Teaching Modern Physics - QuarkNet - Fermilab

Fermilab Questions - Solutions
1. How far is it from ?
Variable answer; can design for your town.
2. What is it? Who created it? Why?
Particle physics laboratory created by _________ to discover the smallest building
blocks of nature.
3. What two methods do scientists use to study particles?
Scientists collide protons into targets of either moving antiprotons or of fixed targets of
different materials.
4. What is the Standard Model? Give examples.
The “periodic table” of physics. It is a comparative list of the smallest building blocks
of matter and its interactions.
What are quarks?
Common quarks u and d
What are leptons?
Common leptons electrons and neutrinos
What are mediating particles?
A common mediating particle is the photon.
5. List in order the devices used to accelerate the particles.
Cockcroft-Walton, Linac, Booster Ring, Main Injector, Tevatron
6. How is the linear accelerator different from the Tevatron?
Linear accelerators do not use magnets to accelerate protons. The Tevatron does.
7. What is DØ?
A detector of collisions on the Main Ring of the Tevatron at Fermilab. It specializes in
the energy measurements of the particle collisions.
8. What is CDF?
A detector of collisions on the Main Ring of the Tevatron at Fermilab. It specializes in
the momentum measurements of the particle collisions.
9. What two ways do detectors identify particles?
Calorimeters (energy detectors) and the scintillating tracking chamber, which when
teamed with magnets, can give a momentum measurement.
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