User:SDayton
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About Me
Bonjour! Je m'appelle Samantha Dayton and I am about to be a junior at Sachem High School East. I'm a self-proclaimed nerd who likes to go bungee jumping and slingshotting (basically reverse bungee jumping). I love French (as you've probably figured out from my opening) and Math and I plan on duel majoring in these subjects after I graduate high school. Science is kind of my side hobby. When I was in 9th grade I placed 2nd at NYSSEF in the cellular micro biology division in the galaxy fair and from that point on, I was hooked. Last year as a tenth grader, I entered the Andromeda division and placed 3rd in micro molecular biology for work with entrance of bacteriophage into E.coli. I'm looking forward to entering the Intel division this year, even though I was supposed to last year.
So, what's my project this year? I am planning on changing completely and entering the math category with work on geometry to higher dimensions, mainly hyperspheres. So why am I doing a summer program on cosmic radiation? I really have no idea, but like I said, i'm in to all things educational and I even helped to build detectors last year. Let's see, other hobbies of mine include baton (9 years) and I play the trumpet (though not very well). My favorite band is Simple Plan, I can play Guitar Hero for hours, I dream of going to Paris within the next couple of years, and my friends say I have a slight obsession to pandas. Well, that's about it; I lead a pretty boring high school life filled with nothing but A.P. courses (psych, u.s history, physics, literary and composition, plus Science Research in my junior year). :)
Summer 2008 MARIACHI Workshop at Stony Brook University
July 7th - July 11th 2008
If you're trying to get info off this site, good luck, you'll probably have a better chance with one of these:
Want to learn a little more about what Mariachi is?
Click on this link to go to their main page: [[1]]
Want to get all the info on cosmic rays?
Then click here to access a real wikipedia page: [[2]]
Oh yeah, also this week we got to express our creativity, or to most of us lack there of (hence, non-fiction), by writing books on, you guessed it, cosmic rays. Here's a link to check them out:
Day 1- July 7th- Basic Information and Preliminary Data
Background Information on Cosmic Radiation
Cosmic Rays were discovered by Victor Hess, an Austrian physicist in 1921 . As well as the Nobel Prize for 1936, which he shared with C.D. Anderson, Hess has been awarded the Abbe Memorial Prize and the Abbe Medal of the Carl Zeiss Institute in Jena (1932); he was also Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
Radiation was already known during the discovery of these rays because of the work of Marie Curie. She was physicist and chemist and was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity. She then became the only person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, and the first female professor at the University of Paris.
Ernest Rutherford already experimented understood “orbiting” due to his experiment in which he concluded that the atom is 99.99% empty space, the nucleus contains a positive charge and most of the mass of the atom, and the nucleus is approximately 100,000 times smaller than the atom.
It was noted that electroscopes would discharge even in the absence of radiation. An electroscope is an instrument which serves to determine if a body is electrified, and to determine the nature of the electrification.
There were two main theories about the source of the rays that were apparent on Earth: 1: The first and more probable source of radiation was thought to come from outer space. 2: The other, less believed theory, was that the ray's origin was from center of earth.
Robert Millikan,an American physicist, thought they were coming from center of earth While discoveror Victor Hess, believed that these rays came from outer space.
Later, in an ironic twist Millikan named this radiation “cosmic”, virtually turning his hypothesis around 180 degrees to believing that the rays were actually found in space.
In 1932 Carl Anderson,an American physicist further researched and found that there were positive electrons in “cosmic rays” which we now call positrons.
In 1937, Pierre Auger, a French physicist who worked in the fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics and cosmic ray physics, discovered particle showers using 2 Geiger counters placed at large distances
- Geiger counters are used to detect radiation, usually alpha and beta radiation, but certain models can also detect gamma radiation as well
By the late 40’s different particles were found in cosmic rays- the birth of particle physics
Cloud Chambers: device used to detect elementary particles and other ionizing radiation. A cloud chamber consists essentially of a closed container filled with a supersaturated vapor, e.g., water in air. When ionizing radiation passes through the vapor, it leaves a trail of charged particles (ions) that serve as condensation centers for the vapor, which condenses around them. The path of the radiation is thus indicated by tracks of tiny liquid droplets in the supersaturated vapor
Plastic Scintilators: are substances that absorb high energy electromagnetic or charged particle radiation then, in response, fluoresces photons at a characteristic Stokes-shifted wavelength, releasing the previously absorbed energy.
