Tag Archives: Large Hadron Collider
Is the Higgs boson doing its job?
At the heart of particle physics lies the Standard Model, a theory that has stood for nearly half a century as the best description of the subatomic realm. It tells us what particles exist, how they interact, and why the … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged ATLAS detector, Benjamin Lee, Chris Quigg, deep learning, deep neural networks, electrons, Higgs boson, Higgs field, Higgs mechanism, Hugh Thacker, Large Hadron Collider, longitudinal polarisation, muons, neutrino oscillation, neutrinos, photons, same-sign WW scattering, Standard Model of particle physics, technicolor theory, transverse polarisation, vector boson scattering, W bosons, weak nuclear force, Z bosons
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Physicists test if they can load antimatter on a truck
Physicists in Europe have reported that it’s possible to transport charged particles on a truck for four hours without disturbing them in any way. This seemingly run-of-the-mill announcement, reported in Nature on May 14, actually contains within its details the … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged antimatter, Antimatter Factory, BASE-STEP Penning trap, CERN, CP violation, CPT symmetry, Large Hadron Collider, liquid helium, Penning trap, quantum field theory
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Technical foundation for a muon collider laid at J-PARC
A particle collider is a machine that energises two beams of subatomic particles and smashes them head on. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe is the world’s largest and most famous particle collider. It accelerates (with the effect of … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged electron-positron collider, ionisation laser, J-PARC, Large Hadron Collider, linear collider, muon collider, muons, proton-proton collider, radiofrequency cavity, radiofrequency quadrupole, synchrotron radiation, thermal energy, transverse emittance
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“Who are we?”
From ‘‘The physics community has never split like this’: row erupts over plans for new Large Hadron Collider’, The Guardian, March 29, 2025: However, if the FCC were given the go-ahead, it could lock up funds for decades and end … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged CERN, Future Circular Collider, Large Hadron Collider, Nirmalya Kajuri, particle physics, Sabine Hossenfelder, The Guardian
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“Why has no Indian won a science Nobel this year?”
For all their flaws, the science Nobel Prizes – at the time they’re announced, in the first week of October every year – provide a good opportunity to learn about some obscure part of the scientific endeavour with far-reaching consequences … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Alfred Nobel, attosecond physics, Big Science, in-vitro transcribed mRNA, Large Hadron Collider, LIGO India, Nobel Prize, quantum dots
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New LHC data puts ‘new physics’ lead to bed
One particle in the big zoo of subatomic particles is the B meson. It has a very short lifetime once it’s created. In rare instances it decays to three lighter particles: a kaon, a lepton and an anti-lepton. There are … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged B mesons, electrons, flavour-changing neutral current, Kaons, Large Hadron Collider, lepton-flavour universality, LHCb, muons, New Physics, Standard Model of particle physics
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Science’s humankind shield
“Science benefits all of humanity,” they say. Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Astronomy, Colonialism, history of astronomy, Holmdel Horn, Large Hadron Collider, self-perception, settler colonialism, Thirty Meter Telescope
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What arguments against the ‘next LHC’ say about funding Big Physics
A few days ago, a physicist (and PhD holder) named Thomas Hartsfield published a strange article in Big Think about why building a $100-billion particle physics machine like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a bad idea. The article was so replete with … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Big Science, Big Think, Gaganyaan, Large Hadron Collider, Matthew Strassler, Thomas Hartsfield
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On tabletop accelerators
Tabletop accelerators are an exciting new field of research in which physicists use devices the size of a shoe box, or something just a bit bigger, to accelerate electrons to high energies. The ‘conventional way’ to do this has been … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged extreme UV light, Large Hadron Collider, laser plasma acceleration, tabletop accelerators, wakefield accelerator
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