Volume 20 Friday, April 4, 1997 Number 7

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Science Taking Higher Profile in Capital

continued on page 8

INSIDE2 Computers and

Accelerators

4 Inventions

6 Sloan Digital Sky Survey

upon the Clinton Administration and the105th Congress to increase the nation’sinvestment in scientific research and education.

This awareness of science issues emanatingfrom the nation’s capital has heartened many ofthose toiling in the country’s laboratories anduniversities; however, researchers interviewedfor this article also said they are closelyobserving how the rhetoric translates intoincreased funding as the appropriations processplays out.

“I see these [initiatives] as demonstrationsof the underlying support of basic science inthe community and in Congress,” said Jeffrey

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Recent initiatives in Washington, D.C. on behalf of research have focused onfundamental science.

by Donald Sena, Office of Public Affairs Science and research endeavors in the

United States, under the strain of budgetbelt–tightening in recent years, have taken ahigher profile in the national debate in 1997, as evidenced by several initiatives taken bylawmakers and policy shapers from bothpolitical parties.

In the first three months of the year, aRepublican leader in the Senate introduced abill calling for the doubling of basic science andmedical research, a bipartisan coalition ofSenators formed the government’s first Scienceand Technology Caucus and 23 organizationsencompassing a large spectrum of science andengineering disciplines banded together to call

D. Allan Bromley,president of the AmericanPhysical Society, speakingat the press conferencefor the Joint Statementon Scientific Research. He is joined by thepresidents of theAmerican ChemicalSociety, AmericanMathematical Society and AmericanAstronomical Society.

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Problem is, said Nobel-Prize winningphysicist and Stanford Linear AcceleratorCenter Director Burton Richter, it won’t work.

“The field of particle physics can’t advancewithout experimental data to test the theoreticalcalculations,” Richter said. “If you don’talready understand what’s happening, you can’task a computer. You have to do an experiment.”

University of Chicago physicist HenryFrisch posed the problem differently.

“Suppose,” Frisch said, “that high-speedcomputers had existed in the time ofColumbus. Imagine the scene: Columbuscomes to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabellato ask for money for his voyage. Theirhighnesses hesitate: those ships cost plenty.Then the Court Computer Specialist speaks up.‘Your majesties,’ he says, ‘let’s try anotherapproach. It will save money. It will be mucheasier. Let’s make a computer model ofColumbus’s voyage!’

“They would have put in all the data thatthey had at the time,” Frisch continued, “Theywould have made a wonderful model of theworld as they knew it, and Columbus wouldnever have found the New World. You can’tsimulate exploring. There is only one way toexplore, and that is to get on a ship—or aparticle accelerator—and go there.”

CERN theorist Michelangelo Mangano,agreed.

“What I do for a living is to writecomputer simulations of high-energycollisions,” he said. “I develop programs thatexplain what would happen if a particulartheory were true. But my programs cannot tellwhether or not that theory IS true. For that weneed experiments. We can guess what is beyondour established knowledge. Like Columbus, wemay have ideas about what lies over thehorizon. But like Columbus, we may be wrongwhen we actually go there. Columbus expectedto find the East Indies, not the New World.

By Judy Jackson, Office of Public AffairsWhy hold the baseball season? asked the

Nobel Prize winning physicist. Not that he hasanything against baseball. Fermilab’s DirectorEmeritus Leon Lederman was responding to asuggestion that the science of experimentalparticle physics might turn to high-poweredcomputers as a substitute for high-powered(and high-priced) particle accelerators inadvancing the frontiers of understanding thebasic structure of the universe.

“After all,” Lederman said, “we know theplayers’ batting averages and all the otherstatistics. Why play the games? Why not justmodel the baseball season with computers?”

But awesomely impractical as a computerprediction of a baseball season would be,Lederman said, “it would be trivial comparedto using computers to predict the results of anaccelerator research project. This is becausebaseball is based upon known principles,whereas, in the research, the principles areunknown.”

In the major leagues of experimentalparticle physics, the rising costs of buildingparticle accelerators with enough energy toadvance the frontiers of discovery prompt thecontinuing search for alternative tools forsolving the fundamental mysteries at the heartof matter’s structure. Aren’t there other,cheaper ways to get Mother Nature to spill hersecrets? Wouldn’t she, for example, talk to acomputer? A really, really powerful computer?

The Department of Energy’s GregoryHaas, senior technology research specialist inDOE’s Office of Computational andTechnology Research, put the problemsuccinctly. “Until we can find new, lessexpensive techniques to do experiments, high-energy physicists must be willing to find otherways to ask questions,” Haas said recently.“I’m suggesting that computers may be a wayto carry on research activities into the questionsbeing asked, without the facilities to do the realexperiments. What’s the high-energycommunity going to do? They can either askfor lots of money, or do more with computingto keep the field alive.”