Phototube: a vacuum tube designed to convert light energy into electrical energy by means of a photoemissive cathode
 Cloud Chamber |
 What to look for in a cloud chamber |
 Example of a basic phototube |
Do they affect us? YES, by...
Inducing lightening, Nucleation or cloud formation, utation, Carbon-14 production,... the list goes on
Cosmic rays affected by THE SUN – the Forbush effect: decrease in the intensity of cosmic rays as observed on Earth, attributed to magnetic effects produced by solar flares, which are disturbances on the Sun
After almost 100 years of cosmic ray physics we are starting to learn possible sources and mechanisms that may produce cosmic rays
Areas in which cosmic radiation is being observed on a large scale include:
Pierre Auger Observatory (Argentina)
Telescope Array (Utah)
Cosmic Chris: Who is he and what did we learn from him?
Using the particle detector "Cosmic Chris" we were able to understand the conditions and later alter them to learn under what conditions particles would impact him the most. Our first couple of trials took place in the basement of the physics lab and were uused to test under what placement condition most impact would occur. Each trial was for timed for 5 minutes and the amount of rays were recorded. These trials were run in both the vertical and horizontal positions:
Trial 1 Vertical: 4702 rays
Trial 2 Horizontal: 9320 rays
From these results we were able to conclude that when the detector was placed in the horizontal position the amount of rays nearly doubled to that when it was vertical. This may be due to an increase in surface area for the particles but it will be explored in later experiments.
In our next trial, we placedc the detector horizontally in a room with upwards of 4 feet of concrete covering it. Our hopes were that the presence of this "blockade" would lead to less particles going through. Again, it was timed for 5 minutes and recorded.
Trial 1 Horizontal: 8302 rays
From this trial, it can be seen that the presence of a blockade, such as rock could be used to prevent the passage of cosmic rays. From previous research, it seemed that altitude had a substantial effect on the number of rays present. It was supposed to be that the higher the altitude was, the more particles were supposed to go through the detector. To test this theory we took cosmic Chris to the highest floor in the building and running these trials again.
Trial 1 Horizontal: 10780 rays
Trial 2 Horizontal: 9923 rays
Although these results were not as drastic as we had hoped them to be, it could be seen that altitude does have an effect and the higher you go, the more rays you will experience.
Thanks to Cosmic Chris, we were able to come out of our first day of this workshops understading the conditions and actions of cosmic rays.
Day 2- July 8th
Time Measurement
Early time Measurement
There have always been problems concerning the ability of man to be able too tell time exactly. Ever since early man, we have strived to make this goal a reality, beginning with the most basic form: sunrise to sunset. Since obviously this was no where near an efficient way to predict time or time during early tools such as the sundial was created to keep track of time and inventions such as The Sand Clock was created to help determine duration of time. Problems with this: Sundials- need a light source in order to determine time, therefore it would not be very efficient during the night hours; it is not a very accurate way to tell time; it is seasonly dependent and would not read the same way in summer as it would in summer. Sand Clocks- there are no exact time intervals
Getting Mechanical and Compact
Mechanical clocks were soon created such as Big Ben in London, UK; and Town Hall in Prague, Czech Republic Obvious Problem: WAY TOO BIG! so..... Compact clocks such as the table clock and wrist watches were soon created; and for time duration, the stopwatch was created. But of course, like all others before.....more problems: Limited Accuracy Synchronization issues between 2 devices Regular maintenance needed for reliable operation
Going electronic with the Digital Wrist Watch and the Digial Stop Watch seemed like the poerfect solution, but can we ever achieve perfect time measurement? Well, if we have billions of dollars and can buy an Atomic Clock; highly unlikely.
