Monthly Archives: July 2012
The Indian Bose in the universal boson
Read this article. Do you think Indians are harping too much about the lack of mention of Satyendra Nath Bose’s name in the media coverage of the CERN announcement last week? The articles in Hindustan Times and Economic Times seemed … Continue reading
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Tagged Colonialism, media, particle physics, Peter Higgs, Priyamvada Natarajan, Satyendra Nath Bose
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Ramblings on partons
When matter and anti-matter meet, they annihilate each other in a “flash” of energy. Usually, this release of energy is in the form of high-energy photons, or gamma rays, which are then detected, analysed, and interpreted to understand more of … Continue reading
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Tagged Bjorken scaling, Drell-Yan process, Large Hadron Collider, parton, Richard Feynman
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A simple overview of particle physics
(Click on the image for a larger size)
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Tagged accelerator physics, flowchart, particle physics, Quantum mechanics, summary
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Putting particle physics research to work
In the whole gamut of comments regarding the Higgs boson, there is a depressingly large number decrying the efforts of the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. Why? Because a lot of people think the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a yawning … Continue reading
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Tagged applied physics, ATLAS, CERN, Large Hadron Collider, materials sciences, medical imaging, spectroscopy
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Gunning for the goddamned: ATLAS results explained
Here are some of the photos from the CERN webcast yesterday (July 4, Wednesday), with an adjoining explanation of the data presented in each one and what it signifies. This first image shows the data accumulated post-analysis of the diphoton … Continue reading
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Tagged ATLAS, CERN, diphoton decay, graph, Higgs boson, Large Hadron Collider, luminosity, particle physics
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After the Higgs-boson-like particle, what’s next?
This article, as written by me, appeared in print in The Hindu on July 5, 2012. — The ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) collaboration at CERN has announced the sighting of a Higgs boson-like particle in the energy window of 125.3 … Continue reading
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Tagged CERN, Energy Frontier, Fabiola Gianotti, Higgs boson, Joe Incandela, Large Hadron Collider, New Physics, supersymmetry
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Hunt for the Higgs boson: A quick update
And it was good news after all! In an announcement made earlier today at the special conference called by CERN near Geneva, the discovery of a Higgs-boson-like particle was announced by physicists from the ATLAS and CMS collaborations that spearheaded … Continue reading
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Tagged CERN announcement, Fabiola Gianotti, Higgs boson, International Conference on High Energy Physics, Large Hadron Collider
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So, is it going to be good news tomorrow?
As the much-anticipated lead-up to the CERN announcement on Wednesday unfolds, the scientific community is rife with many speculations and few rumours. In spite of this deluge, it may be that we could expect a confirmation of the God particle’s … Continue reading
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Tagged CERN, Higgs boson, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Large Hadron Collider, New Physics, particle physics, Tevatron
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The philosophies in physics
As a big week for physics comes up–a July 4 update by CERN on the search for the Higgs boson followed by ICHEP ’12 at Melbourne–I feel really anxious as a small-time proto-journalist and particle-physics-enthusiast. If CERN announces the discovery … Continue reading
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Tagged classical mechanics, deterministic causality, eigenstate, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Higgs mechanism, philosophy of physics, probability, quantum field theory, Quantum mechanics, Standard Model, universe
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Eigenstates of the human mind
Would a mind’s computing strength be determined by its ability to make sense of counter-intuitive principles (Type I) or by its ability to solve an increasing number of simple problems in a second (Type II)? Would Type I and Type … Continue reading
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Tagged computing power, eigenstate, probability, state-function
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