This spring, scientists at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will break ground on the buildings for a Muon Campus. The two initial experiments proposed for the campus draw on three decades of technological advances to turn muons into supersensitive probes for physics beyond the Standard Model.
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Quantum Diaries Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the . world Home About Quantum Diaries Latest Posts All Blogs John Felde UC Davis USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.03.05 Fast Photosensors for Neutrino Physics 2011.11.22 Recent Events at UC Davis 2011.11.09 First Double Chooz Neutrino Oscillation Result USLHC USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.12.31 2013 : The road ahead 2012.12.30 What Went on My Research Page 2012.12.25 Merry Christmas Frank Simon MPI for Physics Germany View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.04 Plus Two 2011.12.14 After the talk is before the talk 2011.10.24 Breathe Flip Tanedo USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.19 The Post-Higgs Hangover : where’s the new physics 2012.07.06 More Post-Higgs silliness
There are two kinds of elementary particles in the universe: bosons and fermions. Bosons don’t mind sitting on top of each other, sharing the same space. In principle, you could pile an infinite number of bosons into the tiniest bucket. Fermions, on the other hand, don’t share space: only a limited number of fermions would fit into the bucket.
Matter, as you might guess, is made of fermions, which stack to form three-dimensional structures. The force fields that bind fermions to each other are made of bosons. Bosons are the glue holding matter together.
Although he was one of the few artists who attained wealth from his trade, Pablo Picasso used inexpensive, common house paint for some of his works. Perhaps more surprising is that, decades after he painted his greatest masterpieces, a facility with fundamental physics roots identified that paint using a powerful instrument to peer, for the first time, at individual pigment particles comprising some of Picasso’s paintings.
I'm in New Orleans for a few days. Exciting, as I've never been here before, but it has been on my list of cities to visit for a long time...
I thought I'd share with you the above photo of an important (to me) artifact that I visited in the old US Mint building, which has a number of exhibits. This is the cornet that, as a boy, Louis Armstrong leaned to play trumpet on!
This is sort of a big deal for me. It would be like finding a set of notebooks that the young[...]
Amid the forest of wires and machines in Fermilab's Linac Gallery is a small, windowless room accessible only through a sliding steel door. With wood-paneled walls and a couple of white, synthetic orchids in full bloom, the room seems like it belongs in a home from the 1960s and not among the complex technology of a national accelerator laboratory.
This is quite the time in particle physics. Some of the most exciting discoveries in a decade have been made over the past year, and the coming years promise new endeavors and new findings.
CERN Accelerating science Search Sign in Directory : Search Just this site CERN web Buildings People Services Close Main menu About CERN Students Educators Scientists CERN people In this : section Directory Announcements Opinion Official communications Updates Another vintage year Rolf Heuer , CERN Director-General ATLAS event display of a H 4e candidate event Image : ATLAS CERN Some years it’s hard to know where to begin with my end of year message , but 2012 is different . This is the year that will go down in history as marking the first of the LHC s major discoveries , a defining moment in the history of . science Although we don’t yet know the full details of the particle whose discovery we announced on 4 July in front of a global audience estimated at over a billion , it is looking
The holidays are here, it's time to leave the labs
But with physicists gone, machines are up for grabs
Elves on experiments, Rudolph the science whiz:
Can they answer questions in a holiday quiz?
As symmetry pauses for a long winter's nap, we leave you with a series of rhyming physics questions and their surprising answers. Enjoy! We'll see you next year!
The latest data presented by scientists on Higgs boson shows that separate measurements of its prope
If you’ve ever had to shop for kids toys, you know it can be a demoralizing experience. Rows and rows of schlock, organized in alternating rows of “pink” or “camo”, anchored to their boxes by 43 twist ties, reeking of child labor and waste. (Can you guess how much I like shopping?) To help you [...]
A new partnership between scientists from US institutions and CERN could improve results from neutrino experiments around the world. The scientists hope to use equipment at CERN to gain a more precise understanding of the process of creating a neutrino beam.
In September 2010, about 100 theoretical particle physicists gathered at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory for a workshop unique in purpose and unprecedented in scope: This group of theorists was determined to rewrite the way Large Hadron Collider data is interpreted—in effect, the way scientific discoveries are made in the realm of high-energy physics.
