Page 5 - EUREKA! Fall 2017

providing a place educational programming and share
for startups scientific knowledge.”
and small-to- Science North draws more than
medium-sized 400,000 visitors annually to its main
enterprises to science centre (with attractions
advance their that include an IMAX theatre, digital
data analytics planetarium and butterfly gallery)
business. and Dynamic Earth — Home of the
“As a physicist, Big Nickel, a separate science centre
I never thought focused on mining and earth sciences.
a lab like this It co-produced the travelling “New
would be of Eyes on the Universe” exhibit after
such interest SNO’s Art McDonald was named Obis ipsunt, odi aut
pero officiam, conse
Photo: to other fields,” co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize aut fugitio nsequam,
in Physics (see sidebar), and has
says Nigel Smith,
Pudit quia dolo officillatur reicatium volorit quo minis doluptas a dark matter produced a pair of multimedia “object to moluptatur ate sunt
untotatem voluptatur
audit, sitatiust, sincill uptaeped magni a cus mollaccus eum amusdam
researcher from theatres” focused on particle physics:
$76.4 million over the ensuing five the United Kingdom who became “Secrets of the Sun,” which introduced
years, “have and will contribute over SNOLAB’s director in 2009. “Some a character named Captain Neutrino
$358 million to the Canadian economy wondrous connections are being to the world and ran for 10 years, and Photo: Luther Caverly
which translates to approximately $45 established here, and this is happening “Between the Stars,” which is currently
million on an annual basis.” Moreover, very organically.” on display and takes audiences inside
SNOLAB annually supports 234 The evolution of the SNO experiment contemporary dark matter research.
person-years of employment. into a multifaceted facility with a broad “Science is arguably more important
The KPMG report also highlights mandate paved the path to a greater today than it ever has been and Ask a theoretical particle physicist
the Mining Observatory Data Control community presence, says Smith. we are proud to be a partner with
Centre (MODCC), a partnership Its already strong relationship with SNOLAB,” says Science North CEO Five things you always wanted to know about scientists who develop models for describing
between SNOLAB and the Centre Sudbury’s Science North — Canada’s Guy Labine. “The public needs to
for Excellence in Mining Innovation. second largest science centre and be able to understand its relevance. fundamental particles and their interactions (but were probably afraid to ask)
Housed in SNOLAB’s above ground Northern Ontario’s most popular The realm that we operate in is STEM
operations at Vale, which has been tourist attraction — has grown deeper [Science, Technology, Engineering I CARLETON HAS A THEORETICAL and chances are none will be right. says Logan, because scientists know
operating the Creighton Mine over the past 10 years. Science North and Mathematics] education, which PARTICLE PHYSICS GROUP “But you learn some things in the it’s there but don’t know what “it” is.
since purchasing Inco in 2006, the essentially serves as the public face of helps create innovative workplaces It has five faculty members: Heather process,” she says, “and you work up Experiments have helped narrow the
$1.5 million project addresses the SNOLAB, an important role because and inspires the next generation Logan, Stephen Godfrey, Thomas a plausible explanation, which means range of possibilities, and projects such
“significant gap in the collection, there is no public access to the of scientists. It’s natural for us to Gregoire, Bruce Campbell and Daniel not in contradiction with any of the as DEAP-3600 at SNOLAB (see “New
storage, analysis and sharing of underground lab. “This connection,” celebrate research that’s taking place Stolarski. Like many of her peers, experimental results obtained by window on the universe,” page TK) have
‘big data’ in the mining sector” by says Smith, “allows us to deliver in our own backyard.” —Dan Rubinstein Logan found this field through humanity up till now — which is a big a shot at identifying the mysterious form
serendipity. She was interested in thing to check.” of matter that constitutes a large swath
astronomy and science fiction, studied of the universe. “Since I started grad
SNO roadshow comes physics as an undergraduate in III THEY SIFT THROUGH A school, there have been only a handful
California, and had a PhD supervisor
of really big particle physics discoveries,”
LOT OF DATA
to Carleton who was a theoretical particle Particle physics experiments don’t says Logan. “There was the discovery of
physicist. “Chance has an influence on
neutrino oscillation and the Higgs boson.
generate boatloads of data — they create
one’s trajectory,” she says. “That’s the entire fleets of information. Essentially, Dark matter would be in this class.”
A travelling multimedia exhibit that explores the way the world works.” researchers “smash stuff together,” which
history and evolution of the Sudbury Neutrino produces data that can be “sliced and V THEY LOOK FOR UNEXPECTED
Observatory — and the facility’s Nobel Prize- II EVEN THOUGH IT’S A THEORY diced” in myriad ways, says Logan, to CONNECTIONS BETWEEN EXISTING
winning discoveries — will be on display at GROUP, THEIR WORK INVOLVES search for many different things. “It’s kind EXPERIMENTS
Carleton’s Location TK from October 3 to 23. “New EXPERIMENTS of like the long-form census,” she says. Different kinds of experiments can have
Eyes on the Universe,” created by Science North Physics experiments typically do “You send out the questionnaire, get the sensitivity to the same phenomena.
with input from SNO and SNOLAB researchers, one of two things: test predictions results, and then the statisticians play To Logan, this is one of the most fun
opened at Canada House in London, England, derived from the Standard Model with the info for the next 10 years.” This things about theory. She has done a
on Canada Day 2016. Since then, the interpretive — a theory that describes the basic process helps physicists construct and lot of work on the Higgs boson, for
panels, spectacular images, video kiosks, virtual components of matter and the forces test new models. example, and continues to mine the
tour and artifacts such as a 1/50 scale model of that govern their interactions — or data that confirmed its existence. Work
the SNO detector have visited several Canadian look for new physics phenomena. For IV THEY’RE REALLY INTO at the Large Hadron Collider could help
science centres and universities. The exhibit either approach, theorists do a lot of DARK MATTER inform the search for dark matter. “The
explains the basic science at the heart of SNO complicated calculations. They often Everyone in Carleton’s theoretical job of a theorist,” says Logan, “is to
and SNOLAB, and shares the stories of the people come up with multiple possibilities particle physics group has done some know all sorts of different things and
behind the experiments. Photo: for new phenomena, says Logan, dark matter research. It’s a hot topic, put them together.”

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