It would seem that I haven't posted here in nearly four years. Life has been busy, and further, I find other social media outlets capture my attention more. But I shall try to post here now and then. So what has happened in physics in the last four years? Too much to write! But here are a few things:
• The Large Hadron Collider has pinned down many of the properties of the Higgs boson.
• Alas, there are few hints of anything unexpected, except for a "bump" in the data at six times the mass of the Higgs boson, which might be some new elementary particle. Stay tuned!
• Quantum mechanics has passed all tests thrown at it. There has been great progress in using it to improve communication security and computation--though that is still a ways off.
• There has been a lot of work in constructing materials from the small scale on up.
• Gravitational waves have been directly observed.
The last one was reported just a few months ago. Two giant black holes merged a billion light years away, and scientists were able for the first time to detect the resulting jiggling of spacetime, just as Einstein predicted. It was a stupendous achievement, and opens our ears to a whole new side of the Universe.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Science over the last four years
Posted by eyesopen at 2:21 PM 1 comments
Labels: astronomy, particle physics, quantum info, relativity
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Where does Mass Come From? Announcement July 4th, 2012!
On July 4th in Melbourne, Australia, the 5000 physicists of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations from the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland are going to announce their results on the search for a particle that has to do with the origin of mass—the Higgs boson.
In December of 2011, these two giant groups of scientists, engineers, computer programers and support staff, announced their first concrete results on the search for the Higgs boson. Now, they have about twice the data, and they will be able to make a much more definitive claim. Scientists and nonscientists around the globe are waiting excitedly for the unveiling of the results.
So what is the Higgs boson?
Imagine a world where everything is like light, able to zip around at 300,000 km/s (186,000 mi/hr). Light is made up of just one kind a particle, called a photon. If all the particles were like that, they would be massless. They would not form into atoms and molecules. Except for the frequency (color) of the various kinds of light, everything would be much the same.
It turns out our understanding of particle physics is very much like that, except that there is a mechanism which gives the particle mass so most things can't travel at the speed of light, and so they aren't all the same, and they can form atoms and molecules. That "except" part is all due to a mechanism called "spontaneous symmetry breaking" (never mind the big term for now). So we have a beautiful theory of lightlike massless particles which is "fixed" to explain the world as we see it by this mechanism. The theory has been tested backwards and forwards—all of it except for this crucial mechanism.
And that's where the Higgs boson comes in. The mechanism predicts that this particle must be there. The trouble is, it requires an enormous amount of energy (on the scale of elementary particles) to make one, and so our biggest colliders have not been big enough to produce it. Until now.
The Large Hadron Collider is big enough and collides enough particles per second to see it. If the Higgs is there, as predicted in the simplest model, the LHC should see it and report evidence or even observation of it on July 4th. If they don't see it (contrary to the rumors), then the simplest model is wrong.
So this July 4th, keep an ear and eye peeled for news about the origin of mass and the Higgs boson.
P.S.: Please never refer to the Higgs boson as the "God particle", a term made up by a PR guy, because it simultaneously insults religion and science. (It's particularly ironic because the Higgs boson doesn't do anything, not even give mass to particles—it is the smoking gun for the mechanism which does.)
Posted by eyesopen at 11:38 AM 5 comments
Labels: Higgs, particle physics, physics explanation, science news
Friday, July 1, 2011
First Mobile Post
I haven't had time to post of late, but maybe if I write shorter more informal posts I'll write more of them. I'm amazed that folks keep finding my blog via keyword searches, often leading to posts several years old. It kinda takes the chronological element, the log, out of blog. So enjoy my b.
Posted by eyesopen at 10:09 PM 0 comments
Monday, October 11, 2010
Midterm Elections: Don't Reverse into a Ditch
In the autumn of 2008, the economy was in free fall. Things were so bad that I was in favor of President Bush's actions to rescue the banks (independent of how poorly they behaved, we simply could not let them drag down the whole economy). The ditch we went into was still plenty deep. For the last two years, the Democrats have been trying to get us out of that ditch. It is slow going, but the economy has begun to recover. The Republicans made the tactical decision to oppose President Obama at every turn, gambling that if the economy did not recover quickly, Democrats would be blamed.
Now you may not like the direction the Democrats took to head out of the ditch. That's fine. But in the next two years, it is critical that we keep moving forward on a path to recovery. You may not be happy with the way things are now, but it would be far worse to go into reverse, backing into the ditch. And that's what the Republicans plan to do.
How do I know: they say so. They have concluded that "stimulus" is unpopular, and they plan to stymy any further stimulus to the economy. They want to revisit the last two years of legislation instead of moving forward. Rush Limbaugh told his listeners, “People want an end to what is happening now. They want the brakes applied to the Obama agenda.” It will be just like 1937, when FDR was persuaded to cut spending while the economy was still struggling out of the Great Depression, which caused the recession of 1937-38.
