use of a solid topic sentence in every paragraph and making sure a complete nut graph appears have also helped a lot.
I've definitely learned to handle heavy editing and constructive criticism. Several stories have been handed back to me with a "this sucks, fix it!" But of course in a much nicer and more diplomatic way along with suggestions on how best to go about rewriting it. And I know not to take it personally, because usually the second draft is much closer to being publishable with few edits.
I definantly now have no hang-ups about nearly stalking people to get an interview.
My interviewing skills are also getting better. I've learned to go in with several questions that I know need to be answered. And I'm getting more comfortable digging deeper and asking spin-off questions when something doesn't quite make sense to me or I sense an interesting answer nearby.
But some things haven't changed. I still rarely use any form of prewriting like an outline. I basically come up with leads and flows in my head before putting them on paper. OK, well, the computer screen. Maybe because of this I still write too quickly occasionally, which might contribute to the several stories that come back with heavy edits. Hopefully the next lesson I learn is to produce excellent work in rough drafts by taking more time to ensure they're decent.
It recently occurred to me that I am now more than half-way done with my internship here at SLAC. Partly because of this, and partly because the professor overseeing this project asked, I'm going to take a look back at where I am compared to where I started.
First, I've learned that no story is too small to make a difference to somebody. Some of the most complimented pieces I've written haven't been about cutting-edge science or amazing experiments. Instead, I get feedback on profiles and human interest pieces. Sometimes writing these types of articles gets monotonous, but praise from the SLAC community helps a lot.
I've learned to tighten my writing style. I now pay more attention to passive verbs and I try to get the point across in fewer words. The use of a solid topic sentence in every paragraph and making sure a complete nut graph appears have also helped a lot.
I've definitely learned to handle heavy editing and constructive criticism. Several stories have been handed back to me with a "this sucks, fix it!" But of course in a much nicer and more diplomatic way along with suggestions on how best to go about rewriting it. And I know not to take it personally, because usually the second draft is much closer to being publishable with few edits.
I definantly now have no hang-ups about nearly stalking people to get an interview.
My interviewing skills are also getting better. I've learned to go in with several questions that I know need to be answered. And I'm getting more comfortable digging deeper and asking spin-off questions when something doesn't quite make sense to me or I sense an interesting answer nearby.
But some things haven't changed. I still rarely use any form of prewriting like an outline. I basically come up with leads and flows in my head before putting them on paper. OK, well, the computer screen. Maybe because of this I still write too quickly occasionally, which might contribute to the several stories that come back with heavy edits. Hopefully the next lesson I learn is to produce excellent work in rough drafts by taking more time to ensure they're decent.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Questions Raised are Questions Answered
Apologies all for not blogging last Friday (like any of you probably really care… four posts a week is probably enough to keep up with, I know its enough to write!) but I absolutely HAD to finish rereading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince so I could start on The Deathly Hallows on Saturday morning. I am happy to report I did, even though it took me until 1:30 in the morning to finish.
So after a full weekend of reading excellent work, I am now ready to return to my own writing projects.
I would like to point out, however, that Friday's issue of SLAC today was my second exclusive issue. All three stories were written by me. I am slowly taking over the office of communications…
Or so I thought until today when I don't have any stories appearing. But fear not, I am in the works on nine more, which is keeping me rather busy during the day.
I would like to take the opportunity, however, to answer a couple of questions from the Indiana University professor who is so kindly overseeing my project.
My stories, and all stories, on SLAC Today are written for a general audience who may or may not have any scientific background at all. SLAC has over 1500 employees, about 1000 of which are not scientists and might not have any scientific training at all. Writing scientific stories which the layman will completely understand is one of the most challenging aspects of my internship so far.
For example, a previous article about kinematic calculations of the expansion of the universe took about six drafts to get right. A more recent article about monitoring GLAST took about five drafts before I got all of the scientific jargon out of it. And then when I submitted it to the scientists to look over and approve, one of them put a lot of the jargon back in that I had worked so hard to remove, which brought about a discussion between my editors and myself about which terms should be left and what should be simplified. This is a delicate decision and often I agonize over only a few words for a whole half hour.