So...what are our plans for the future? GPS's (Global Positioning Systems) and NTP's (Network Time Protocols) are being finally made available to the public
The Octagon
What does the octogon teach us? The direction of cosmic rays determined by two detectors. Basically, does atmosphere come into play?
Instead of moving the detectyors themselves at different angles, instead we decided to keep them at a constabt 45 degree angle and rotate the octagon holder itself in a counterclockwise / clockwise motion, so the detectors would face in different directions. We measured each for 60 seconds beginning with the higher detector facing north, which we called 0 degrees. We tested each position twice and recorded the coincidences that occured between the two detectors. Each coincidence meant that a cosmic ray had passed though both detectors.
0 degree turn (facing north)
Trial 1- 168 coincidences
Trial 2- 170 coincidences
90 degree turn (facing east)
Trial 3- 210 coincidences
Trial 4- 207 coincidences
180 degree turn (facing south)
Trial 5- 191 coincidences
Trial 6- 225 coincidences
270 degree turn (facing west)
Trial 7- 185 coincidences
Trial 8- 196 coincidences
Basically, this means we definitely have to do more research, although in certain positions there were incidences of increased particle activity, the results were not drastic enough for definite conclusion.
Antennae
What's the experiment here? The wave of a radio station would reflect off cosmic rays and the energy would be recorded. Before this: Radiowaves would bounce off of a meteor, vaporize at impact, and turn into a plasmid cloud. This would leave an ionized trail of charges
With a dipole antenna in an inverted "V" pattern we are looking to see if there is a different outcome in sets of different elements perpendicular. To see if an antenna is well tuned, an electromagnetic wave is sent out to the antenna and it listens for the wave to come back.
For this experiment, we took two configurations (A&B) and compared: frequency(f) vs. pure resistance (Rs), frequency(f) vs. reactant(Xs), and frequency(f) vs. Standing Wave Ratio(SWR) The Results are shown below:
Configuration A:
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Configuration B:
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Though most of the charts were random, there was a pattern found in Configuration A: frequency (f) vs. Standing Wave Ratio (SWR).
Day 3- July 9th
Analyzing Cosmic Ray Data
Today we looked at data from several differnt schools on the island to try to determine if we could see a solar flare that had occured in late April 2008. To do this we analyzed the amount of cosmic rays that occured around the days surrounding the event.
After gathering all the data from the different schools: We Graphed two-fold coincidence counts (y axis) vs. pressure (x axis) for 4/10-4/26 and 5/3-5/13 to determine the relationship between counts and pressure before and after the solar flare. Though my graphs are definitely far from perfectly accurate, they can give you a basic idea of what we found, mostly linear paths:
- Click to access information from.....
 Bayshore |
Sachem |
Shoreham |
Smithtown |
Suffolk |
Also, other than just graphing this information, we also found the tradelines and residual counts that are included along with the linear equation for each graph.
- In tables: c2 = coincidence counts & Software = pressure
By the Way..... it may not look like that much work, but trust me, YOU NEED A LOT OF PATIENCE! Even I get sick of nearly seven hours of Excell; which, now thanks to this, I actually know how to use!
Day 4- July 10th
Analyzing data from Yesterday
So today, we looked at the residual from each school on the few days surrounding the occurance of the solar flare. Then for each reading we took the residuals of all the schools and added them. Finally, we took the added residual, compared it to the dates and graphed. The graph is shown above, and the residual data can be accessed by clicking above. As you can see there is an apparent peak in the residuals around April 30th, about three days after the event had occured. So, can cosmic rays actually show changes of the sun? Only time (and a little research couldn't hurt) will tell.
Learning about Meteors with Dr. David Meisel
Today we were very lucky to have contact with Dr. David Meisel, though it was through webcam, who taught us a great deal about meteors. Though, yes we're studying cosmic rays, we need to learn about the things surrounding them, what can possibly affect the rays, and plus, it never hurts to learn something new.
