The 22nd volume of The Wisconsin Physicist provides a view of the UW-Madison Physics Department in 2017. This annual newsletter for friends and alumni brings you the best stories of the year, some science scoops and “what’s what” in the department.

Previous editions may be found here.

George Ott, Electrical Engineer in High Energy Physics from 10/01/1967 until his retirement on 11/30/2007, passed away on February 12, 2018. He was 78 years old. He worked on many experiments, most notably CDF and CMS. One of his last efforts before he retired was the responsibility for an extraordinarily challenging project to provide the power and control of the new state-of-the-art Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment calorimeter trigger electronics being built for the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The task involved the circuitry for and installation of 20 redundant fail-over high-power (7 kW) supplies controlling 10 7’ racks of completely custom electronics that had to be monitored remotely over the Internet. Mr. Ott devised a system of 50 custom trays of fans with very high airflow that were precisely monitored for any malfunction. He also developed and installed a system of temperature monitors distributed over each rack. All of this is remotely monitored as well as having local shut-off protection. Mr. Ott worked on the design, assembly, and production of this system. His work on this was very creative and innovative. There was no turnkey or prepackaged solution possible given the very difficult requirements and complexity of the project. Mr. Ott had to take the initiative and break new ground in developing his solution. The result was outstanding. George traveled to CERN and installed this system in the CMS underground cavern.

George was a happy, magnanimous person, always willing to help with anything. He will be missed.

http://www.gundersonfh.com/obituaries/George-E-Ott?obId=2964968#/obituaryInfo