So how am I doing? Anybody out there with little or no scientific background, please take a look at the two stories I just mentioned and tell me if you understand it all. And if you don't what words, phrases, or ideas do you find troublesome? Let me know so I can do better next time around…
So after a full weekend of reading excellent work, I am now ready to return to my own writing projects.
I would like to point out, however, that Friday's issue of SLAC today was my second exclusive issue. All three stories were written by me. I am slowly taking over the office of communications…
Or so I thought until today when I don't have any stories appearing. But fear not, I am in the works on nine more, which is keeping me rather busy during the day.
I would like to take the opportunity, however, to answer a couple of questions from the Indiana University professor who is so kindly overseeing my project.
My stories, and all stories, on SLAC Today are written for a general audience who may or may not have any scientific background at all. SLAC has over 1500 employees, about 1000 of which are not scientists and might not have any scientific training at all. Writing scientific stories which the layman will completely understand is one of the most challenging aspects of my internship so far.
For example, a previous article about kinematic calculations of the expansion of the universe took about six drafts to get right. A more recent article about monitoring GLAST took about five drafts before I got all of the scientific jargon out of it. And then when I submitted it to the scientists to look over and approve, one of them put a lot of the jargon back in that I had worked so hard to remove, which brought about a discussion between my editors and myself about which terms should be left and what should be simplified. This is a delicate decision and often I agonize over only a few words for a whole half hour.
So how am I doing? Anybody out there with little or no scientific background, please take a look at the two stories I just mentioned and tell me if you understand it all. And if you don't what words, phrases, or ideas do you find troublesome? Let me know so I can do better next time around…
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Space… in 3-D!
Today I've got one and a half stories published on SLAC Today. Why the half you ask? Well, one of them is a short little blurb about the SLAC Summer Institute that is starting in two weeks. This year's topic is dark matter, and I actually wish I could go to learn more about it. It's a fascinating topic. Maybe they'll let me slip into a couple of the lectures…
Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about today is the second story about 3-D animations at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics (KIPAC) visualization lab. I personally visited the visualization lab and was very impressed with what I saw.
You can read the article for details, but I'll give you the highlights here. There are two projectors which have a polarized light filter over each of their lenses. Polarizing light is basically making sure that only waves traveling in exactly the same direction make it through. Anything coming at an angle doesn't make it.
When light is polarized in two different directions, and special glasses with similarly polarized lenses are worn, the effect is a 3-D image. But I'm not talking about your typical cartoons here.
No, instead these movies are created from actual data taken from space. Through complex observations, and even more complex calculations which can take weeks, scientists can form models of really cool events like galaxies forming, the early universe expanding, black holes colliding, and more.
This data is then fed into a rendering program written here at SLAC. You can't find it anywhere else. The program takes the data and creates a 3-D movie in a matter of days, if not hours. The difficult part is actually deciding what you want to highlight. You can't visualize more than one variable at a time. It wouldn't make sense to show the expansion of the universe via temperature and density variations at the same time.
Instead, the lead choreographer, for lack of a better term, chooses which variable will best highlight the data. He also chooses what color scheme to use and which angles to view the movie in. These sorts of decisions can take weeks, but the results are stunning. You can check some of these movies out at the KIPAC's website.
Also, there is another program that lets you imagine you are the captain of the Enterprise (I know I'm a dork.) Again using real data, you can fly through an actual representation of the Milky Way galaxy. You can choose which direction to fly and how far, and the stars passing have real names and data. It's pretty neat.
Anyways, what I really wanted to talk about today is the second story about 3-D animations at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics (KIPAC) visualization lab. I personally visited the visualization lab and was very impressed with what I saw.
You can read the article for details, but I'll give you the highlights here. There are two projectors which have a polarized light filter over each of their lenses. Polarizing light is basically making sure that only waves traveling in exactly the same direction make it through. Anything coming at an angle doesn't make it.
When light is polarized in two different directions, and special glasses with similarly polarized lenses are worn, the effect is a 3-D image. But I'm not talking about your typical cartoons here.
No, instead these movies are created from actual data taken from space. Through complex observations, and even more complex calculations which can take weeks, scientists can form models of really cool events like galaxies forming, the early universe expanding, black holes colliding, and more.
