Kazuo TanakaTanaka Kazuo
Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Waseda UniversityResearch Associate Professor / Representative Partner, Accel Kitchen LLC
〝 How did the universe come to be? What is the radiation flying all around us trying to tell us?Turning what has, until now, been a world that junior- and senior-high students could meet only in the pages of a book into a world they can explore with their own hands ——.That is what Accel Kitchen strives to be. 〟
Cosmic rays and radiation are an entry point into the particle physics that probes how the universe came to be, and at the same time they connect to a surprisingly wide range of fields — medical diagnosis and radiotherapy, the dating of strata and rocks, the observation of celestial phenomena, and more. In recent years, inquiry activities by junior- and senior-high students have expanded remarkably, with a growing number of students visiting university laboratories, submitting papers, and presenting at conferences. Even so, inquiry built around radiation and particles remains almost without precedent, whether in Japan or abroad.
Accel Kitchen takes as its mission to "create places where junior- and senior-high students can explore the world of the cosmos, particles, and radiation through their own efforts," and it is run mainly by undergraduate and graduate students from a range of fields, beginning with science and engineering. That circle has gradually widened, and it has now grown into the world's largest particle-inquiry network.
For students who want to peer into the invisible micro-world, we deliver detectors that are inexpensive and easy to use, connect them with front-line researchers and citizen-science projects around the world — from particle physics to medicine, earth science, and astronomy — and provide opportunities to begin joint research.
To you who love the cosmos, particles, and radiation but have had to content yourself with only reading about them: let's begin the inquiry together, right here.
