U.S. Department of Energy's Plasma Science Center holds third annual meeting at PPPL

Graduate student Hongyue Wang discussed her work on plasmas in Hall thrusters with University of Michigan professor Mark Kushner during the third annual meeting of the U.S. Department of Energy's Plasma Science Center at PPPL. Wang, a student at Beihang University in Beijing, works with PPPL physicist Igor Kaganovich. Kushner directs the Plasma Science Center. (Photo credit: Elle Starkman, PPPL Office of Communications.)

More than 50 participants from a dozen U.S. research institutions gathered at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) May 17-18 for the third annual meeting of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Plasma Science Center. The meeting featured papers on low-temperature plasmas, whose practical applications range from lighting to nanotechnology. Events at the session included a display of graduate student posters and a tour of PPPL.

A flame is a plasma, after all, so PPPL joins a contest

Andrew Zwicker, a physicist at PPPL who heads science education, working with Aliya Merali.

More than 800 scientists. Nearly 5,000 students.

That’s how many people are involved in what ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer has called “the most inspired contest on the planet.”

In March, actor Alan Alda wrote a provocative editorial in the renowned journal Science. The title of his column, “The Flame Challenge,” described how he, as an 11-year-old, stared at a candle flame and wondered what it was. He wasn’t looking for overly simple answers – he wanted a step-by-step style of conversation that would lead to understanding. When he queried one teacher he thought he could approach, he received a disappointing answer. “What’s a flame?” he asked. “Oxidation,” she said. Many decades later, he sees this continuing failure to properly communicate science as a society-wide problem.

For years, he has been doing his part to address that problem by hosting “Scientific American Frontiers” on public television. In the show, Alda interviews scientists about their work, helping them explain their research to intelligent non-scientists. Now, as a member of the faculty at the Center for Communicating Science at the State University of Stony Brook on Long Island, Alda has launched his own experiment. He announced the Flame Challenge contest (http://flamechallenge.org) in Science, asking scientists, educators, and students to submit short videos, essays or effective communications by any other means to explain the simple question he asked as a boy.

Andrew Zwicker, a physicist at PPPL who heads science education, came up with a version of the answer, working with Aliya Merali. You can view it here:



Submissions, which were due on April 2, have poured in from all over the world. According to a story on the website of the Center for Communicating Science, participants submitted 822 entries  from the U.S. and 30 other countries. The entries range from a sentence to tomes and from poetry – one poem is written in the shape of a flame – to live-action videos with special effects. Once volunteer scientists screen the submissions for accuracy, the entries are being sent to schools where 11-year-olds at more than 130 schools will judge them. The finalists will be posted on flamechallenge.org, and the winner will be announced at the World Science Festival in New York, New York in early June.

-- Kitta MacPherson

Wonder Weld

Engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are using the process shown here to create a super-strong weld for the upgrade of a key component of the Lab’s experimental nuclear fusion reactor. The whirling steel tool in this demonstration joins two copper plates by heating them through friction to the consistency of wax. The roughened surface will be smoothed out in the finished product. Called “friction stir welding,” the process is critical to the upgrade of the test reactor that will enable Laboratory scientists to address major questions on the road to developing nuclear fusion as a safe, clean and virtually limitless source of energy for generating electricity. (Video by Edison Welding, Columbus, Ohio)

Snowflake Science

Let it snow! Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are using a novel device called a "snowflake divertor" to keep superhot gases from damaging the walls of a nuclear reactor during experiments to develop a safe, clean and virtually limitless fuel for producing electric power.
Read more...

With upgrade, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory chases dream of lighting fusion’s torch

(Michael Mancuso/The Times)

Click here for the full story...

Science on Saturday

Science on Saturday is a series of lectures given by scientists, mathematicians, and other professionals involved in cutting-edge research. Held on Saturday mornings throughout winter, the lectures are geared toward high school students. The program draws more than 300 students, teachers, parents, and community members each Saturday. Topics are selected from a variety of disciplines.

The program runs January through March, and is free and open to the public. Lectures begin promptly at 9:30 AM. Click here for the Science on Saturday 2012 schedule.

Plasma lessons, crushed marshmallows and all

By John DeLooper

Today, Friday is the end of the conference. The last session concludes at about 12:30 p.m. There will be some additional satellite meetings but most folks will be leaving today and tomorrow (if we can get out with the expected snow storm…)

This was the second day of the Plasma Expo. It takes a lot of effort to get the students to this event. Teachers need to make the arrangements including organizing bus transportation and collecting permission slips. The plasma educators from the various laboratories arrange and run the Plasma Expo. In addition to the exhibitors, there are a number of individuals greeting the bus and escorting the students into the exhibit hall. They are the unsung heroes of the Plasma Expo! They help make sure that we track the students through the convention center.

More than 1,000 students attended the Expo today. As usual, our volunteers did a superb job. It’s not always easy explaining plasma to a middle school student and how the plasma in a fluorescent tube can be 10,000 degrees. It’s always wonderful when you see the look of amazement on a student's face when he or she sees something unusual (like crushed marshmallows or a Jacob’s ladder) and absorbs the scientific message. That makes our day.

Although the conference ended at 12:30 p.m., our Expo went beyond, til 2 p.m. At the conclusion, we took down our display, packaged our exhibit materials, and placed them on skids. Our graduate students helped the Science Education staff to dismantle the display. Although we try to mimic the great work our shipping folks did in sending the material to us, we hope that the skids get back to the lab safely…. we’ll know in about a week!

My thanks to the Science Education staff, our scientists, post-docs, and graduate students for all of their help in a successful educational outreach effort!
--John DeLooper is the head of outreach and best practices at PPPL.