US/LHC - Large Hadron Collider. Large Hadron Collider. This week on SciByte … We take a look at Large Hadron Collider, what it is, what it’s doing and how it’s doing it.
Plus we take a peek at science behind the curtain of the Universe at some the smallest elements and more basic interactions that makes everything we know and see tick. All that and more, on SciByte! Show Notes: Disclaimer! Not Even Wrong. Graham Farmelo has posted a very interesting interview he did with Witten last year, as part of his promotion of his forthcoming book The Universe Speaks in Numbers.
One surprising thing I learned from the interview is that Witten learned Calculus when he was 11 (this would have been 1962). He quite liked that, but then lost interest in math for many years, since no one gave him more advanced material to study. After years of studying non math/physics subjects and doing things like working on the 1972 McGovern campaign, he finally realized physics and math were where his talents lay. He ended up doing a Ph.D. at Princeton with David Gross, starting work with him just months after the huge breakthrough of asymptotic freedom, which put in place the final main piece of the Standard Model.
If only back in 1962 someone had told Witten about linear algebra and quantum mechanics, the entire history of the subject could have been quite different.