One of the highlights of a typical summer at Brookhaven is the series of "Summer Sunday" open days, where the community is invited to stop by, see the various BNL facilities, and chat with scientists about BNL and their work. I've given my share of tours and introductory lectures over the years, but this year I arrived as a spectator (read, blogger ;-)) since only STAR and PHENIX were open to the public this year (PHOBOS and BRAHMS having, um, manpower limitations apparently). Then again, this left me far more freedom to run around to the other experiments, which I tend to see quite rarely despite working down the road, and document the experience a little bit more than usual.
Above is Carla explaining elliptic flow (check out her hands compressed into an almond shape!) to a rapt audience, with the enormous PHENIX apparatus in the background. It was really neat to see just how many people were packed into the STAR and PHENIX halls (they were kept rotating via a set of school buses going around the ring) and how much fun my colleagues were having explaining what we do. It was also really amazing to remind myself just how big these experiments are. 
Check out the crowd dwarfed by the STAR TPC and magnet. Even more impressive to me was my first time in the STAR interaction region, where the RHIC beams cross. Normally, STAR is actually sitting in that open space, now bookended by various endcap detectors.
But big rigs aside, the real action was in the one-on-one conversations, where people could really ask questions and get useful answers at their own pace. From firsthand experience, and from watching the fun everyone was having, it's clear that this is the essence of these open days. We really like what we do and we really like talking about it (to a fault, sometimes!). So if you missed it this year, mark your calendars for next year everyone...