This data is then fed into a rendering program written here at SLAC. You can't find it anywhere else. The program takes the data and creates a 3-D movie in a matter of days, if not hours. The difficult part is actually deciding what you want to highlight. You can't visualize more than one variable at a time. It wouldn't make sense to show the expansion of the universe via temperature and density variations at the same time.
Instead, the lead choreographer, for lack of a better term, chooses which variable will best highlight the data. He also chooses what color scheme to use and which angles to view the movie in. These sorts of decisions can take weeks, but the results are stunning. You can check some of these movies out at the KIPAC's website.
Also, there is another program that lets you imagine you are the captain of the Enterprise (I know I'm a dork.) Again using real data, you can fly through an actual representation of the Milky Way galaxy. You can choose which direction to fly and how far, and the stars passing have real names and data. It's pretty neat.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
More on the LCLS
One story is on SLAC Today about a labor pool group that does a lot of the miscellaneous tasks around the grounds. It's nice to interview regular guys who don't get a lot of props for their hard work and to recognize that without their efforts, jobs on-site would be much more tedious and frustrating.
On to today's main topic; the Linac Coherent Light Source. Some of you may remember me talking about it in a previous blog. I described how the LCLS works, how it takes x-rays produced from accelerated electrons to take pictures of extremely small objects extremely quickly.
Revisit that post here, or visit the LCLS website here, for a refresher…
Today's question is this: How do the scientists actually prepare a sample of something to put in front of this amazing x-ray laser beam?
Answer: Good question.
There are currently two projects underway at SLAC to answer this question. One is called the LCLS Ultrafast Science Instruments (LUSI) project and the second is known as Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering (PULSE). The purpose of LUSI is to investigate hardware technologies to be used with the LCLS and PULSE was commissioned to explore how the LCLS can be used to its full potential.
For example, technologies exist that can drop a stream of single molecules into the beam line to "take its picture." But every time it drops a molecule, it is oriented in a different way. This makes it extremely difficult to create a high-resolution image of the complex 3-dimensional structure that is a molecule.
Current projects using x-rays to probe molecules have to crystallize the sample first. This makes the sample uniform and simplifies the calculations immensely. However, some molecules, proteins, or other objects can not be crystallized, and the LCLS is capable of so much more than investigating crystallized structures. So one of the projects is to create a machine that can inject a single molecule into the beam line in roughly the same orientation every time.
So the question of how exactly samples and materials are going to be probed by the LCLS beam remains unanswered. But be assured that many scientists are working on it, and when the time comes, the LCLS will produce an amazing array of results.
This is but one of the many projects currently underway at SLAC to ensure that when the LCLS comes online in a couple of years, we will be ready to use it to its full potential.
On to today's main topic; the Linac Coherent Light Source. Some of you may remember me talking about it in a previous blog. I described how the LCLS works, how it takes x-rays produced from accelerated electrons to take pictures of extremely small objects extremely quickly.
Revisit that post here, or visit the LCLS website here, for a refresher…
Today's question is this: How do the scientists actually prepare a sample of something to put in front of this amazing x-ray laser beam?
Answer: Good question.
There are currently two projects underway at SLAC to answer this question. One is called the LCLS Ultrafast Science Instruments (LUSI) project and the second is known as Photon Ultrafast Laser Science and Engineering (PULSE). The purpose of LUSI is to investigate hardware technologies to be used with the LCLS and PULSE was commissioned to explore how the LCLS can be used to its full potential.
For example, technologies exist that can drop a stream of single molecules into the beam line to "take its picture." But every time it drops a molecule, it is oriented in a different way. This makes it extremely difficult to create a high-resolution image of the complex 3-dimensional structure that is a molecule.
Current projects using x-rays to probe molecules have to crystallize the sample first. This makes the sample uniform and simplifies the calculations immensely. However, some molecules, proteins, or other objects can not be crystallized, and the LCLS is capable of so much more than investigating crystallized structures. So one of the projects is to create a machine that can inject a single molecule into the beam line in roughly the same orientation every time.
So the question of how exactly samples and materials are going to be probed by the LCLS beam remains unanswered. But be assured that many scientists are working on it, and when the time comes, the LCLS will produce an amazing array of results.
This is but one of the many projects currently underway at SLAC to ensure that when the LCLS comes online in a couple of years, we will be ready to use it to its full potential.
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