Physics

Despite the hopes of most and the preconceptions of many, news from the Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbay, India, report that the Standard Model is as alive and strong as it has ever been. Indeed, the recent searches for Supersymmetry by ATLAS and CMS, no ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Aug 28 2011 - 1:58pm

Entropic Gravity Getting Messy?

Entropic gravity is back in the news. Various science blogs again carry headlines dealing with entropic gravity. This time round, the reports are less favorable towards the idea of gravity being entropic, with headlines like Experiments Show Gravity Is Not ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Aug 31 2011 - 5:38pm

Taming The Look-Elsewhere Effect

Note: I have discussed today's topic in one of my best articles here some time ago, and I also gave even more technical insight in another piece. I decided to revisit the topic once more under the stimulus of a online HEP magazine, which is going to ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 1 2011 - 10:56am

Plot Of The Week- Let There Be Muons

A hadron collider is a really nice toy to play with. Sometimes when I look at all those scientists busying themselves with the design, the construction, and the operation of the Large Hadron Collider and its experiments, as well as the analysis of the prod ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 5 2011 - 12:31pm

Snarky Puzzle Action Jackson 5 Answers

Asking a specific question which has a specific answer is the sign of fertile soil instead of another shovel full of fertilizer. One question leads to variations on that query. Even dull looking questions can be informative. Snarky puzzle answers usually h ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Sep 9 2011 - 12:34am

Guess The Plot 8

The diffusion of advanced graphical tools that we have witnessed in the course of the last two decades has caused a corresponding evolution in the way physicists display their data. True, there still exist pockets of resistence here and there; but these ar ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 6 2011 - 5:55am

Relativistic mass of a rotating disc

A few years back, in my spare time, I had attempted to calculate the relativistic mass of a rotating disc as measured by a reference frame fixed at its center. I used only equations of special relativity, since the observer was at rest. I obtained the foll ...

Blog Post - Atul Gogtay - Sep 9 2011 - 10:09am

Deriving How To Derive Field Equations (1/5)

The Maxwell equations govern light, electricity and magnetism as a trinity. The Big Goal for the next five weeks is to understand my variations on those equations. I want readers to see both the forest and the trees, the planet and the subatomic particles, ...

Article - Doug Sweetser - Sep 20 2011 - 1:36am

Shaking Some Preconceptions In Statistics

I enjoyed a lot reading a "discussion" prepared by Maury Goodman on the value of "confidence level", discovery thresholds, and what physicists believe or not. If you are a HEP physicist and you want to widen your horizons on the value o ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 13 2011 - 10:53am

Explaining The Higgs At TEDx

In two weeks I will be talking at TEDx Flanders, in the magnificent theatre of the Flemish Opera of Antwerp, Belgium. I can't wait, of course, and I have prepared a presentation which is hopefully going to be digestible, but I would hope enjoyable, fo ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 16 2011 - 2:52am