Discovering Particles via Smashing

This interactive lab is an exercise in applying students’ knowledge of Conservation of Momentum and Energy to current dark matter research techniques. It’s a good review activity for Momentum and Energy, and it also bridges nicely into Atomic Physics. Students will be working on a macro-scale, with billiard balls as their “known” target masses, and shooting balls of mysterious mass at the target to observe and quantify the behavior of the unknown masses. This is currently how astrophysicists are searching for WIMPS! This activity encourages students to rely on their data more than on their eyes (the mystery masses may be of the same size, color etc, and students are still encouraged to hypothesize the masses), to record several outcomes from similar reactions, and to check their observations against expected velocity calculations. For a closing assessment, students will summarize their findings in a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning statement according to a given rubric.