Physics

Quaternions For A Third Grader

Third graders enjoy clay and pipe cleaners. It might sound cruel to teach them graduate level graph theory most math Ph.D.’s have not seen, but I might get away with it if I uses the right craft supplies. Tell kids spinach is good for them. Children are ri ...

Article - Doug Sweetser - Mar 15 2011 - 11:04am

Cosmic Bubble Theory Of Universe Expansion Ruled Out

Researchers say they have ruled  the cosmic bubble theory, an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy, after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy. The universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate and so ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 15 2011 - 4:00am

NEUTEL Started!

The NEUTEL 2011 conference started today in Venice. Many experiments in neutrino physics will be reporting new results there, and the interest is of course high in the community. Along with a few vailant physicists from my university, I will be blogging fo ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 15 2011 - 5:49am

What Is A BLEVE?

What is a BLEVE? A BLEVE is a B oiling-L iquid E xpanding- V apor E xplosion. It is fairly common knowledge that removing the radiator cap of a vehicle with a hot engine will cause the ejection of boiling water. ...

Article - Patrick Lockerby - Mar 15 2011 - 6:15pm

Nuclear disasters, such as Japan's, due to natural disaster can happen anywhere! Here is why and what we can do about it.

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake is equal to about 450 megatons of TNT being set off underground.  Due to the situation at the Daiichi nuclear plant near in Sendai Japan there is much talk of how nuclear plants should not be built in earthquake zones. ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Mar 15 2011 - 3:36pm

Interesting Talks From NEUTEL11

My blogging output here is scarce this week, because I am spending my time at the NEUTEL 2011 conference in Venice. I am producing some posts summarizing the talks I hear at the conference, together with a few colleagues. Our blog there will be short-lived ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 16 2011 - 12:03pm

CPT Violation In The Top Quark Mass?

The CDF collaboration sent to the preprint arxiv a new paper a few days ago. In it, they report on a measurement of the mass difference of top and anti-top quarks. The result would not be worth discussing in detail, if it did not show a 2-sigma discrepancy ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 21 2011 - 8:29am

Lunch Box For A Theoretical Physicist

Lacking the papers to prove I am a theoretical physicist, I have built something working class: a lunchbox The box contains Yoplait Yogurt, Del Monte 100 Calorie Mixed Fruit, and White Cheddar Cheese Smart Food Pop Corn (note: all product placements are un ...

Article - Doug Sweetser - Sep 16 2011 - 5:26pm

Record Luminosity For LHC

This might become the title of a series of posts, much like my "say of the week" series. In fact, the Large Hadron Collider is back in operation since earlier this month, and the instantaneous luminosity at which it collides protons at a center-o ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 23 2011 - 12:52pm

The Quote Of The Week

"The observed exclusion limit is found from the point where the 95% quantile (dotted line) crosses the median value of the distribution of Q values for the QCD prediction (dashed line). This occurs at Lambda = 9.5 TeV. The expected limit is Lambda = ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 25 2011 - 1:33am