[Updated/corrected, April 22, 2015] The world’s most powerful particle accelerator — the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — is scheduled to restart in March of 2015, after a two year hiatus for repairs and upgrades (and data analysis). The machine is located at CERN (in Switzerland) the largest and most prestigious high energy physics laboratory in
It was perhaps particle physics’ most elegant and aesthetically appealing theory of (almost) everything: Super Symmetry (SUSY). SUSY, a type of gauge theory developed over the past thirty years, was an ambitious attempt to integrate elementary particle physics with a broader theoretical understanding of the cosmos — an attempt to approach a ‘Theory of Everything.’
Two particle detector teams working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN facility in Switzerland have announced the discovery of a new particle — a boson — that could be THE so-called ‘god’ particle, The Higgs boson. The theoretical Higgs boson was originally postulated as a key particle that confers mass onto
“Telltale signs: The snapshot of a particle collision in the CMS detector shows decay products of a Xi_b^* baryon. Easily recognizable are, among other things, the two muons (red lines).” A new particle has been discovered in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator. The new particle is called the Xi_b^* baryon. It helps
Physicists attending the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Symposium in Paris this week have reported the results of their data analysis from recent proton collision experiments, and their preliminary findings just might herald the dawn of a ‘new age’ in quantum physics. The LHC is a 17 mile/27 km, circular proton collider (part of CERN) located
The news from CERN physicists that the speed of light “may have been exceeded” sent a lightning bolt of excitement and disbelief (not quite surpassing the speed of light) through the world’s physics community. Fully accepting that their results would be met with great skepticism, the same physicists are inviting other particle physicists and labs to verify — or disprove — their results, which, if validated, will overturn one of the principle tenets of modern physics: that nothing travels faster than the speed of ligh
Slated to be shuttered indefinitely (or sold for parts) later this year, the nation’s largest particle collider — the Tevatron — may have detected traces of a previously unknown specie of particle that could potentially alter Quantum Theory.
…And with it, our chance to beat the Europeans to the quantum punch: the confirmation of the Higgs Boson — the mysterious particle that bestows mass unto all other particles. It’s one of physic’s biggest “prizes”, but, it seems that our Dept. of Energy couldn’t come up with the extra 35 million to keep the
Every known particle or atom of “normal” matter in the measurable universe has its own corresponding antiparticle which is in every way like the normal particle except for its charge (opposite of the normal particle) and parity (its left or right orientation). Mathematically, such antimatter particles can be described as moving backward in time.* When
