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Stories filed under: "lhc"

DailyDirt: Always More To Discover…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The universe is just incredibly vast and full of stuff we’re only scratching the surface of detecting. Every so often, though, there are some folks who think we’ve learned it all — or that there’s not much more left to figure out. But there’s always more. The pace of technology might not advance fast enough for us to be able to continue to discover new things at the rate we’ve been doing so, but the “peak science” event probably hasn’t happened yet (or may not happen at all).

• The Higgs boson was detected in 2012, but there might be a heavier elementary particle that could disrupt the Standard Model in physics. The evidence is far from conclusive, but more data is on the way, and physicists should be able to determine if this new blip is some weird instrument fluke or a real particle in the near future. [url]
• Pessimistic physicists could argue that experimental particle physics is over — the Standard Model is verifiable, and if we can’t find more particles, it could be very difficult to come up with more explanations for things that we can never actually measure. Isn’t it convenient that physicists are recently finding more particles? [url]
• Physicists had a pretty good year in 2015. The field of physics got an upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider, more telescopes looking for gravity waves and dark matter, and recognition for over 1,300 physicists working on the understanding of neutrinos. Also, plans for a new International Linear Collider could lead to a next-generation particle accelerator — for smashing electrons and positrons — built in Japan. [url]

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Filed Under: higgs boson, ilc, international linear collider, large hadron collider, lhc, neutrino, peak science, physics, science, standard model

DailyDirt: When He's Underwater Does He Get Wet? Nobody Knows. Particle Man.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The field of modern particle physics seems like an exclusive club. Fundamental particles are literally everywhere, but it’s not quite practical to observe a Higgs Boson in your kitchen. Sure, you could build your own cloud chamber and see some cosmic rays, but making your own TeV particle collider takes a bit more expertise. Maybe experimental evidence for theoretical physics is highly overrated anyway.

• CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has just observed a class of particles called pentaquarks. The existence of this kind of particle has been theorized for decades, and now we have evidence that can help us better understand these elusive pentaquarks as well as other fundamental particles. [url]
• The LHC also detected some new baryons earlier this year — aka “zi-b-prime” and “zi-b-star”. These particles were also predicted years ago and now have estimated properties based on quantum chromodynamics (QCD) calculations confirmed by experimental measurements. [url]
• The ‘glueball’ is a particle consisting of two or more gluons, and it has yet to be found. A class of unconventional glueballs might be easier to observe — made of three gluons instead of two — and are called ‘oddballs’ because physicists are fond of cute names for particles. [url]
• An exotic particle called a Majorana fermion is its own antiparticle and is surprisingly stable (ie. it doesn’t annihilate itself). Some physicists predict that Majorana fermions might serve as quantum computing qubits, but so far they only seem to be easily found at the ends of atomic-scale superconducting wires — not quite the most convenient materials to build a quantum computer out of. [url]

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Filed Under: antiparticle, baryons, cern, glueballs, gluons, guts, large hadron collider, lhc, majorana fermion, oddballs, particle physics, pentaquark, physics, qcd, quantum chromodynamics, qubits

DailyDirt: If I Could Catch Time In A Bottle…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The scientific method relies on independent verification of measurements and results, but sometimes it’s not easy to replicate experiments or measure things at the leading edge of science. Scam artists are often identified when they explain that their results are so far advanced that no one else can replicate them. Real scientists, though, don’t buy that. Here are a few scientific discoveries that still need a bit more verification.

• Neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light don’t seem to exist, and the CERN team that first said they saw some FTL neutrinos, now admit they made a couple mistakes. the CERN team, after reporting unusual data, determined definitively that it was caused by a mistake (and what that mistake was) with input from the broader scientific community. As some expected, there were systematic errors that produced a timing error of just 60 nanoseconds. [url]
• CERN scientists have trapped anti-hydrogen for a little over 15 minutes — a new record that could allow them to determine more about how antimatter behaves. Does anti-hydrogen rise, fall or do nothing in a gravitational field? [url]
• The Large Hadron Collider is still hunting down the elusive Higgs boson which might not exist at all. This sub-atomic particle has been nicknamed the “God Particle” — but it looks like it’s just a matter of time before people either find it or start re-writing modern physics. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: anti-hydrogen, antimatter, ftl, gravity, higgs boson, lhc, measurements, neutrinos, particles, physics, science
Companies: cern

DailyDirt: Measuring Really Small Stuff

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Science has made a lot of progress, and most of that progress has been based on increasingly accurate measurements. Scientists have access to better and better tools that allow them to see ever smaller bits of matter. Here are some recent discoveries and some nifty new equipment that might help us see how more stuff works.

• The DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser — which can capture images of the 3D structures of proteins, intact viruses, and perhaps live microbes in action at a scale that could revolutionize the study of life. The slight downside for this tool is that the measured samples are totally destroyed in the process. [url]
• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has found no evidence for the Higgs boson yet. Remember, scientists never prove anything, they only disprove things. But now, physicists can exclude the Higgs mass range of 144-207 GeV/c2 from their models. [url]
• A new ultra-sensitive Raman scattering sensor claims to be a billion times more sensitive than previously possible. Funded by DARPA, the sensor can detect all kinds of chemicals — such as explosives or biological agents. [url]
• Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have measured something strange with the Tevatron particle accelerator. It could be a new particle or force… or just a glitch. [url]
• To discover more interesting science-related stuff, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: fermi national accelerator laboratory, large hadron collider, laser, lhc, slac, tevatron