The Nina, the Pinta and the Monte Carlo

Computers like thesework station farms atFermilab’s FeynmanComputing Center canperform complextheoretical calculations,analyze data andsimulate detector events,like the Monte Carlosimulation of a topquark event shown here.

The progress of science is full of unexpectedresults that no theory predicted.”

“We can have confidence in computermodeling as a substitute for weapons testing inmonitoring the nation’s nuclear weaponsstockpile, for example,” Mangano said,“because we already know the physical laws thatapply, and because we have been collecting dataabout real atomic tests for 40 years. We are notventuring into the unknown, but usingcomputers to apply what is already well known.”

Fermilab theorist Chris Hill emphasizedthat computer models of particle physicsexperiments are always applications of theknown laws of physics, not explorations of theundiscovered. “We can’t use computers toexplore regions where we don’t yet know thephysical laws,” Hill said. “The laws of physicspoop out at about 100 GeV. There is only oneway, the experimental method, to learn the lawsof physics beyond that point.”

Particle accelerators such as Fermilab’sTevatron, the world’s highest-energy particleaccelerator, allow experimenters to exploreenergy regions beyond the 100 GeV level,including the domain of the recently discoveredtop quark, whose mass translates to an energylevel of about 180 GeV.

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The Monte Carlo may look like the real thing, butuntil experimenters discovered the top quark in1995, its existence was only a theory. Here the CDFdetector rolls slowly out of the Tevatron beamlineinto the assembly hall after the collider run thatrevealed the real top quark in experimental datalike the particle signature shown here.

What’s a Monte

arlo?Monte Carlo, named for e famed casino town inonaco, is a way of odeling reality byigning probabilities toch one of a number ofated events. Eachobability gives rise to newmbinations of events witheir own probabilities,uch as each move in aess game influencesbsequent moves in theme.

Think of a tree withany branches representingany different possibleutions to a problem.ere are too manyssibilities to follow all theanches and explore all thessibilities using realperiments. A Monte Carlo

mulates performing manyperiments by usingndom numbers that thenrrespond to a probabilityeach branching point.gh-speed computers andmplex programs can nowate very powerful Monterlos.

Using the best availableta to refine theobabilities allows a Monterlo to make predictionsout what will happen inal experiments: whether articular theory about thendamental structure ofatter would give rise to atectable particle, forample, and what kind oftector would probably beost effective in detectinge particle, if it did exist.

The more accurate theta from actualperiments, the better theonte Carlo can do atedicting what wouldppen in futureperiments IF a particulareory were true. But evene most powerful Monterlo by itself can neverow whether or not aeory is true; only a ect question to naturean experiment—can that. ■

“No model predicted the top quark’smass,” said Fermilab physicist Alvin Tollestrup,one of the particle’s discoverers. “Theoreticalmodels predicted the top quark, but until wesaw it, we didn’t know. There was no way toknow its mass until we found it. This is true forthe Higgs boson, and it is true for super-symmetry,” Tollestrup added, referring to twotheoretically predicted phenomena as yetundiscovered by particle physics experiments.

“In fact,” Tollestrup continued, “our maintrouble is that there is now so muchcomputing, backed up by so little knowledge,that theories aren’t definitive. We havemodels—we have ten thousand models, but wedon’t know which, if any, are true. What weneed is more facts that we can only get fromnature. No amount of sitting and staring at acomputer screen will help. The first discovery atthe Large Hadron Collider will wipe outthousands of computer-generated papers.”

“The top quark is something we knewshould be there,” theorist Mangano concurred,“but we didn’t know exactly where ‘there’ was.We could simulate what it might look like, butuntil we found it by accelerator experiments,we did not know. It was possible that we wouldhave found something unexpected.” ■

by David Kestenbaum, Harvard University

Inventions are everywhere.Sure there’s the wheel, the printing

press, the cotton gin and the transistor,but what about that ballpoint pen? TheHungarian Biro brothers patented it in1938. Capillary attraction draws the inkdown the tube and onto the paper—brilliant. And what about the Dijak BoltAlignment Monument. What? You’venever heard of the Dijak Bolt AlignmentMonument? You must have missedFermi National Accelerator Laboratory’sannual Record of Invention AwardsCeremony.

Inventing is a matter of survival atplaces like Fermilab. Push into newterritory and inevitably there are newobstacles. After a while, inventing yourway over the latest hurdle becomesinstinctive. Sometimes it may even bepatentable, in which case employees file aRecord of Invention (ROI) with JohnVenard, head of the Office of Researchand Technology Applications atFermilab. The document describes theinvention and establishes a date ofconception. That’s important becauseU.S. patents are issued to the party whofirst conceived of the idea; in many othercountries, it goes to the first to file.

“There’s also a bit of paper workand bureaucracy involved in filing anROI,” Venard admits, so Fermilab makessure to honor its pioneers annually.

This year Venard presented theawards to a small crowd dining on teaand cookies at the second floor crossoverof Wilson Hall. Inventions, he pointedout, are an important spin-off offundamental research.