We need to control spending in the long term, just as one should drive prudently down the road. But we are still coming out of a ditch, so we need to keep the pedal to the metal. And we certainly have to keep the car in Drive, not Reverse.
Posted by eyesopen at 9:14 AM 0 comments
Labels: electoral politics
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sometimes It's Just Hay
Last December I wrote about rumors that an experiment called CDMS had found evidence for direct detection of the Dark Matter. I called my post "Searching for Unusual Hay in a Haystack" because the "needle" they were looking for (the dark matter) is so close in appearance to the "hay" (background events) that it is really hard to tell them apart. At the time, I said that it was quite likely that the "signal" of two events was just some background events that happened to look a lot like the signal they were looking for---that they had just found normal hay that looked a little unusual. And I concluded, "So we await future experiments with more signal and less background".
Posted by eyesopen at 11:47 PM 1 comments
Labels: cosmology, particle physics, science news
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Ground Zero Mosque and Religious Freedom
It seems to me that there are two very different issues regarding the mosque (and cultural center). Whether the builders have the right to build it two blocks from Ground Zero, and whether one thinks it is a good idea to build it there. I believe President Obama tried to make this distinction, but, in part because he addressed the points on two separate days, it was in-artfully done (to be kind).
Let's be clear about the first point. There would be no objection to building a Christian church two blocks from Ground Zero. This country was founded, in part, by those fleeing religious persecution, and freedom of religion is fundamental to our society and our Constitution. As such, any attempt to prevent the building of the mosque (and cultural center) should be, and likely would be, ruled unconstitutional. But it goes far beyond legality. I think that to be true to the freedoms we hold dear, we need to support the right to build the mosque even if we strongly disagree with its construction. Supporting freedom means supporting things one does not agree with.
Note that this principle applies to the speech of those who oppose the mosque. They have the right to say it should not be built, and, like Voltaire, I will defend to the death their right to do so. But when someone uses their right to free speech to call for the rights of others to be curtailed, I think it is particularly important we use our right to free speech to call for those rights (here freedom of religion) to be respected.
Now, is it a good idea to built it there? Well, that depends somewhat on what 'it' is. If it really is a center designed to promote religious understanding, then Ground Zero would certainly serve as a powerful reminder to all who came there what horrible things rage coupled with fundamentalism can do. On the other hand, there are some who lost loved ones in 9/11 who will be traumatized by its presence. One can argue that they should not react that way, since the terrorist act was committed by a small sect of people (and sects in all religions have done awful things), but this is an emotional issue.
If one thinks it is a bad idea to build it there, I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask the builders to reconsider their location. But I think it goes against the idea of religious freedom to demand it.
In brief, I think there is nothing wrong with having misgivings about a mosque (and cultural center) being built two blocks from Ground Zero, but I think all of us need to defend the right for it to be built there.
[photo: Dramatization of a pilgrim praying freely in the New World.]
Posted by eyesopen at 4:05 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
French President Sarkozy Speech in Support of Basic Research
[September 2010 Note: I am appalled but what President Sarkozy has done of late regarding the Roma People, but I am leaving up my positive impressions of him from this summer on the narrow issue of science funding]
Posted by eyesopen at 4:31 AM 0 comments
Labels: particle physics, science politics
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Blog short-circuited by Twitter
Apologies for not writing in a while. Life is busy, and when I have a quick idea or link I want to pass on, I simply issue a tweet and leave the blog for "sometime soon". (email me at science.eyes at g m a i l . c o m if you want to follow me on Twitter.)
Posted by eyesopen at 9:00 AM 1 comments
Labels: blog, social media
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Searching for Unusual Hay in a Haystack: The Case of CDMS
Over the past two weeks, rumors have swirled around the web that the CDMS collaboration had discovered particles of "dark matter". [I have not yet written a promised post on dark matter, but there is this.] It all started with a single blog post which contained "facts", such as the statement that there was a paper in press at the journal Nature, which turned out to be false. One very connected person tweeted about the post, and it spread like wildfire. Soon the Nature editor sent the blogger a snarky letter denying the claim, which the blogger posted. Others speculated that the Nature editor was just trying to throw them off track. The next day the Nature editor posted a comment on the blog apologizing for the snarky nature of the letter, but again refuting the claims. Still rumors shot around the net about what result there might be.
Posted by eyesopen at 10:50 AM 1 comments
Labels: cosmology, particle physics, science news, science politics
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Why the rising star of Sarah Palin troubles us
This post is directed at fans of Sarah Palin (if there are any amongst my readers!). It may help you to understand why the rest of us are so appalled at her success. I've tried to think objectively about why I find her rising star disturbing.