Photo courtesy of The Independent The CERN organization based in Switzerland has officially confirme
Late last week, I ran across a spectacular video of a man being completely awesome: The video shows Christophe Hamel jumping/falling/hurtling off of walls, landing on a trampoline, and then bouncing up to land back on top of the wall — sometimes in a handstand in case there was a risk you wouldn’t be impressed [...]
Wrapped up adding of vectors and moved on to inertia and many other topics. Equilibrium (ground stat
Space telescopes have greatly advanced our understanding of the universe, but they have also surfaced some new and puzzling problems. Recently scientists gained insight into a mismatch between theory and observation uncovered by space telescope research by using a ground-based X-ray technology that grew out of particle physics.
The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment achieved a significant milestone this week.
The US Department of Energy on Monday granted Critical Decision 1 approval to the first phase of LBNE, which includes construction of a beamline at Fermilab and a near-surface far detector at the Sanford Lab in Lead, South Dakota. One of the largest proposed neutrino experiments in the world, LBNE will send neutrinos generated at Fermilab through 800 miles of earth to the South Dakota detector.
Many have speculated about which theorists the Nobel Committee might honor for the prediction of the Higgs boson, but it was the experimentalists involved in the search for the particle who received recognition today. 
Decay channels are the possible transformations a particle can undergo as it decays.
When a particle decays, it does not break into smaller bits; its energy does. Even fundamental particles—so named because they are the basic building blocks of matter that cannot be broken into smaller parts—can decay. Many particles in the Standard Model exist for only a limited time before decaying.
When a particle decays, it transforms into collections of less massive particles whose combined energy adds up to the energy of the original particle.
Quantum Diaries Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the . world Home About Quantum Diaries Latest Posts All Blogs John Felde UC Davis USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.03.05 Fast Photosensors for Neutrino Physics 2011.11.22 Recent Events at UC Davis 2011.11.09 First Double Chooz Neutrino Oscillation Result USLHC USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.12.09 Advent Calendar 2012 December 9th 2012.12.08 Advent Calendar 2012 December 8th 2012.12.07 Advent Calendar 2012 December 7th Frank Simon MPI for Physics Germany View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.04 Plus Two 2011.12.14 After the talk is before the talk 2011.10.24 Breathe Flip Tanedo USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.19 The Post-Higgs Hangover : where’s the new physics
Quantum Diaries Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the . world Home About Quantum Diaries Latest Posts All Blogs John Felde UC Davis USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.03.05 Fast Photosensors for Neutrino Physics 2011.11.22 Recent Events at UC Davis 2011.11.09 First Double Chooz Neutrino Oscillation Result USLHC USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.12.09 Advent Calendar 2012 December 9th 2012.12.08 Advent Calendar 2012 December 8th 2012.12.07 Advent Calendar 2012 December 7th Frank Simon MPI for Physics Germany View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.04 Plus Two 2011.12.14 After the talk is before the talk 2011.10.24 Breathe Flip Tanedo USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.19 The Post-Higgs Hangover : where’s the new physics
Many movies use pseudoscience to explain the origins of their villains. A film released this weekend follows the same model, but its producers and stars all know better than to buy the nonsense: They’re PhD students and postdocs in particle physics.
Higgs Boson collage imagery and design development
Designs from a collection of tea towels inspired by the Higgs Boson
Tonight I’ll be interviewing physicist Sean Carroll about his new book and particle physics as
One of the Endcaps of the ATLAS detector at CERN The worlds largest man-made circle is in Cern. CER
An audience member yelled: “35, 27, 42, 41.” Wim Klein chalked the numbers on a blackboard and then muttered to himself for a few seconds as he multiplied them. He wrote the answer, “1627290.” The crowd applauded.
Klein, a Dutch mathematician, was capable of much more fantastic feats of enormous calculation. In 1976, he took two minutes and 43 seconds to calculate the 73rd root of a 500-digit number, earning him a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
"I know! Clamp a clamp to it, and then clamp to the clamp with two other clamps...!"
[...]
In its infancy, the universe was made of nearly equal parts matter and antimatter. Yet matter overwhelmingly dominates today. Scientists design experiments that examine the conditions of the early universe to investigate why.
An international collaboration of scientists proposed to build one such project, a particle collider that would specialize in creating B mesons, in Italy over the next several years. However, last week the Italian government withdrew funding for the project, citing the country's weakened economic state.
