It's Friday and I am enjoying my stay in Vancouver as part of a TRIUMF program. I have arrived in Vancouver; unpacked at TRIUMF House, toured the facilities, visited the First Nations House of Learning at UBC, and familiarized myself with Particle Physics.
Marcello Pavan (responsible for TRIUMF's outreach) was kind enough to pick me up from the airport and treat me to dinner. The Japanese restaurant we dined at was a small, home-like, and an enjoyable place.
After dinner I unpacked at TRIUMF House. TRIUMF House is a luxurious, three storey hotel. The personnel there are more than gracious.
Once at TRIUMF, I was given a tour of the facilities by Ting Wang (a communications assistant at TRIUMF). I had the pleasure of observing TRIUMF's crowning technological achievements: ISAC I and ISAC II. These are particle accelerators, which speed up very tiny (subatomic) particles for experiments. Such small particles emit radiation and are very hot at high speeds. This is why some parts of the beamlines (tubes carrying particles) are housed under thick layers of concrete (to protect scientists from radiation) and cooled. Such technology costs a lot of money, but Financial and Administrative Reports are filled with ways TRIUMF's staff are creatively improving efficiency.
This week I also had the pleasure of meeting with the Coordinator of Aboriginal Student Services, William Lindsay. He was a very friendly man, quite excited about what he does and more than ready to extend a helping hand to me. The short tour he gave of the First Nations House of Learning was great and he was kind enough to show me a bound copy of his Master's thesis.
I have spent some of my time here learning the basic material. Before coming to TRIUMF I had completed Grade Eleven Physics, which (in my Province of Manitoba) dealt only with Newtonian Physics. It did not touch on particle physics, so by reading numerous TRIUMF Financial and Administrative Reports as well as introductory Particle Physics books I am making up for that.
The best introduction to Particle Physics of all was done by TRIUMF's Head of Strategic Planning and Communications, Tim Meyer. He, first, distinguished "Special Relativity" and "General Relativity". Special Relativity states that physical processes stay the same anywhere in the Universe so long as all the forces stay the same. General Relativity is the theory of gravity stating that any object with mass bends space.
Meyer went on to explain the problems of particle physics: there are so many different subatomic particles (related to forces) and there isn't a particle physics theory of gravity. He went on to explain what particle physicists are trying to do: show that all these different subatomic particles/forces are basically the same thing (unification) and come up with an applicable theory of gravity.
This is pretty much what I have done so far at TRIUMF. I also saw a bit of the city (Vancouver) too. If the next five weeks are as packed with new and exciting experiences, like touring the facilities or learning particle physics, I cannot wait!
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A sample of the pictures I took after my crash course in photography with Jennifer Kaban, TRIUMF's Web Development Coordinator
By: Dylon Martin