“In addition to doing world classphysics, over 750 inventions have comeout of the Lab over the years,“ he said.

So maybe Edward J. Dijak, whoreceived an award for his Dijak Bolt,won’t go down in history with

The annual Record of Invention awards recognize ideas conceived at Fermilab.

Ingenuity—Particle Physics Style

Thomas A. Edison. But things like theDijak bolt, which provides a stablemooring for survey and alignmentdevices, form the silent foundation for anaccelerator that may unlock the mysteriesof nature.

Often, as with James Steimel’s RadioFrequency Phase Unwinder, it wasnecessity that mothered invention.Steimel’s problem was an electronic signalthat was being delayed as it traveled alonga cable that crosses the ring.

“You send it from one end of the ringto the other, and by the time it gets to meit’s 8 microseconds [8 millionths of asecond] late,” he said. This meant thesignal was arriving out of synch, as if ithad slipped in time. Steimel found asimple way to put the signal back in step.

Hans Jostlein, adding to an alreadyimpressive list of inventions including atornado shelter fashioned from a concretesewer pipe, received an award this year forsomething a little more delicate. TheFermilab veteran found he could use asmall sapphire ball as a high-precisionposition probe.

“It’s kind of a three–in–one thing,”Jostlein said. The ball can measure anobject’s location by coming into contactwith it, by acting as a lens, or electron-ically by virtue of a transparent capacitivecoating. The three techniques had neverbeen combined in a single probe.

Does invention come as a flash ofinsight? Jostlein said no. “I’d beenthinking about this for several years,” hesaid, but then at a meeting “the problembecame acute.” Jostlein sat at his desk fora while, and the idea came to him.

David Anderson and Simon Kwanwere looking the other way wheninvention came to call. They were at workon a new diamond detector that wouldact as a kind of stopwatch for particles,timing their arrival to better than abillionth of a second. The device failed asa particle detector, but accidentally solveda longstanding problem in field emittertechnology, which may one day producelaptop screens that shine as brightly as atelevision screen.

John Venard, head of the Office ofResearch and Technology Applicationsat Fermilab, with Sharon Lackey andValeri Rytchenkov.

1996 Record of Invention winners■ E. Dijak, Dijak Bolt AlignmentMonument.■ E. Haggard and G. Trotter, HighDensity Electronic ConnectorMechanism.■ M. Atac and O. Nalcioglu, SingleFiber Beta Detector for Breast Cancer■ H. Jostlein, Touch/Optical/CapacitiveProbe for CMM.■ K. Vaziri, V. Cupps, D. Cossairt, D.Boehnlein and A. Elwyn, Stack MonitorCalibration Method for AirborneRadionuclides.■ A. Mason and V. Rytchenkov, FiberOptic Repeater.■ C. Lindenmeyer, Cast Connectors forPlastic Optical Fibers.■ D. Anderson and S. Kwan, EnhancedField Emission from CsI Treated CVDDiamond Surfaces.■ J. Steimel, Radio Frequency PhaseUnwinder.■ D. Sorensen and H. Casebolt,Photocell Activated Emergency Light.■ M. May, Elliptical Tube FormingFixture.■ E. Haggard, Permanent MagnetMagnetizer System.■ C. Lindenmeyer, Plastic Optical FiberFinisher.■ T. Johnson, Improved Linear VariableDifferential Transformer.■ C. Ankenbrandt, Laser–Induced BeamTransfer Process.

Mike May receives his ROI awardfrom Pat Oleck.

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The Automated Magnet Maker

“By accident, we succeeded at whatpeople have been trying to do for morethan a decade,” says Anderson. “Tech-nically this counts as a discovery, not an invention.”

Anderson warns that current trendstoward applied research may force theextinction of these types of discoveries.He began work on this project as part of what was called generic research anddevelopment, he said.

“That wouldn’t even be permitted at the Lab [now]. Everything is goaloriented. No poets are allowed any-more,” Anderson said.

But poetry has a way of surviving,sometimes even thriving, in toughfinancial times. Mike May’s invention,for instance, may help cut the cost of theRecycler Ring. May took a break fromthe cookies to sketch his creation on anapkin. It looks like a torture device—a giant thumbscrew circa 1400 A.D. In fact, he explained, it’s for crushingbeampipes. Fermilab was paying $45 perfoot for a specially shaped beampipe,where the cross section is an ellipseinstead of a circle. May was standing inthe IB3 building of the TechnicalDivision where three large hydraulicpresses sat unused for much of the time.May looked at them and thought, “Whycan’t I take round pipe and squish it?”So he devised a forming fixture, anelegant arrangement of springs and boltsdesigned to guide a pipe’s transitionfrom round to elliptical while in thepress. May can now make an ellipticalpipe in about five minutes. It’s accurateto about 15 thousandths of an inch andcosts only $4 a foot. May’s devicesuccessfully manufactured the beampipefor the 8 GeV beamline, and the inven-tion will save Fermilab $400,000 if Labstaff use it for the Recycler Ring, he said.

