They were hoping to enter Beamline for Schools, an international competition that gives secondary school students the chance to design and carry out experiments using particle accelerator beams. And they were looking for a mentor. Srivastava, who studies quantum gravity as a PhD student in the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics ' a Leinweber Institute, with Professor Hong Liu, gets other requests to mentor students, often through companies charging families for access to scientists or students at prestigious universities. He usually declines, but this message came directly from the students. Many months and many more emails and calls later, the students secured a place with Srivastava to attend CERN, in Geneva, where they spent two weeks turning their proposed idea into a real experiment. Calling themselves Team attoPION, the students are one of five teams selected in the 13th annual Beamline for Schools competition from a record 712 teams representing 89 countries and more than...
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