Last Night Shift for the Week

Today is my last owl shift for this week.  Tonight was not as smooth as all the rest of the week had been.  Hachemi and I were pretty busy, along with Lisa, who is also a HAPPEX graduate student.  For some reason, our network connection which allows us to monitor and control the various parts of the experimental equipment remotely flaked out, leaving us without any idea what any of it all was doing and setting off lots of annoying alarms.  Once this happens, the race begins to get rebooted and reconnected before it all does something undesirable without you being able to do anything about it. 

We were able to get things up and running again, but only after a little difficulty and quite a bit of time.  We had to ramp all the magnets back up to the nominal operating currents, and one of the magnets (the right septum magnet) was being grumpy about it.  It had not quenched, but it had warmed up a fair bit.  Nothing will make a magnet cool to superconducting temperatures any faster than it wants to once you have the cryogenic liquid flow where it should be, so we had to patiently wait for it to cool.  While we waited for that, we also patiently waited for a grouchy quadrupole to re-ramp up, since the first time it had reset itself to the wrong polarity.  Luckily, Lisa happened to notice it pretty quickly, so we could have it ramping up with the correct polarity at the same time that the grumpy septum magnet cooled.

After this exercise in virtue-development, we ramped the now-superconducting magnet back to its nominal current and finally started taking data again.   Despite the magnet issues, we took several hours of data tonight, so it was a productive night.  While I have been on shift this week, Hachemi and I have monitored lots of good physics data coming in for the experiment, so I feel that it has been a very good and fruitful week.  The checklist on the whiteboard has been completed at least!

I am tired after staying up all night every day this week.  The accelerator is going to stop delivering beam at the end of my shift, and I admit that I will be happy to head home and get some well-earned sleep today.  It is a good thing because if I didn't I would be as grumpy as the magnet.    :)

Comments

[Tony Halaris]

Hello Sarah:

If you rememeber your dreams you may be able to relate to this information:

Quantum Dreams are real to me so if you are interested read on my perceptions.

I had an ESP Telepathic Dream about the Hellios Airline Crash and my telepahy revealed that the pilot and co-pilot froze on their seat. To verify my subconscious thinking for the possible cause of this accident I made an assumption and I sent this letter below but I did not get any response yet.

I am checking my ESP and thinking skills.? I am looking for quantum intuitive feedback. Your responce will be appreciated!!! Best, Tony

amber@calvin.phys.columbia.edu, Hello Amber: My name is Tony Halaris [Adonis in Greek]. I live in Michigan and I was born in Athens Greece. I am an engineer with an inquiring mind. My purpose focus is to try to understand why the recent Hellios Airline Accident occurred. I read the Wall Street Journal [August 16, 2005] version of why this accident occurred and I was not satisfied with the answer. So, I let my imagination wander and it landed in the following speculation. Was it possible that the Hellios Airways plane [ a Boeing 737 airplane] flying from Cyprus towards Patras Greece experienced something which did not originate from man made causes but from Cosmic causes. The crew and passengers were frozen when the plane crashed. This strange fact led me to you! Can we tell from the data you gather if the temperatures at 32,000 feet over the Aegean Sea at the day and time of the accident were such that they caused the crew and passengers to freeze inside the plane? And therefore, there is nothing man could have done to avert such a dissaster? And if this is possible what is the short term impact to what we are now taking for granted...6sigma conditions in airline safety? If this speculation can be addressed by someone who can answer this kind of speculation with factual data and this thinking can be more practical than just speculative I would be glad to write to them for an evaluation of this event.

Regards Tony

So Sarah, chaotic attractors like huricanes or this weird accident are events which are interesting to me because we can learn something new and respond accordingly.

What do you think can you give me your perspective?

Best,

tony