There were three main topics that he had discussed:
1- TV Meteor Project of American Meteor Society
2- Radiametor Project of American Meteor Society
3- UHF precision Meteor observations from Kiruna in Sweden- Sweedish Space Institute and EISCAT
So, what meteors can we see with the eye: Meteor Showers- basically Earth runs into particles orbiting the Sun. A famous example of these meteor showers is Geminids,which is named after the constellation Gemini and occurs in december.
What's the difference between a meteor and a fireball? A fireball is actually any meteor that looks brighter to the eye than Jupiter does; generally they don't make it to the ground and are not detectable by radios.
Detection by Radio: you must have...
1- a transmitter
2- a reciever
- how to hear meteors: time signal station in Canada- from CHU in Ottawa, once dark and you tune to signal, you can hear meteors in the background-"ping".
3- to be more sophisticated though, you need more equiptment
The naked eye range has a radio-magnitude of 0 and up to 6. Showers are seen best by television and eye
Sporatic Meteors- any place, any time, without a meteor shower
Radios pick up more that do not come from showers and let you see meteors during the day time.
This type of detecting is known as a Passive Meteor System The actual radar (more efficiently used) is known as an Active Radio System. In this there are 2 types aof radar
1- signal with no message reflected by meteors
2- main carrier signal is modulated with something that gets an actual signal (digital signal can be pulses "beeps") and will have changes in intensity probes are probing electrons in atmosphere
more used- transmitter giving off pulses times accurately, and recievers send signal back If the object is moving, frequencies will change and the "Doppler Effect", will tell how fast it's moving. 1,000's of narrow pulses per second are being reflected by an electron cloud
One of the most famous meteor radar systems is in Kiruna and is known as the Ice-cat radar. It beams up over northern Finland where there is a reciever. There are also recievers in eastern finland and another in Norway. For it's research it was not exactly a large antenna and has since been replaced by a larger one (80 foot ditch and 40 million dollars) All across it measures about 96km high (between the 3 recievers) with a frequency of 900megaHertz. This is just about the most accurate meteor observations known to this day, measuring better than 1km.
Comets vs. Meteors comets- in the night sky each night meteors- in the atmosphere and not deeper space and are only seen for a few seconds
The dark areas of the Saturn's rngs, known as Kirkwood gaps, are actually gaps caused by the moons of Saturn. Like in this case, we can identify larger gaps in orbits that are the result of Jupiter and Saturn themselves.
Gaps in meteor orbits- can we find them? This is one of the first times resinences/harmonics of meteor orbits have been seen clearly.
Source of meteors= great bulk from the Sun, very few believed to be from outside our solar system (more than 72km/sec(in other words, REALLY fast)). But there is not enough convincing data of those fronm outside the solar system; ones form the outside are so small that solar winds could keep them out. As of right now, there has not been sightings of these for some years.
Has anyone seen cosmic rays from these detectors? Not exactly.
-Sorry the notes are a little sketchy, but, mentioned earlier, it was by a web-cam.-
Trying a Project of Our Own
We're not here really here to confirm what's already known, though you always repeat everythnig many, many times, we're here to find out what has yet to be answered, and answer them. So we were finally let off on our own to figure out a project for ourselves that deals with analyzing cosmic radiation data. Here's what I came up with:
"How to make the Final Frontier, a Safer Place to be"
Experts have warned that the radiation encountered on journey to Mars and back could well kill space travelers. Astronauts would be bombarded by so much cosmic radiation that one in 10 of them could die from cancer.
So... how do we solve this problem, by coming up with one:
Are there certain areas surrounding our planet in which cosmic ray activity experiences Forbush decrease more than others?
By the way...A Forbush Decrease is generally when there is a significant decrease in the incidence of pertruding cosmic ray particles
Now, the difficult part, how to solve it:
If there are certain areas that show a significant decrease in cosmic radiation than others, the threat of the dangers of cosmic radiation to space travelers may be lessened if they take off, and travel within these areas. Detectors are set up all around the world already and their information is just waiting to be put to work. Take records from detectors in nearly every area on the planet about cosmic ray impact each day for upwards of a year and record if there is any significant difference in the average yearly impact. Also, measure if there are certain times or seasons in which cosmic rays are more current or less apparent to find if there are not only certain areas in which space travel would be safer, but also if there are certain times in which astronauts are at more of a risk.