The ROI award comes with a cashaward. Is it $400,000? “Hardly,” saidMay. “I may buy some donuts,however.” ■

by Donald Sena, Office of Public AffairsHe had already known he would receive an

award for his invention, but it wasn’t until EricHaggard read the March 7 edition ofFermiNews that the impact of his contributionhit home.

In the Lab’s newspaper, the engineer in theTechnical Division read that a beam of protonshad successfully passed through Fermilab’s new8 GeV line, the world’s first permanent magnetbeam transfer line.

The 8 GeV line will transfer protons fromFermilab’s Booster Ring into the Main Injector,the Lab’s newest accelerator, which will replacethe Main Ring in 1999. The permanentmagnets represent a technologicalbreakthrough, as they do not require electricityand accompanying cooling systems, whichtraditional accelerator magnets do. Bricks of strontium ferrite are simplymagnetized and stacked inside each permanent magnet.

Well, not that simply.Haggard designed and built the automated system that magnetizes and

measures the magnetic field strength of each brick. The project began in latesummer of 1995 and the first magnetized brick, which Haggard now has stuckto his file cabinet, rolled off his machine in late July 1996. The system beginswhen an operator loads an unmagnetized brick in a fixture; the brick slides into atraditional dipole magnet and gets saturated in a magnetic field. The machinethen sends the brick to have its field strength measured; if the strength is correct,operators stack the brick for eventual insertion into a permanent magnet.

While saying it was satisfying to be a part of the development, Haggardquickly sidestepped the credit. Seeing the magnets work in the 8 GeV line is“great. The physicists who designed these magnets have something to be proudof,” said Haggard.

The seven–year veteran of Fermilab now has turned his skills and attentionto a similar automated system and a new deadline. He said he has until June todesign and build a system that will manufacture permanent magnets for theRecycler Ring.

Watch FermiNews for details—Haggard certainly will. ■

Inventionbreeds invention

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

An assembled permanent magnet being tested to see if it meets design specifications.

Eric Haggard (center) receivinghis award for the permanentmagnet magnetizer. Alsopictured are Pat Oleck and GaryTrotter, another ROI winner.

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By Judy Jackson, Office of Public AffairsOn a clear, dark night, light that has

traveled through space for a billion yearstouches a mountaintop in southern NewMexico. At that moment, photons thatleft their source when algae were theonly life on earth enter the Sloan DigitalSky Survey’s 2.5 meter telescope andyield to the telescope’s sophisticatedinstrumentation the cargo of informationthey have carried across the universe.They cease to exist as photons, but thedata within them live on as pixels, tinypackages of electronic information fromeach tiny point in the sky, recorded asdigital signals on magnetic tape.

But the sky is not made of pixels;stars and galaxies are realobjects. The task of datamanagement for the SloanDigital Sky Survey is totake the digitized data,the pixels electronicallyencoded on themountaintop in New

Data come in pixels, but

The Sky Is Made of StarsFermilab scientists will make major contributions to the task of processing the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

Each digital linear tape of the typeshown here holds the data for abouthalf a night's observing on themountain in New Mexico.

Mexico, and turn them into realinformation about real things.Astronomers process the digitized datato produce information that they can useto identify and measure the properties ofstars and galaxies. They must be able tofind, distinguish, and measure thebrightness of celestial objects from theimaging pixel data, and then collect these stars and galaxies and quasars into a catalog.

Computing experts describe theproject as something like creating theManhattan phone book—for theheavens. Each star is like a person in thephone book, with a name and address.There is even a Yellow Pages in thecelestial directory: a section containing asmaller number of entries for which theSurvey will provide still moreinformation—their spectra. For theseobjects, digitized data yield informationabout their velocity as they move awayfrom the Earth, from which we cancalculate how far away they are.

Scientists must initially process thedata very quickly—within about aweek—because Sky Survey astronomersneed the information in order toconfigure their telescope’sinstrumentation for best use of theinstrument during the next dark phase ofthe moon. If too much time goes by, thetarget objects will set, as the seasonpasses.

Scientists at Fermilab are leading theeffort to develop what the Sky Surveycalls data-processing pipelines. A pipeline is a computer program thatprocesses the digitized data in order toextract from it certain types of

Light from the stars is recorded inthe form of pixels;software turns thepixels into real images of the sky.

information. The term pipeline connotesthe automated nature of the dataprocessing; the data “flow” through thepipelines with little human intervention.The astrometric pipeline, built bycomputer scientists at the U.S. NavalObservatory, for example, determines theprecise absolute two-dimensionalposition of stars and galaxies in the sky.In this case, digitized data from photonsreaching the 2.5 meter telescope go inone end of the astrometric pipeline, andstar positions come out the other. Inbetween, along the length of thepipeline, is the software that changespixels into real information.

