Tuesday+September+25th,+2012

Today I arrived at Quarknet at around 4:00, instead of 3:30, because I had a meeting with FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) at St. Joe. Once this ended, I went to Quarknet and began my daily research. I started by looking up what a cosmic ray actually was, due to the discussion I had with Dr. L before school today, and I found out that a cosmic rays are subatomic particles with extremely high energy (greater than any that can be produced on Earth) that travel through space at near light speed. They travel in all directions, and Earth is constantly being hit by these cosmic rays, which hit Earth and disrupting readings in the CMS and LHC. They hit our atmosphere and produce many more smaller particles that scatter across the Earth. Studies beginning in the 1960s show that cosmic rays may be produced in the gaseous remains of supernovas and are accelerated in the magnetic gas fields. (Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009160230.htm ) After learning about cosmic rays I looked up Z and W bosons on google, to get a better understanding of what they are, aside from being muons released in a cosmic ray particle collision. Z bosons contain a positively charged side and a negatively charged side, while W bosons only have a single muon, with only one charge. After learning this, I went tothe CMS 3D Event Display, and selected several muons, and noticed which ones were the W and Z particles. I left the lab at 5:30, after being told to by a senior lab staff member.