Jim Freeman stands in front of the LHC Physics Center's countdown clock.
This story first appeared in Fermilab Today on February 10, 2010.
When Jim Freeman needed to set the countdown clock at Fermilab's LHC Physics Center to predict the exact date and time the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment will get its first high-energy collisions, he turned to a tried and true scientific method: create a contest.
He sent a call out to US CMS collaboration members and asked for their estimates as to when CMS will get its first 3.5 -on 3.5-TeV collisions. He requested specific dates and times using the time in Geneva, Switzerland. The results are in.
Around 55 collaboration members submitted guesses, yielding a noticeable peak on April 1. “Other than that, it’s a pretty ‘physics’ looking distribution,” Freeman said.
Will April Fool’s Day throw everyone for a loop this year? Stay tuned….
A plot shows the distribution of predictions of when the first high-energy collisions will take place at CMS.
