Physics

Bayesian Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics: Everything New Is Actually Well-Forgotten Old …

Some 80-90 years ago, an unknown Californian guy named George A. Linhart, unlike A. Einstein, P. Debye, M. Planck and W. Nernst, has managed to derive a very simple, but ultimately general mathematical formula for heat capacity vs. temperature from the fun ...

Article - Evgeni Starikov - Aug 24 2010 - 1:31am

Ask Questions!

Last week in Tesero, in front of an audience of 150 interested laypersons, I spoke about the marvels of particle physics (the poster of the conference I gave is below, click to enlarge). My first slide made clear what  I believe is the most important gift ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 24 2010 - 3:56pm

Infinitely Improbable Coincidences?

The following parallelepiped was found by Clifford Reiter und Jorge Sawyer (Lafayette College, Easton, Pensilvania) with brute force computer trials. ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Jan 30 2011 - 9:50pm

Another Sheep Back In The Yard- The Late NuTeV Anomaly

The Standard Model of particle physics has been under attack since its original formulation, in 1967, and yet it has so far resisted every assault; in so doing it has become one of the most thoroughly tested physical theories. Like it or not, the construct ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 27 2010 - 6:31pm

What Can You Do With A Million Z Bosons?

A new paper produced by the DZERO collaboration got me quite interested today, for several reasons. The analysis is based on a large data sample: over seven inverse femtobarns of proton-antiproton collisions! This is a huge dataset, the result of about 500 ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 30 2010 - 12:12pm

Quite A Series Of Remarkable Things Happen In Quantum Theory

Wave functions and characteristic vectors. ...

Article - Hans van Leunen - Aug 30 2010 - 5:55pm

String Theory: Testing The Untestable?

String theory was originally developed to try and describe the fundamental particles and forces that make up our universe.   Over the last 25 years, string theory has become some physicists' contender for a 'theory of everything', reconcilin ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 18 2010 - 1:46pm

The Golden Rules Of Error Analysis

Presenting measurement values together with some educated guess on accuracy or precision is scientific standard. It is very important to any good scientist, so much so that it is basically my religion. Delta (Δ) is my god! Those statisticians who serve sig ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Mar 11 2012 - 11:13pm

Another Week On Shift For CDF

Since today, and for a full week, I will be serving as Scientific Coordinator (SciCo) of the crew operating the CDF experiment at Fermilab. This honorable task (or in alternative, the serving as "Consumer Operator" or "ACE") is required ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 3 2010 - 10:59am

Aftermath Of A Rumor

Back to breathing the air of Fermilab after a full year away, I got to gauge a bit better the aftermath of the little incident created by a posting of mine in July. As often happens with internet bubbles, they look quite dramatic as they inflate, but they ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 4 2010 - 11:07am