About 5 billion years ago the universe underwent a crucial transition. The gravitational tug that pulled together the matter in the universe was overwhelmed by a different, repulsive phenomenon. As a result, the universe began to expand at an accelerating rate.
Scientists have given that phenomenon a name: dark energy. However, they can say with confidence only what it does, not what it is, where it comes from, or why it’s pushing galaxies apart at an ever more rapid speed.
Almost a decade remains before the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope sees first light, and construction has yet to begin on most of the telescope’s hardware. Even so, astrophysicists are already developing methods for analyzing the rush of data LSST will produce. In a survey this large and this advanced, data management is just as important as cameras and mirrors.
A new system that would use bent crystals to remove errant particles in the Large Hadron Collider passed a major test last month by surviving a barrage of protons at high energy.
When Virginia high school teacher Deborah Roudebush teaches physics, she doesn't exactly follow the book.
In one of her more memorable lessons, she gives her students a stopwatch and a ruler and sets a toy pig flying around the classroom. The students must use their tools to determine the speed of the pig in two different ways.
"There's no set value for pig speed," Roudebush says. "I'm teaching them to develop methods and test those methods. That's how scientists do it."
In its four years in orbit, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a cosmos teeming with points of gamma-ray light. Newly discovered gamma-ray sources run the gamut from the expected, like supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei, to the surprising, like gamma rays from the sun or Earth-bound lightning strikes.
Let’s review the tests of the Higgs couplings to fermions and massive vector bosons completed by CMS and ATLAS. The Higgs mechanism generates mass terms in the standard model Lagrangian. Electroweak symmetry is broken at the same time that the W and Z bosons get their mass. Fermions masses, on the other hand, are generated [...]
Let’s use the word “Higgs boson” for the new state discovered by ATLAS and CMS. The collider physics community is trying to measure everything they can about this new particle. One of the “easiest” properties to measure is its mass, MH. (One of the more difficult is the CP Nature of the Higgs boson.) Values [...]
Asymptotia Q Train Guy Components Published on November 20, 2012 in art craft design fun science science education sketches and work 0 Comments : Tags tedyouth Here’s the first slide of my TEDYouth talk from Saturday It was time consuming but fun to draw all those hands and tiny items of various sorts . The whole talk was about what I call hidden structures” , which in a sense is what my field high energy physics , particle physics , cosmology , string theory , etc . is all about . To help motivate it all , I started by talking about opening up your smart phone and figuring out how it works by taking it apart and discovering the components inside , and using the rules of how to put them together to deduce the structure of other things see that second stage of the slide being delivered on
Quantum Diaries Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the . world Home About Quantum Diaries Latest Posts All Blogs John Felde UC Davis USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.03.05 Fast Photosensors for Neutrino Physics 2011.11.22 Recent Events at UC Davis 2011.11.09 First Double Chooz Neutrino Oscillation Result USLHC USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.11.20 Particles of the Day 2012.11.14 Mixing it up 2012.11.11 Foxes , hedgehogs and particle physicists Frank Simon MPI for Physics Germany View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.04 Plus Two 2011.12.14 After the talk is before the talk 2011.10.24 Breathe Flip Tanedo USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.19 The Post-Higgs Hangover : where’s the new physics 2012.07.06 More Post-Higgs
Quantum Diaries Thoughts on work and life from particle physicists from around the . world Home About Quantum Diaries Latest Posts All Blogs John Felde UC Davis USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.03.05 Fast Photosensors for Neutrino Physics 2011.11.22 Recent Events at UC Davis 2011.11.09 First Double Chooz Neutrino Oscillation Result USLHC USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.11.14 Mixing it up 2012.11.11 Foxes , hedgehogs and particle physicists 2012.11.02 A Dalitz What Now Frank Simon MPI for Physics Germany View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.04 Plus Two 2011.12.14 After the talk is before the talk 2011.10.24 Breathe Flip Tanedo USLHC USA View Blog Read Bio Latest Posts 2012.07.19 The Post-Higgs Hangover : where’s the new physics 2012.07.06 More Post-Higgs silliness
We are in the process of ascertaining the properties of the Higgs-like particle discovered by CMS and ATLAS last July 4th. It must be a boson because it decays to pairs of bosons. Since it decays to a pair of massless photons, it cannot be spin-1. The relative rates of decays to WW and ZZ [...]