"While I don't speak math and my understanding of modern physics will be limited because of that, I fully expect that the physicists will take some time to explain their work to me, in English," Meeds said. She lays no claim to a knowledge of physics and said her work will greatly depend on the success of her collaboration with the folks at Wilson. Meeds currently works halftime as an administrative assistant in the Cornell physics department and travels to Donegal, Ireland, in the summers to teach poetry. Cassel also will join in the reading-lecture next September to offer "the scientist's-eye view of the poet-at-work," Meeds said. "He's a flexible and creative person who values the artistic perspective."Ĭassel took Meeds on a tour of the laboratory and introduced her to physicists and employees "who were very welcoming," said Meeds. "David was instrumental in helping to secure the funding as well as in designing the way the residency will work," said Meeds. "The beauty quark is important because we believe that it is the key to understanding a phenomenon called CP violation, one of the three ingredients needed to explain the disappearance of the antimatter produced in the Big Bang."Ĭonstructed in the mid-1960s, the synchrotron is mislabeled as an "atom smasher." Today the synchrotron serves as an injector for CESR - the source of electrons and positrons for CESR, Cassel said, adding that atoms are not smashed in the synchrotron, although similar facilities elsewhere do just that.Ĭassel and Meeds held a series of meetings that shaped the project as well as the grant application. Quark, which is the primary object that we study," he said. "These particles annihilate each other and produce other particles, particularly the 'beauty' The principal machine in the Wilson Lab is the Cornell Electron Storage Ring - CESR - that actually collides electrons and positrons (the antiparticle of the electron), Cassel said. This will put a new perspective on the mysterious place called the Wilson Laboratory and the synchrotron." "I discussed it with a number of people in the lab and was pleased with the reaction of my colleagues. "It just seemed like an attractive idea," said Cassel, who sees the residency as a unique vehicle for making Wilson Lab more accessible to the public. Last year Meeds pitched her proposal to David Cassel, associate director of the laboratory, and she found a receptive audience. The residency, workshop and public reading are all part of a $2,500 New York State Council on the Arts grant Meeds received through the Community Arts Partnership in Ithaca. And in September, when the chapbook is printed, she will hold a reading-lecture in the Mural Lounge of the Clinton House in downtown Ithaca. Then Meeds will "compose a snazzy little chapbook of about 10 poems," she said. She'll take notes, write poems and present her "Poetry for Physicists" workshop at the end of her residency, and physicists will be invited to join in the poetry-writing process. "I see myself as an emissary between the scientific world and the public," Meeds said.įrom March 27 to April 21, Meeds will spend two hours every morning of the business week in Wilson Lab with physicists and other lab employees. "I'll be offering a workshop called 'Poetry for Physicists,'" said Meeds, the first-ever poet-in-residence at Wilson Laboratory, home of the often misunderstood synchrotron, a so-called "atom smasher" in which elementary particles are annihilated and other elementary particles are created. Cornell University already offers several courses nicknamed "Physics for Poets." Now poet Bridget Meeds has proposed just the opposite.
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