Thanks for the insight into just how precise these experiments have too be. I appreciate that, even though I'm not an engineer and know nothing about design. I merely enjoy learning about the universe, like everyone else, and these machines are what is required to do it. It's like I get to be a part of this pioneering experiment, in a way I otherwise never would have. Please, keep doing this.
Physicists should strictly use SI units, like the meter, or mm, or µm to describe such experiments.Further details, as how precise and uniform the magnetic field really is, would be greatly appreciated.
A conversion factor is not worth losing your comfortable domain over. Let them do their job properly, at the end of the day, if everybody has done their book keeping right, there should be no problems
It's a PR video, they're using imperial units for the convenience of the domestic American audience. I am a science-minded person and prefer SI units, but I also have a better intuitive understanding of things like "feet" and "inches" because I am embedded in a culture that constantly refers to these units and not SI units. I can convert between Fahrenheit and Celcius, but I don't intuitively know what 32 C "feels like" like I know 80 F "feels like." Lots of people nitpicking to pat themselves on the back, who are missing the broader point of science communication.
I have some experience in having set up metal lathes to within .0005 thousandths or 1/2 of one one thousandths of an inch...I can see what you're doing, vary good work and thank you for video!...
Nice technical details, but it would have been nice to also have some visualization or at least sketches of how the system looks like/what is done for adjustment
Umm.. do you have a visualization about the magnetic field you measure? Maybe to show how the magnetic field is at the beginning..and when you have done some corrections mechanically .... and then finally the good enough image for the experiment?
Scientists being scientists, it wouldn't surprise me if the data is represented as a table of values (probably offsets from the ideal value) and they just visualize it in their head. The goal is to find out how much and which way to adjust the wedges.
Well the decay time of a muon is minuscule, assuming they live a bit longer due to relativistic effects, the answer is many times less than a microsecond. In other words not very long.
At the energies in this storage ring, the muon lifetime is approximately 64 microseconds. See also this associated article, if interested: www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/preparing-for-their-magnetic-moment
Fascinating, thank you Fermilab for putting up such good information at ://Muon-g-2.fal.gov. for a Muon 64 micro seconds is a lifetime...so in the macro if we run across the right strong magnetic field we just might find a muon precession within the field...
Its an american experiment funded by american money so I'm not surprised they've regressed to using nonmetric. However that being if the scientists and engineers feel more comfortable using those units and it allows them to do a good job, what difference does a conversion factor make?
Most research institutions have rotating international staff and contributors. I can't imagine publishing results in international journals in imperial units.
lohphat What I am trying to say is that it is a non-issue. These engineers and scientists have much bigger problems to worry about on a daily basis. Most of them passed elementary school math where they learnt to convert between units. This is why they can use whatever they want in order to achieve whatever they want.
This is a PR video. I'm sure they're using metric in the actual experiment, they just converted the units to Imperial for the domestic American audience. Also they're just describing the size of the ring and how thin the shims are, not actual scientific results.
