Thomas Gadfort and Stephen Wilson know that a physics education involves more than Newton's laws and angular momentum. After a summer in Japan, they know it's about hard work, collaboration, camaraderie, and sometimes, fried whale. Thomas and Stephen, both undergraduate physics majors, left in May to work on KamLAND (Kamioka Liquid scintillator Anti-Neutrino Detector), located deep in the mountains of central Japan. The detector is designed to catch antineutrinos from nuclear power reactors and the sun. The scientists involved study the behavior of the neutrinos as they make their way to the detector. KamLAND involves three institutions from Japan and 10 from the United States, including UT. Physics professors Bill Bugg, Yuri Efremenko, and Yuri Kamyshkov, as well as engineer Steve Berridge, are all part of the collaboration. Stephen said his and Thomas' role involved "refurbishing and restoring photomultiplier tubes." Thomas gave a more pragmatic description of their work: "painting and sticking stuff together." They also served their time in "the sphere," a 50-meter stainless steel structure that houses the KamLAND inner detector. Working in the sphere meant standing on a styrofoam floor that floated over water. Long hours in the sphere made re-adjusting to solid ground a challenge. "We worked every Saturday but one," Stephen said. They were up at 6:45 each morning, six days a week, for the 30-minute commute to the mine. Getting up on time, however, proved to be difficult. Stephen said that in northern Japan, the electricity runs at 50 cycles per second, but in southern Japan, it runs at 60 cycles per second. "I had to get out my calculator every night to set my alarm," he said. But beyond the hard work, Thomas said the experience made him appreciate the contribution he was making to neutrino research. "You felt like you were on the forefront of the field," he said. One factor that struck him about the KamLAND project was the sense of community, rather than hierarchy. "Everyone was on the same level," Thomas said. "We were all doing the same grunt work. You could be young and be in charge of a little section. It really made you feel like you were paying your dues." When the workday was over, playing cards and hanging out with faculty members was also pretty standard. "It was a great opportunity to spend personal time with professors; to get to know them on that level," Thomas said. Despite long days, the guys found time to enjoy the Japanese culture. They started out living in Sendai, later moving to Toyama to work on the detector. They visited national parks and local restaurants, and took in the nightlife. Stephen came home with a video collection of Japanese commercials. Both he and Thomas can offer colorful examples of game shows, including one where an unfortunate contestant was knocked out cold by a garbage can. They became masters of karaoke. Thomas tried out the McTeriyaki Burger at McDonald's. Stephen was brave enough to try fried whale. "It was pretty good," he said. "Chewy. Crunchy." The pair also spent time in Tokyo with natives they met through KamLAND. They were treated to a real portrait of Japan as opposed to the tourist approach. "It seems like the real deal is a lot more expensive," Thomas joked. Luckily, he said UT provided "a good paying job with a generous per diem" that helped him and Stephen finance their tourist pursuits. "The Japanese culture and the people we worked with," were Stephen's proclaimed high points of the summer. Given the long hours spent at work, he and Thomas got to know other students from Alabama, Cal Tech, Duke, and Stanford, as well as from Japanese universities. Their apartment complex was also home to a number of Americans working on KamLAND. On the fourth of July, Thomas made french fries for the U.S. delegation, who got together for fireworks to celebrate Independence Day. Thomas and Stephen both said their time in Japan effected how they see physics as a career. With a summer's worth of work at KamLAND, they both have an interest in seeing the project succeed. Stephen said he would like to go back. Thomas said he would probably pursue a field outside of neutrino research, but saw how much effort and how many people it takes to make an experiment work. "It really made you want to get an education," he said. Cross Sections, Fall 2000 Issue, Contents Page UT Physics News & Notes Page UT Physics Home Page This page was last updated on January 5, 2001. Please send comments to cal@utk.edu.