Fritz Cola is the Source of Insomnia

“Two hours of sleep makes your head hurt.”

Foreword (Richard): A lab notebook is often kept by scientists to keep track of the progress of their experiment. They note down the variables they change—concentrations of solutions, temperatures of reaction, masses of reactants—making sure that in the future, they’ll have something to reference in retrospect. However, rarely do they log the personal changes they experience as a result of their work. To expand the edges of science requires a personal commitment to change, pushing the extents of human knowledge to their limits. As team captain, it has been my pleasure over the past week to see how much the team has already grown since we started. Since first stumbling onto DESY’s campus, we’ve seen the hidden workings of the HERA accelerator, toured the European X-Ray Free Electron laser—the largest laser in the world, and ran our very own experiment on the DESY II test beam. However, the most important part of our time here is not going to be the data we collect or the places we visit, but the experiences and wisdom we gain. Simply being surrounded by some of the brightest, most helpful, and patient physicists in the world has left an indelible impression on us, which I hope the rest of the members will be able to elaborate on.

Niranjan: It has been just one week since arriving at DESY, the German Electron Synchrotron, but my experience has been one that can fill a novel.

Jaiden: What’s the best way to approach a problem? Using the most advanced knowledge you know, or the simplest solution that seems dumb?

I’ve always been more of the former, I think. But as our mentor Antonios told me: nature is simple, remarkably simple. If you told me a few days ago that particle physics could ever be considered simple, I’d probably laugh in your face, but simplicity is truly the best approach at times. Even though I don’t plan on becoming a physicist any time in the near future (sorry Mr. Donovan and Mrs. Givens), I’ve learned so much about the nature of problem-solving and the value of asking the right questions in this past week. The problems you face are never, ever unique to you. In our first discussion as a group, we were all devastated by the possibility that our Smith-Purcell photons would be completely indistinguishable from noise coming from our detectors (silicon photomultiplier tubes, or SiPMs). We brainstormed various solutions but were met with responses like, “Do you know how long it takes the particle to travel from this point to that point?” “How do you know which particle you’re tracking?” It was all incredibly frustrating and vague.

What mistakes did we make? Well, we isolated ourselves within our problem. We limited our field of view to one part of our entire system, and forgot the whole in the process. That whole being: we had other detectors (photomultiplier tubes, or PMTs) that we could use to verify whether we were detecting a photon or simply noise, and other physicists who work with SiPMs every day encounter problems with signal-to-noise detection as well. It taught me one very important lesson: no matter how smart you are, if you approach a problem from the wrong angle, you’ll always get it wrong.

Between the philosophical discussions we’ve had at meals about a new collectivist religion (Niranjan and Daniel’s invention - apparently using “chat” is assimilatory and also the path to spiritual enlightenment?), touring the facilities at DESY and XFEL and mispronouncing German words, long but rewarding days of work, I’ve come to understand that machines are an extension of the human body and its capabilities. From the days of Galileo’s water clock to our sophisticated TLUs (trigger logic units), science is getting less and less visceral, and yet my mechanical heart sings whenever I learn about a new cog in the machine. I’m curious about so many more things now, things I’d never thought I would’ve been interested in, seeing the connections between different fields of science. Like a machine feeds on memory, I’m hungry for more.

Robert: My brain has never been so thoroughly fried as it has been this past week. There's so much to learn here at DESY; from the posters on past experiments spread all around the campus to the leftover equipment from old experiments detailing the history of particle physics here to the entire library here that you might very well miss if you weren't told about it, there's so many bits of fascinating information strewn around that understanding all of it would make your head explode, and yet it's so cool that you have to try anyway.

DESY is more than a museum, though, and the practical challenges of running a real experiment make you ask so many questions you would never have asked otherwise. How do you know where your beam of electrons is? How can you distinguish between actual photons and random electron cascades in the detector? How do you deal with the spikes in your data caused by interference from the electronics in your data analysis tools? Doing things here makes you think about so many things in a way you would never think of otherwise and stretches your problem solving skills to the limit.

And yet the best part of the site might not even be the fancy equipment or the challenges it poses, because at DESY you're constantly surrounded by people who are just as interested in the science as you are and have spent much of their lives working in it. Every single person working here has mounds of knowledge and is always willing to explain something, either by telling you the answer or by pushing you to get to it yourself. The learning and experiences don't come as much from the equipment as they do from all the people who come here to work in science, and the people are truly why this place so incredible, so my sincerest thanks go to all the people who helped and guided us here and everyone else who comes here and makes DESY what it is.

Mr. Donovan: Antoine, Antonious and the rest of the amazing team of scientists and engineers at DESY have been enthusiastical sharing their knowledge and passion for particle physics science. The SPEEDers have been eagerly absorbing as much content as they can. They are greatly appreciative of this incredible opportunity they have been granted.

Samyak: Before coming to DESY I had no idea what real research in any field, including physics, entailed. My fantasy which consisted of scholarship being straightforward and each scientist knowing what they were doing at all times has been completely disproved after just a week of staying on campus. I find that the most interesting thing about doing research in conjunction with our support scientists is that, oftentimes, they know just as much as we do about the instruments, models, or analytical tools we are utilizing. To be at the forefront of modern particle physics research means so much more than running an accelerator, collecting data, analyzing that data, and recording results. The intermediate steps, before performing any experimental tests or even turning the beam on, are made up of problem-solving, critical thinking, and real comprehension.

This is not to say that our support staff have not been our greatest source of success, but rather that this experience has brought to light the true struggles of not only proposing an experiment, but successfully running it. After almost a week of beam time, our team has yet to resolve many of the errors and difficulties in our code, programs, and experimental setup: Procedures which will long endure throughout our time at DESY. I have had a chance to work both on the experimental procedure/setup as well as the model used to align the beam telescopes which we will be using to calculate the trajectory of our electron beam. Through these two interconnected areas, I have learned that trial and error are the physicist’s greatest tools. However, the most challenging part of this process is coming up with brilliant solutions to simple problems and correctly implementing them, like sometimes using manual adjustments instead of an algorithm’s iterative ones. This once in a lifetime opportunity that has allowed me to peer into the life of a particle physicist has enlightened me in a way that no other opportunity could have. I am extremely grateful to both CERN and DESY for allowing me to visit a new world I could have never envisioned.

Antoine (our mentor): "I'm very lucky to work with such a dynamic group." (Wow, high praise!)

Antonio (our mentor): "The enthusiasm of every single one is remarkable and extremely motivating."