Since cosmic rays are affected by nearly everything; atmosphere, altitude, why wouldn’t they be affected by location in the atmosphere or time as well? Nothing is completely random and there must be some areas within our universe in which decreases come into effect.
Day 5- July 11th
Yet to be fully determined.....
1- Explore the fine art of online multiplayer gaming- I am amazing at Family Feud!
More Quick Facts a.k.a stuff you would actually go to a wiki page to look for
And in fact you can find all this information at the wikipedia page for Cosmic Rays, the link is near the top of this page.
- So... what exactly is a cosmic ray anyway?
Cosmic Rays are charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light, originating from space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei (alpha particles) and about 1% are electrons (beta minus particles).
- Where do they come from?
Most cosmic rays originate from extrasolar sources within our own galaxy such as rotating neutron stars, supernovae, and black holes. However, the fact that some cosmic rays have extremely high energies provides evidence that at least some must be of extra-galactic origin.
- What are high energy cosmic rays?
In high-energy physics, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) or extreme-energy cosmic ray (EECR) is a cosmic ray (subatomic particle) which appears to have extreme kinetic energy, far beyond both its rest mass and energies typical of other cosmic rays.
- What are cosmic air-showers?
When cosmic ray particles enter the Earth's atmosphere they collide with molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen, to produce a cascade of lighter particles, a so-called air shower. An air shower is an extensive (many kilometers wide) cascade of ionized particles and electromagnetic radiation produced in the atmosphere when a primary cosmic ray enters our atmosphere.
- Cosmic Rays and lightening:
Cosmic rays have been implicated in the triggering of electrical breakdown in lightning. It has been proposed that essentially all lightning is triggered through a relativistic process, seeded by cosmic ray secondaries.
- Detection of Cosmic Rays:
The nuclei that make up cosmic rays are able to travel from their distant sources to the Earth because of the low density of matter in space. Nuclei interact strongly with other matter, so when the cosmic rays approach Earth they begin to collide with the nuclei of atmospheric gases. These collisions, in a process known as a shower, result in the production of many pions and kaons, unstable mesons which quickly decay into muons. Because muons do not interact strongly with the atmosphere and because of the relativistic effect of time dilation many of these muons are able to reach the surface of the Earth. Muons are ionizing radiation, and may easily be detected by many types of particle detectors such as bubble chambers or scintillation detectors. If several muons are observed by separated detectors at the same instant it is clear that they must have been produced in the same shower event.
- Galactic cosmic Rays:
Most galactic cosmic rays have energies too low to penetrate the earth's atmosphere, and the radii of their helical trajectories in the earth's magnetic field tends to channel them to the poles; in this respect, these galactic cosmic rays are exactly like the charged particles that make up the solar wind.
Summer Summary
So, the week's finally over. At times these 8 hours a day seemed to drag on forever...cough...Excel...cough. Now hopefully I'll be able to understand something when I enter Physics this year, but with my attention span and capability to recollect information, it doesn't look too good. But seriously, I had a lot of fun, even though I got lost on campus several times, yeah, I'm bad with directions too. (high IQ and absolutely NO common sense) I wasn't planning to ever do a project with cosmic rays, but after this week I really came to be interested in them and I think i may research them further and maybe do a project on them in my senior year. Oh by the way, Family Feud ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (It's a had to be there thing)
Joke of the day (or actually joke of the website because I'll probably never change it, seriously, how many subatomic particle jokes do you know? Even though I've found sites completely devoted to them).
A muon walks into a bar, and keeps right on going. LOL
- Thanks Nicole
So, that's it, hopefully I'll be able to update this thing next year. By that time maybe I'll have a basic understanding of Physics and not be completely confused on everything I'm writing.
