On Sat, 25 Oct 2003, Danelle Brown wrote:

> hmmm, that's no good about the Stick Pro.  I should let the AMANDA researcher at UCI 
> know.  They have a big neutrino detector (series of detectors actually) buried a 
> mile under the Antarctic Ice (next to the South Pole ...literally) detecting muon, 
> tau, and electron neutrino events.  And what do they use to store the data?  Memory 
> sticks!  Bunches of 'em.  Wanna know WHY?  Cuz they can work in low pressure, 
> vacuums.  Crazy, huh?  They're also gonna use them in neutrino detectors that will 
> circumvent Antarctica, attached to giant weather balloons, detecting events.  
> (Project called ANITA.)
> 
> http://amanda.uci.edu/
> 
> And I have more than a _hunch_ his data-gathering program is on Linux.  Trickle-down 
> effects of the digital camera industry...

Yep, no HEP physicist would be caught dead or alive on windows for their
data gathering.  Why?  That should be obvious on this mailing list.  
Physicists need utter control over every aspect of experimentation.  Not
even CERN could get MS to cough up their source code especially on slim
government grant budgets.  These guys install Linux on their laptops.  A
rarity I thought, until I joined this list.  Basically, you use open
source or you are a high school physics teacher.  CERN's brand new hadron
collider will bring in on the order of a few dozen Terabytes per run.  
That's misison critical.

http://info.web.cern.ch/info/Press/PressReleases/Releases2003/PR02.03EOpenlabIBM.html

You've got a Fly's Eye guy on the UUG mailing list.  (BTW, they replaced
Fly's Eye 1 and Fly's Eye 2 with higher resolution eyes named HiRes 1 and
HiRes 2 in 1998/9/2000.)

<get on soapbox>
Fly's Eye 1 measured the highest energy particle ever seen by Mankind.  
It was a particle weighing in at 0.27 ZeV, or 2.7E+20 eV.  That's 43.3 J;
a lot of energy for a proton.  HiRes was the only functioning detector of
its kind until 2000.
<get off soapbox>

> 
> -Danelle,
> just a random thought
> 
> P.S. I found this all out today when he gave a lecture on his research to the 1st 
> year grads.  I wonder what Antarctica is like???  hmmmm... (Oh man, my parents would 
> have a fit if I went.)
> 
> 
> P.P.S. Hey Jake, I didn't realize the Fly's Eye was such a big deal in Particle 
> Astrophysics!  Man, it was in Utah the whole time, right under my nose!  At the U of 
> U!  Aw well, no regrets.


Justin


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