The data pipelines are a collaborativeeffort. Princeton University scientistsbuilt the photometric pipeline; andUniversity of Chicago experts created thespectroscopic pipeline. Fermilab’scontributions include the monitor-telescope pipeline and the pipeline forselection of candidates for spectroscopy,as well as bringing the pipelines togetherinto a working system. Informationprocessing for the Sky Survey beginswith data acquisition. Photons from thestars hit the telescope’s detectors, andCCDs collect them. Charge “buckets”are then converted to digitized signalsand written to tape on the mountain.The data travel from Apache Point toFermilab via express mail—it’s fasterand cheaper than over the Internet.The tapes go to Fermilab’sFeynman Computing Center andthence into the various pipelines:spectrographic data into thespectrographic pipeline; monitordata into the monitor pipeline,and imaging data into theastrometric, photometric, targetselection and two otherpipelines. Out of the pipelinescomes information about thestars, galaxies and quasars, forinclusion in the OperationsDatabase, written at Fermilaband at the Naval Observatory,which collates the information tokeep the Sky Survey running.

Eventually experimenters will passthe information in the OperationsDatabase “over the firewall” to thescience data base developed by scientistsat Johns Hopkins University. It willoperate as a query engine to make thedata readily usable by scientists on theproject.

The form in which we realize the skyis necessarily governed by the availabletechnology. Surveys conducted 50 yearsago stored imaging data in the form ofphotographic plates, and catalogs in theform of printed books. Today, we storeimages in digitized form on magnetictape or spinning disks, and catalogs aredigital bases. But whatever the age andwith whatever technology, we still lookup, and the sky is full of stars. ■

The term pipeline

connotes the

automated

nature of the

data processing;

the data “flow”

through the

pipelines with

little human

intervention.

Each morning, the data tapes leave Apache Point, NM byexpress mail for Fermilab. At Fermilab’s Feynman ComputingCenter, the data from the tapes enter computer programscalled pipelines and emerge as information about stars,galaxies and quasars.

Appel, a Fermilab scientist. “Nevertheless, withfunds still tight, decisions are made every daythat could drastically affect our efforts...there isa clear need to keep the story of our successesknown.”

Senate BillOn January 21, Senator Phil Gramm

(R–Tex.) introduced anauthorization bill thatproposes to double thefederal investment in basicscience and medical researchover a 10 year period.Senators Connie Mack (R-Fla.), Kay Bailey Hutchison(R–Tex.) and Conrad Burns(R–Mont.) have cosponsoredthe bill, known as the “NationalResearch Investment Act of1997.” The bill listed among itsfindings that “for fiscal year 1997,the percentage of the Federalbudget allocated for nondefenseresearch and development activitiesis 1.9 percent, which is 67 percentless than the percentage in fiscal year1965.” The bill also states that “forthe first time in 25 years, during theperiod beginning with fiscal year1992 and ending with fiscal year1995, the amount of funds expendedby the Federal Government on research(expressed in real dollars) declined eachyear...” A congressional aide for Gramm

said in a recent interview that these issues, alongwith other factors, prompted the Senator towrite the bill.

“If we as a country do not restore the highpriority once afforded science and technology inthe federal budget and increase federalinvestment in research, it will be impossible tomaintain the United States’ position as the

technological leader of the world. Since 1970,Japan and Germany have spent a larger share oftheir GDP on research and development relativeto the U.S. We can no longer afford to fallbehind. Expanding the nation’s commitment toresearch in basic science and medicine is acritically important investment in the future ofour nation,” said Gramm in a March 7statement, reprinted in the American Institute of Physics’ Bulletin of Science Policy News.

Gramm’s aide added that his office hasreceived favorable response from lawmakers forthe bill, which he expects will translate intomore cosponsors in the Senate. The aide saidthe office is preparing a “Dear Colleague”letter for the other senators in order to garnermore support for the initiative. He stressed thatan appropriations bill and an accompanyinginitiative in the House of Representatives will be essential for Gramm’s proposal tobecome reality.

House ActionWhile there is no bill in the House of

Representatives that goes to the length of theGramm action, House Science Committeemembers have a proposal to raise the fundinglevels for science and research.

On March 20, House Science CommitteeChairman James Sensenbrenner (R–Wis.)released the committee’s “Views andEstimates” report, which called for a threepercent increase in the proposed FY1998expenditures for research and development overFY1997 levels. Every House committeesubmits a “Views and Estimates” report eachyear to the House Budget Committee, whichuses the reports to frame the final budgetresolution. The Science Committee’s reportalso detailed criteria that science programs mustmeet to receive funding authorization. The firstcriterion states that “Federal Research andDevelopment should focus on essentialprograms that are long–term, high risk,non–commercial, cutting edge, well–managed,and have a great potential for scientificdiscovery; funding for programs that do notmeet this standard should be eliminated ordecreased to reduce budget demands for new

Science inthe Capitalcontinued from page 1

Senator Gramm(R–Texas) haswritten S.124, abill that proposesto double thespending onbasic science andmedical researchover 10 years.