It is not because she is "folksy", which I suspect is a big aspect of her appeal. Nor does it have anything to do with her being a working mom--many of us admire the ability to balance work and family. No, it is because of her overt incompetence and shallowness. After having just lived through the worst presidency of modern times, that of Geroge W. Bush, where decisions were made on a political basis without regard for competence ("heck of a job Brownie") and as if the world were black and white, it is disturbing that another politician with very limited knowledge and ideological blinders could gain such popularity. It is also disheartening to have such a polarizing figure rise in prominence now. Whatever you think of President Obama, he has made an effort to restore thoughtful dialogue to our national debates. We can disagree, but let us not disagree with the gleeful venom of Sarah Palin.
Whatever you think about Sarah Palin's politics, or her ability to raise children while working, or whatever you perceive as positive, please recognize that she is not fit to be President of the United States. I don't know if she really believes what she says, or she is just an opportunist, but the scariest thing is that her ambitions seem to greatly exceed her abilities.
Posted by eyesopen at 2:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: electoral politics, Sarah Palin
Monday, November 16, 2009
Trip to Hawaii Big Island
I attended a conference in Hawaii held jointly by an American and a Japanese physics society. Where else are you going to hold it? It was an incredible trip. This post is about the stuff I did before, after and during breaks in the conference. Here's the list of places I went on the Big Island:
The sulfur dioxide streaming up with the steam made the air quality poor, and several areas were shut down. Nothing grows in the caldera. Lava flows underneath it via a lava tube to the sea. We went on the lava field at night, and you can make out the lava in the distance (as close as one is allowed to go):
Posted by eyesopen at 10:00 PM 3 comments
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Two Cultures
Fifty years ago, C. P. Snow lamented in his famous lecture, The Two Cultures, that there was a rift in understanding between the sciences and the humanities. He noted that ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics is akin to never having read a work of Shakespeare, and that such scientific illiteracy could prove harmful to society. How can our leaders solve our problems if they don't understand them?
Posted by eyesopen at 4:02 PM 0 comments
Labels: science news, science politics
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Report from the 'April meeting'
Scientific conferences have personalities. They shift locations and take on the color of the locale, but the canvass of a given conference is the same. I write this from a hotel room in Denver, CO, site of my society's annual meeting. It does not matter that it is in Denver, or that it's May, it is still the 'April meeting'. The April Meeting is not a cozy specialized meeting, nor is it a zoo that the largest meetings become. It covers just the subjects of particle physics, nuclear physics and astrophysics. So it is a chimera of the small and the large, the specialized and the very broad.
There is the same rhythm of expansive plenary talks in darkened ballrooms, and frenzied cryptic parallel session talks in small rooms which either are empty or overfull. There are talks on science and society. There are all the organizational meetings. There are the booths and posters. Yet at 1400 people it feels sparse.
The most exciting results this year are from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly called GLAST). Launched in June 2008, it is already changing our view of the high-energy sky. Its main instrument, the Large Area Telescope, or LAT, has made a precise measurement of ultra-high energy electrons and positrons. A previous experiment had shown indications of an excess in number of particles detected, which was hard to explain with known physics. LAT has shown that that "bump" was likely just a statistical fluctuation. Alas, this is what usually happens--most coincidences are actually just coincidences. LAT also showed that there is some new source of high-energy positrons out there, which will surely launch a thousand papers.
Fun anecdote: One of the talks was given by a senior physicist (he received the Nobel prize for work done in 1964). He admitted that he had a habit of showing data before the large collaboration of which he is a part was ready to release it. After his talk, someone asked a question about the composition of the cosmic rays his collaboration had detected. He excitedly jumped to a slide he'd prepared because he "knew someone would ask that question". He explained that the collaboration would release the data soon, after further analysis, but he'd show the figure now. When the figure popped up there was a big "X" in place of the plot. He was astonished and confused and wondered aloud how it could have happened. Then one of his collaborators raised her hand and admitted to have hacked into his talk. She said, "we knew you might show this but we're not ready to release it yet". He laughed at being thwarted.
Posted by eyesopen at 2:25 PM 0 comments
Labels: science news
Monday, February 16, 2009
Evolution in a Nutshell
Sorry I haven't been writing much lately. My personal life has been evolving. More on that later. But I would be remiss if I didn't have some kind of post for Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, which was on February 12th, 2009. To celebrate, let me give you evolution in a nutshell. I want to take a slightly different tack than most other treatments. I want to argue that Darwin's central brilliant idea is so close to a tautology that it can't be wrong.
Posted by eyesopen at 11:41 AM 0 comments