Physics

Guess The Plot!

A picture is worth a thousand words. This is true both for photographs and for graphs, but sometimes the words are spoken to the wrong ears. I would like to offer you a very simple, visual test today: show you a picture and let you guess what it represents ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 19 2011 - 12:46am

Guess The Plot: Solution And Comments

After the disturbance created by the Higgs rumour in ATLAS, I think we can go back to normal business- in this case, keeping my word on discussing things that were left hanging. Your response to my small riddle was quite good, forcing me to provide a timel ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 25 2011 - 7:20am

ATLAS Supersymmetry Limits: How Sad To Be Always Right...

That's because you never learn anything new. [By the way: if you were coming here to learn the solution of my riddle about the mysterious plot I posted here yesterday, be patient- I will publish an answer tomorrow on that issue.] ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 20 2011 - 4:42pm

Mix Science And God Correctly Or Don’t!

Mixing Science and Religion is always a hot topic. Recently, there was for example a debate between Sam Harris and Robert Winston in the Guardian, about, you guessed it, science versus faith! Harris is all for science: We have Christians believing in the ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Apr 18 2012 - 1:22am

Cracks In The Fundaments Of Quantum Physics

In its first years the development of quantum physics occurred violently. As a consequence some cracks sneaked into the fundaments of this branch of physics. A careful investigation brings these cracks to the foreground. The endeavor to repair these cracks ...

Article - Hans van Leunen - May 10 2011 - 10:13am

Did Atlas Just See The Higgs?

Note: updated list of links at the bottom. (Older Note: Bet on this signal! See at the bottom of the article! Odds are two to one in your favour now!) (Older note: Update at the bottom.) It seems I am late on this one-an internal note by the Atlas collabo ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 25 2011 - 2:53pm

LHC Breaks World Intensity Record for Hadron Colliders

It was bound to happen, and well predicted in advance, but it still feels good to report it here. The LHC last night exceeded by a good 15% the previous record instataneous luminosity for hadron collider beams, previously held by the Tevatron collider at 4 ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 22 2011 - 6:44am

The World Is Not Woven From Real Stuff

Why should there not be ‘stuff’, or ‘real things’ instead of weird quantum mechanics at some microscopic scale? In other words, how can we accept that direct realism is wrong without getting too ‘difficult’. Accepting that the world is in some sense in ou ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - Apr 28 2011 - 8:06pm

Antihelium-4: New Record For Heaviest Antimatter

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory has detected the antimatter partner of the helium nucleus, antihelium-4. This new particle, also known as the anti-alpha, is the heaviest antinucleus ever detected, topping a discovery a ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 25 2011 - 11:04am

Sexy Standard Model Symmetries

What is sexy? That is in the eye of the beholder. The eye dominates,  using roughly 40% of our CPU. We don’t ask movie stars to understand spread-spectrum communications technology,  unless they do, like Hedy Lamarr. ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Jul 26 2011 - 8:43am