The March 4 pressconference for theJoint Statement onScientific Research.

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initiatives.” The Committee’s proposal wassigned by a majority of Republican andDemocratic members.

In the release, Sensenbrenner said, “Thefederal government has and should continue toplay a vital role in promoting and supportingour scientific endeavors as a nation. I remainconvinced that maintaining our nation’sscientific base will return dividends to ourknowledge and economy for many years to come.”

The Science Committee’s rankingDemocrat, George Brown (D–Calif.), also has aplan for increased science funding. Brown, alongtime supporter of science, has released aneconomic plan that proposes to balance thebudget by 2002, while allowing for a fivepercent annual increase in federal research anddevelopment funds in that time. An aide for theminority on the Science Committee said theproposal will be introduced on the House floorwhen the budget resolution comes up. Theaide said the plan has no cosponsors yet, but“we are shopping it around right now.”

New Science CaucusAnother recent development on Capitol

Hill is the formation of the Senate Science andTechnology Caucus, which was founded bySenators Bill Frist (R–Tenn.), who is a hearttransplant surgeon by trade; Joseph Lieberman(D–Conn.); Pete Domenici (R–N.M.) and JayRockefeller (D–W.V.). The caucus is a“bipartisan group of Senators interested inpromoting progress and innovation in theUnited States by advancing science andtechnology issues.” The caucus held its firstroundtable discussion on February 11. Thatdiscussion included the four Senators and 10representatives from national laboratories,universities and commercial laboratories. Frist,in a media release, said the discussion bothexposed common ideas about science andtechnology and addressed areas that need thegovernment’s attention.

“One of the most pressing problems facingour nation today is our ability to competeglobally in medicine, science, technology andspace,” Frist said after the roundtablediscussion. “Not only are we at risk of losingour competitive edge, we are at risk of losingour standard of living and strong nationaldefense. We must have a bipartisan effort tomake science and technology one of thenation’s highest priorities.”

Science BondingAs government representatives take steps to

increase funding for science, the nation’sscience, engineering and mathematical societiesrecently banded together to show collectivesupport for increased federal dollars for science

and research. On March4, 23 organizationsissued a Joint Statementon Scientific Research,which called for a sevenpercent increase inresearch budgets forFY1998 (see the fulltext of the statement onpage 10). Manygovernment officials, aswell as a growingnumber of scientists,have stressed the needfor science to speak forcommon goals with abipartisan voice. They have said that playingbasic science against applied science, forexample, or Republicans against Democrats isthe wrong way to proceed and would hurteverything under the science and researchumbrella.

“The 23 societies whose presidents areendorsing the Joint Statement...have beendrawn together out of our common concernthat the federal investment in science has beenshrinking for the last four years after decades ofgrowth,” said D. Allan Bromley, president ofthe American Physical Society, in a statement atthe press conference on March 4. “Should thisdownward trend continue, the leadership thatthe United States has enjoyed in science andtechnology over the last half of the twentiethcentury will be in very real jeopardy...”

At the same press conference, severalgovernment representatives released their ownstatements as to the action by the societies.Senator Lieberman, according to another AIPpolicy bulletin, took the opportunity to capturethe optimism generated by the atmosphere inWashington concerning a renewed interest inscience and research. Specifically, Liebermannoted Senator Gramm’s bill and the FY 1998budget President Clinton released in Februarythat increased the science and technologyprograms funding by about three percent onaverage, which Lieberman called “significant”given the pressure for increased fiscalresponsibility and calls for a balanced budget.

“I believe the optimism of the presentmoment comes primarily because of sometroubling facts, which have convinced membersof both parties that something more must bedone to stimulate good research anddevelopment...,” said Lieberman. “If youbelieve as I do that our current prosperity,intellectual leadership in science and medicineand the growth of entire new industries aredirectly linked to investments made thirty yearsago, then you have got to ask where will thiscountry be thirty years from now?”

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Senator Bill Frist (R–Tenn.)is a founding member ofthe Senate Science andTechnology Caucus.

Rep. George Brown(D–Calif.) has a plan toincrease federal spendingon science and research byfive percent annually.

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APRIL 12Tornado and Severe Storm Seminar, 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ramsey Auditorium.For more information call (630) 840-2247.

APRIL 15Wellness Works, Blood Pressure Screening,Users Office, 11:30 a.m. —1 p.m.

APRIL 20Afternoon barn dance at the Village Barnfrom 2—5 p.m. The dance features livemusic by The Blind Tigers and calling byPaul Watkins. The dances are contras,squares, and circle dances. All dances aretaught, and people of all ages and experiencelevels are welcome. You don’t need to comewith a partner. Admission is $5. Childrenunder 12 are free. The barn dance issponsored by the Fermilab Folk Club. Formore information, call Lynn Garren, x2061,or Dave Harding, x2971.

APRIL 24Take Your Daughters and Sons To Work Day- Arbor Day. Can you help? Volunteer yourtime to help make this day something toremember for the children of Fermilab. Send email to ferminews@fnal.gov.

