Be enthralled by big science at Scifest Africa
The ATLAS physics experiment is a very big, very expensive project at the Large Hadron Collider designed to find something that is so small that it might not even be there. South African-born particle physicist, Dr Claire Lee, who currently works on the experiment in Switzerland will explain in her presentation, The Building Blocks of the Universe - from Quarks to the Cosmos at Scifest Africa 2017 why she gets so excited about colliding protons.
Lee will be giving the Christina Scott Memorial Lecture at the Olive Schreiner Hall on March 11 2017 with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland.
Set up in a cavern 100 me- tres below a small Swiss village, the 7,000-ton ATLAS detector is probing for fundamental particles in collisions from the Large Hadron Collider.
The experiment seems so improbable that a reporter at The Guardian newspaper once wrote, “Particle physics is the unbelievable in pursuit of the unimaginable.
To pinpoint the smallest fragments of the Universe you have to build the biggest machine in the world”.
Lee says that in order to understand the universe we need to understand the parts, or the building blocks, and how all the pieces fit together. The problem is that there is still a lot we do not know. She explains, “… everything we do know only makes up about 5% of the universe. What is the other 95% of the universe made of? Well, with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN, we are trying to find out!”
Communicating her work is important to Lee because she believes that science is not only for scientists, “Science is something that every single one of us is born with: a natural curiosity to understand the universe, and I believe that everyone should be able to access this.”
The second big science project to be showcased at this year’s Scifest Africa is the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope in the Northern Cape. Dr Lindsay Magnus, Chief Scientist at SKA South Africa will present his lecture with the intriguing title of “Seeing stars in dirty pictures: Life as a radio astronomer in the Karoo”.
The SKA is an international collaboration to build the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. It will have a collecting area of one square kilometre, and will consist of thousands of receptor dishes located across Africa and aperture array antennas located across Australia and New Zealand.
SKA SA is currently constructing the MeerKAT radio telescope, consisting of 64 receptors, 90km outside Carnarvon, Northern Cape. MeerKAT is a precursor to the SKA and will be integrated into SKA Phase 1.
The Karoo was selected as the ideal site for the construction of the radio telescope because there is minimal interference from electronic devices (like cellphones), and vehicles that could disrupt weak radio signals coming in from the far reaches of the universe.
While the isolation is perfect for radio astronomy, it can prove challenging for on-site astronomers. Magnus will share with audiences his experiences illustrating how people cope with living in a scorched semi-desert far from the big cities they are accustomed to.
In his presentation, he will also explain the basics of radio astronomy and how vast amounts of information gath- ered from the array will be collected and made available to scientists in other parts of the world.
Last July, Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, released the MeerKAT First Light image. Using only 16 of the eventual 64 receptors, the image showed 1,300 galaxies in a small patch of sky covering less than 0.01 percent of the entire celestial sphere, compared to 70 known in that location prior to MeerKAT.
This lecture, supported by the Square Kilometre Array, SA, will leave audiences enthralled with how much progress has been achieved and how much still lies ahead for the world’s largest science project.