Background:
HartMan spent most of his adult life designing and building experimental sub-atomic particle detectors used to track down the tiniest specks of matter and energy known to physicists. These particles are called by a plethora of strange names including neutrinos, quarks, mesons, gamma rays, bosons, leptons, etc.
Some of our other cache hides may provide a clue to the creative spirit that was carried over from his days of engineering particle detectors.
The challenge with catching elusive particles, that may have a lifetime of a fraction of a second and be hidden amongst hundreds, thousands or millions of other energetic and noisy neighbors (as in the photo) is similar to those geocaches that are well camouflaged. It's necessary to look at the environment in a different way and use all the tools and gadgets at one's disposal to succeed!
Detector fabrication:
- Print out the Particle Detector, color is best, but b/w will work too. The printout should be adjusted for 8" by 8".
- Trim the paper along the outside line so that it is square.
- Fold the paper in half both lengthwise and side ways and then reopen the paper.
- Place the paper face down (printed side down) and fold in each corner to the middle point.
- Turn the paper over and again fold the corners to the center.
- Fold so that the four closed corners meet – the outside corners will flare out.
- If you’ve done this properly, you should be looking at the Geocaching.com logo as shown in step 1 below:
- Close and then orient your detector so the yellow flap with the person is in the NW ordinal position.
Operating Instructions:
The particle detector is opened alternately up-down and then right-left as you spell out the name of a flavor of a quark*. After the last letter you will open the flap in the ordinal direction given, to reveal the number of particles you have detected! This number will correspond to one of the six minute digits needed to determine the coordinates of the final cache.
Here is a visual example of how to detect particles. Spell "CHARM" and open the NE ordinal flap (to detect 5 neutrinos):
*quarks are one of the two basic constituents of matter (the others are leptons) There are 6 types of quarks, called "flavors" UP, DOWN, TOP, BOTTOM, STRANGE and CHARM
We wish to thank fishiam and little "i" for granting us permission to copy the "Cootie Cacher" idea from their GCQE5G geocache. This is based on the cootie catcher.
Cache Location:
The cache is located at N35 4A.BCD W105 5E.FGH. The letters need to be replaced with the number of particles you detect in this sequence:
- Replace A with the Tau Leptons you detect by spelling TOP and then lifting the NW flap.
- Replace B with the Kaons you detect by spelling STRANGE and then lifting the SE flap.
- Replace C with the Beta particles you detect by spelling UP and then lifting the SW flap.
- Replace D with the Pions you detect by spelling CHARM and then lifting the SW flap.
- Replace E with the Muons you detect by spelling BOTTOM and then lifting the NE flap.
- Replace F with the 9 minus the number of Positrons you detect by spelling DOWN and then lifting the SE flap.
- Replace G with 5 minus the number of Neutrinos you detect by spelling TOP and then lifting the NE flap.
- Replace H with 5 minus the number of Photons you detect by spelling UP and then lifting the NW flap.
Check your solution
Cache Trading Guide:
We would prefer to keep the trade items limited to those of a scientific theme. Thus we have stocked the container with items usually associated with the terms: geek, nerd, comp head, science fair, etc. We have a stock of replacement items on hand should you not have a trade item, but wish to take something.
Extra credit will be awarded to those leaving old slide rules or photos of yourself as a scientist.
Cache location
The cache is located near a well marked and scenic trail. It is about 1 mile / 30 minutes round-trip from the parking lot.