ONGOINGEnglish lessons, Thursdays 10–noon in the Users Center, call Janet Antonio, (630) 769-6518. NALWO coffee mornings,Thursdays 10 a.m. in the Users’ Center, callSelitha Raja, (630) 305-7769. In the VillageBarn, international folk dancing, Thursdays7:30–10 p.m., call Mady, (630) 584-0825;Scottish country dancing Tuesdays 7–9:30p.m., call Doug, x8194.

CALENDARoint Statement on Scientific Research

“As the federal government develops its spendingans for Fiscal Year 1998, we call upon the President

nd Members of Congress to renew the nation’sistorical commitment to scientific research andducation by providing the requisite funding for thederal agencies charged with these responsibilities. Our

all is based upon two fundamental principles that areell accepted by policy makers in both political parties.

The federal investment in scientific research is vitalo four national goals: our economic competitiveness,ur medical health, our national security and ouruality of life.

Scientific disciplines are interdependent; therefore, aomprehensive approach to science funding provideshe greatest opportunity for reaching these goals.

We strongly believe that for our nation to meet thehallenges of the next century, agencies charged witharrying out scientific research and education requirencreases in their respective research budgets of

percent for Fiscal Year 1998. These agencies include,mong others, the NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, and

NASA. The increases we call for strike a balanceetween the current fiscal pressures and the need to

nvest in activities that enable long-term economicrowth and productivity. Such increases would onlyartially restore the inflationary losses that most ofhese agencies suffered during the last few years.

Prudent planning argues for strengthening theespective activities of major research agencies, asready recognized in pending legislation. o constrain still further federal spending on theirientific programs would jeopardize the future ell-being of our nation.”

This statement was endorsed by the Presidents or the equivalent officer) of:

merican Association of Physicists in Medicinemerican Astronomical Societymerican Chemical Societymerican Geological Institutemerican Geophysical Unionmerican Institute of Biological Sciencesmerican Institute of Physicshe American Institute of Professional Geologistsmerican Mathematical Societyhe American Physical Societymerican Society of Engineering Educationssociation for Women in Mathematicsssociation for Women in Sciencestronomical Society of the Pacificouncil on Undergraduate Researchngineering Deans Councilederation of Materials Societieseological Society of Americahe Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.aterials Research Societyathematical Association of Americaptical Society of America

ociety for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

E815 NuTeV “Since there hasn’t been much beam,we’ve been working on analysis and are now all caughtup with our first–pass DSTs. We’ve made significantimprovements in our beam Monte Carlo after finding afew infelicities in the code. The experiment came back upsmoothly after the outage and we’re awaiting the returnof beam,” said Bob Bernstein of Fermilab.

E872 Donut “We completed the installation of thelead shielding surrounding our emulsion target box justin time for the return of beam on Thursday, 3/20. Thehigh–intensity exposure of the test emulsion wasconcluded without any problems. The time was also usedfor trigger studies at high intensity. The lead shield makesa good neutrino target,” said Vittorio Paolone from theUniversity of Pittsburgh.

E781 SELEX “E781 showed the first charm peaksfrom the experiment at last Monday’s all-experimenters’meeting. The analysis is still very preliminary, but thedata shown so far has very good mass resolution andgood signal-to-background ratio for a hadroproductionresult. The emphasis of E781 is on charm baryons. Theseearly data support the experiment’s expectation thatusing a hyperon beam will give enhanced charm baryonyield. However, lots more work is required to havedefinite results on yields,” said Jim Russ of Carnegie-Mellon University.

E831 FOCUS “FOCUS has recently passed thefive–times E687 mark in integrated charm, putting ushalfway towards our goal of ten times E687 statistics.During the two March shutdowns we’ve been makinggood use of our time. We’re installing a small wirechamber just upstream of our radiator, improving theTarget Silicon readout, and replacing RPC gaps, whichwere drawing more current than we would like. Severalother smaller problems are being worked on for otherdetectors. We look forward to a long period of stablerunning when beam returns,” said Eric Vaandering fromthe University of Colorado.

E871 HyperCP “The shutdown time has been spentfixing a ground fault in one of our spectrometer magnets,surveying the apparatus, repairing bad electronics,making minor improvements to the spectrometer,working on off-line analysis, and catching up on somesleep,” said Craig Dukes from the University of Virginia.

Updates March 13— March 25

ACCELERATORAfter a long stretch of reliable running with goodintensity, the accelerator developed a vacuum leak onMarch 13, according to Bob Mau, head of acceleratoroperations. Accelerator staff replaced three Tevatronmagnets, which meant Mau’s team needed about oneweek to warm those magnets, replace them, check themfor leaks and cool them again. After beam began runningagain on March 20, the accelerator developed anothervacuum leak in the rf area on March 21, which was dueto a bad ion pump. After that repair, beam ran reliablyover the weekend of March 22–23 in the area of 2.5 x1013, before the planned shutdown that began at 4 a.m.on March 24. Mau also said an experiment in PWestrequested to run at 5 x 1012 for four shifts, which theaccelerator crew achieved before shutting down.

