Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson | 'God Particle' | What Would the Discovery of the Higgs Boson Particle Mean? | Search for Higgs at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer | December 13, 2011 08:04am ET Credit: MichaelTaylor | Shutterstock Scientists announced today (Dec. 13) that they're closing in on the elusive Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that's been predicted but never detected. Now researchers at the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, say they've narrowed down the mass range of the Higgs, and even see preliminary hints that it might exist.
If physicists can definitively detect the Higgs boson and determine its mass, the discovery would have wide-reaching implications. Here are five of the biggest. Time and the multiverse. This article first appeared on the FQXi community website, which does for physics and cosmology what Plus does for maths: provide the public with a deeper understanding of known and future discoveries in these areas, and their potential implications for our worldview.
FQXi are our partners in our Science fiction, science fact project, which asked you to nominate questions from the frontiers of physics you'd like to have answered. This article addresses the question "What is time? ". Click here to see other articles on the topic. "You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. For many of us, this song from Casablanca evokes memories of romance. Mersini-Houghton's view of time comes from looking at the bigger picture — the biggest possible picture, in fact. Womb to tomb We travel through life from womb to tomb, not vice-versa, yet physicists have no real explanation for why time flows in only one direction. Laura Mersini-Houghton. Arrowless time? About this article. CERNLand brings the excitement of CERN's research to your kids!
Not Even Wrong. I’ve just replaced the old version of my draft “spacetime is right-handed” paper (discussed here) with a new, hopefully improved version. If it is improved, thanks are due to a couple people who sent helpful comments on the older version, sometimes making clear that I wasn’t getting across at all the main idea. To further clarify what I’m claiming, here I’ll try and write out an informal explanation of what I see as the relevant fundamental issues about four-dimensional geometry, which appear even for $\mathbf R^4$, before one starts thinking about manifolds. Spinors, twistors and complex spacetime In complex spacetime $\mathbf C^4$ the story of spinors and twistors is quite simple and straightforward. While spinors are the irreducible objects for understanding complex four-dimensional rotations, twistors are the irreducible objects for understanding complex four-dimensional conformal transformations.
Real forms In this case the conjugation acts in a subtle manner. Some philosophy. Frames of Reference: Clever Vintage Film Makes Physics Fun. Quantum Computer Simulates Hydrogen Molecule Just Right | Wired Science. Almost three decades ago, Richard Feynman — known popularly as much for his bongo drumming and pranks as for his brilliant insights into physics — told an electrified audience at MIT how to build a computer so powerful that its simulations “will do exactly the same as nature.” Not approximately, as digital computers tend to do when facing complex physical problems that must be addressed via mathematical shortcuts — such as forecasting orbits of many moons whose gravities constantly readjust their trajectories.
Computer models of climate and other processes come close to nature but hardly imitate it. Feynman meant exactly, as in down to the last jot. Now, finally, groups at Harvard and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, have designed and built a computer that hews closely to these specs. It is a quantum computer, as Feynman forecast. Einstein and car batteries: A spark of genius. Antimatter caught streaming from thunderstorms on Earth. 11 January 2011Last updated at 08:34 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Seattle Electrons racing up electric field lines give rise to light, then particles, then light A space telescope has accidentally spotted thunderstorms on Earth producing beams of antimatter. Such storms have long been known to give rise to fleeting sparks of light called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. But results from the Fermi telescope show they also give out streams of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, positrons.
The surprise result was presented by researchers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in the US. It deepens a mystery about terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, or TGFs - sparks of light that are estimated to occur 500 times a day in thunderstorms on Earth. Thunderstorms are known to create tremendously high electric fields - evidenced by lightning strikes. Scaling down Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End QuoteSteven CummerDuke University. Feather And Hammer Drop On Moon. US LHC Blog » But what are quarks made of? Part 2. Hello, again. Thanks for all the excellent comments on my last post. In my last post I explained that our current theory makes the assumption, which has not been experimentally verified, that quarks are indivisible, point-like particles (“elementary” particles). I also discussed why it is reasonable to think that quarks might actually be made up of even smaller, currently unknown particles.
If this is the case, we would call quarks “composite” particles instead of “elementary” particles. In this post I describe how we search for evidence that quarks are composite particles. 1. 2. 3. So far this discussion has been very abstract. You can see that the quarks that collide exit the collision at a large angle, while the quarks that did not collide zip right past each other. Two jets (green) exiting the collision point (yellow dot). That’s all the background you need for me to tell you about the physical quantity Q that we use to determine whether quarks are composite particles. 1. 2. 3.
This Will Mindfuck You: The Double-Slit Experiment. The video below shows scientific proof that there is something NOT quite logical or scientific about this universe. The mere act of observation can completely change the outcome of an event! Before I get too ahead of myself, you need to watch the video below to understand: (Forgive the corny cartoon character explaining the concept — at least he knows his stuff) Recap: When a camera observed the electrons, they acted as particles. So what’s the reason for this? Want even further proof? Then in 2002, a group of researchers set up the experiment in a way that the electron could not possibly receive information about the existence of an observing instrument.
Here’s the kicker: The insertion of the interferometer took only 40 nanoseconds (ns) while it would take 160 ns for the information about the configuration to travel from the interferometer to reach the photon before it entered the slits. The Results: The photons acted like particles 93% of the time that they were observed. 1. 2. 3. European XFEL. The Particle Adventure. The Periodic Table of Videos - University of Nottingham.