FIXED-TARGETCollaborators provided this update on fixed-target experiments.

E799 / E832 KTeV “The initial phase of the KTeVrare decay running (E799) is complete, and we are veryexcited with the quality of the data. During the one-weekshutdown we made small improvements to the detectorand switched the detector configuration back to E832mode, where we will continue the precision study ofkaon decays that we started last fall. We are lookingforward to a long and productive phase of E832running,” said Bob Tschirhart of Fermilab.

E866 NuSea “On March 24, E866 finishedmeasuring the asymmetry of the sea of antiquarks in the proton. We will be reporting our first results in thenext few weeks. We are now changing our targetconfiguration in order to study more properties ofdimuon production in 800 GeV collisions,” said ChuckBrown of Fermilab.

E835 Charmonium “E835 has taken over 60 pb-1 of integrated luminosity up to now. During theshutdown we will do a more careful analysis of the datawe took and study our systematics. We also plan to installa new electromagnetic calorimeter to increase ouracceptance in the forward region,” said George Zioulasfrom the University of California at Irvine.

E862 Antihydrogen “We don’t have much newto say; when the machine runs, we’re taking data,” saidDave Christian of Fermilab.

FOR SALE■ ’94 Mercury Couger RX7 Bostonian package,V-8, P.B., P.S., P.W., sun roof, partial leatherinterior, fully loaded, only 25k miles, worth$18,000 asking $15,300 obo, call Tom X-3366.

■ ’77 MGB, maroon w/black convertible top.Crane ignition, Weber carb, headers. Greatsummer car. $2300 obo. Call Rick Colombo,x8225 or colombo@fnal.gov.

■ Craftsman 10" radial arm saw, like newcondition, $300. Digital Readout for elevationand rip positions, miter and bevel angles.Enclosed mobile stand and carbide bladeincluded. Mike Shea, x4412, shea@fnal.gov.

■ 16 ft. Fiberglass DuoMarine Boat needs work,hardware already removed and rough sandingcompleted, $100 obo. Atomic Arc 195 Salomon547 Sport Bindings, size 12 US or 13 EUTrappeur 2000 boots also have ski and boot bag$150 obo. PC’s IBM 5150 with monitor,Compaq Deskpro with Monitor and a CompaqTech PC w/ built in monochrome monitor andan external video port. Call for details, make anoffer. Terry, x4572 or skweres@fnal.gov.

■ Alden single seat rowing shell, white deck andhull, 1994. Includes boat stands and instructionvideo, $1200. Call Maureen, x2977 orkerwin@fnal.gov.

■ Hotpoint electric stove white $150. Call Robin, x3235.

■ Two children’s bikes, like new. Girls 20" is pink/black. Boys 16" w/trainingwheels is blue. Asking $30 each. Call (630) 892-4849.

Published by the Fermilab Office of Public AffairsMS 206 P.O. Box 500 Batavia, IL 60510630-840-3351ferminews@ fnal.gov

Fermilab is operated by Universities Research Association, Inc.under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.

✩ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE:1997--545-057/60013

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The deadline for theFriday, April 18, 1997 issue of FermiNews is Tuesday, April 8.

Please send your articlesubmissions, classifiedadvertisements and ideasto the Public AffairsOffice, MS 206 or E-mail: ferminews@fnal.gov

FermiNews welcomes letters from readers. Please include yourname and daytimephone number.

C L A S S I F I E D S

Fermilab to HostAwadagin Pratt

The Fermilab Arts Series is proud to hostAwadagin Pratt on April 19. The pianist will perform music by Franck, Beethoven,Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Chopin, andRachmaninoff.

Awadagin Pratt’s musically distinctiveand intensely involving performances havethrilled and engaged audiences across thecountry. Winner of a 1994 Avery FisherCareer Grant and the 1992 NaumburgInternational Piano Competition, Mr. Pratthas performed in recitals in New York,Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago,Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. Fermilabwelcomes this outstanding young pianist to Ramsey Auditorium on Saturday, April 19 at 8:00 p.m.

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M I L E S T O N E SRETIREDPaul Cliff, ID # 3134, on April 11, from theBeams Division/BS Proton SRC LinacDepartment.

FILM DEVELOPINGAs of April 1, there will be a slight increase in filmdeveloping prices. Please use the new envelopes(sample posted at the drop box). As of March 31,the old envelopes will not be honored. Questions? Call the Recreation Office, x2548 or x5427.

LAB NOTE

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

I believe there may be an error in one of thearticles in today’s (3/21) FermiNews identifyingPatty McBride as “the first woman” to chair theUEC; my recollection is that Jean Slaughter fromYale held that title some years ago.

~Mike Tartaglia

Ed: Correct, Jean Slaughter chaired the UEC backin 1987-88.