Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Japan govt names radiation physicist as new atomic regulator head
From Reuters: Japan govt names radiation physicist as new atomic regulator head
* Appointments aimed at boosting shattered public confidence in nuclear power
Friday, July 27, 2012
Our Political Black Hole
From the New York Times, Op Ed: Our Political Black Hole
Scientists in Geneva announced this week that they had found a new subatomic particle that they were 99.999999 percent sure was the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle.” Even though we had no earthly idea what that meant, we were definitely excited.
Scientists in Geneva announced this week that they had found a new subatomic particle that they were 99.999999 percent sure was the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle.” Even though we had no earthly idea what that meant, we were definitely excited.
It’s given us so much to think about: how existence began, the structure
of the universe, the difference between bosons and fermions. And, of
course, what it will mean to the presidential race.
The first thing all patriotic Americans are going to want to know is why
something this important happened elsewhere. The Large Hadron Collider,
where the physicists did the work, was built by the European
Organization for Nuclear Research. We were building a Superconducting
Super Collider of our own, in Waxahachie, Tex., but Congress stopped the
financing for it in 1993.
“It’s disheartening that a large number of fairly intelligent people
could do such a thing,” said Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize-winning
physicist, when the budget-cutting House of Representatives ended the
program. This was, of course, a long time ago, back when Americans still
undertook expensive, daring construction projects and believed the
House of Representatives had a large number of fairly intelligent
people.
But about the Higgs boson. As Dennis Overbye explained in The Times, it
is “the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic
molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with
mass.” And we have so many questions. Does it provide evidence of the
existence of parallel worlds? If so, is it possible to move to one that
doesn’t have Michele Bachmann?
Most of all, however, we want to know who this helps in the election:
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney today denounced Barack Obama for allowing
Europe to beat the United States at particle physics research. Under his
administration, Romney vowed, “All particles that bind the earth
together will be discovered in America, by Americans and for Americans.”
Under questioning from reporters, Romney said that his favorite kind of subatomic particle is the fermion.
SOMEWHERE ON A BUS — Speaking to a crowd of blue-collar workers in Ohio,
President Barack Obama hailed the scientific news from Geneva as “a
great moment in history, not unlike my rescue of the auto industry.” The
physicists who made the discovery, Obama noted, all had health
insurance.
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today called for the privatization of the
Higgs boson. “Binding the earth together is something that could be
handled much more efficiently by the for-profit sector,” the Republican
governor and deeply available vice-presidential prospect said.
“Auctioning off the rights to the Higgs boson will create American jobs
and balance American budgets.”
When a reporter noted that the boson was discovered in Switzerland, Christie called him “stupid” and “off-topic.”
CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — Rick Santorum today denounced the European
Organization for Nuclear Research for discovering something that is
nicknamed the God particle. “If God had wanted there to be a particle,
he’d have given it to Adam and Eve,” said Santorum, who is traveling
through the Hawkeye State this week because, really, he doesn’t have
much else to do.
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Aides to Mitt Romney said the former governor’s
favorite kind of subatomic particle is actually the boson.
SOMEWHERE ELSE ON A BUS — President Barack Obama told a crowd of
blue-collar workers that there have been more Higgs bosons discovered
during his administration than during those of both George Bushes
combined.
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney said today that when he called for an
American effort to beat the Europeans in particle physics research, he
did not actually mean spending money to build a supercollider, but
merely “the need for our physicists to think harder.” The Republican
presidential contender said he believed this could be accomplished by
“the elimination of onerous, physics-research-killing regulations.”
JUST OUTSIDE OF WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Protesters today passed out cartoons
of Mitt Romney with a large, cuddly looking Higgs boson strapped to a
crate on the front of his jet ski.
WASHINGTON — Surrogates for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sparred over
the meaning of the potential discovery of the Higgs boson. On “Meet the
Press,” Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana called it “a questionable throw
of the dice by the same folks who gave us the euro.”
On “Face the Nation,” David Axelrod, the Obama campaign communications
director, said that if the Large Hadron Collider had been acquired by
Bain Capital it would have been “burdened with debt and sold for scrap
metal” and that Romney would be “the most anti-physics president since
Franklin Pierce.”
NEW YORK — Donald Trump told reporters that “my people in Hong Kong”
have uncovered evidence that America’s failure to take the lead in
subatomic particle research was because of a conspiracy between the
Obama administration and unnamed Chinese industrialists. He also said
that he had invited the Higgs boson to be a contender on “All-Star
Celebrity Apprentice.”
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Hawking lost $100 on Higgs discovery bet
From Sky News: Hawking lost $100 on Higgs discovery bet
Renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking says the Nobel
Prize should be given to Peter Higgs, the man who gave his name to the
Higgs boson particle.
Renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking says the Nobel
Prize should be given to Peter Higgs, the man who gave his name to the
Higgs boson particle.
Former Cambridge University professor Hawking also joked that the discovery had actually cost him $100 in a bet.
In
an interview with the BBC Wednesday, Hawking, who has motor neurone
disease, said: 'This is an important result and should earn Peter Higgs
the Nobel Prize.
'But it is a pity in a way because the great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn't expect.
'For
this reason I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that
the Higgs particle wouldn't be found. It seems I have just lost $100.'
After
half a century of research, physicists announced at the European
Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) Wednesday they had found a new
sub-atomic particle consistent with the elusive Higgs boson which is
believed to confer mass.
Hawking said the discovery was of major importance.
'If
the decay and other interactions of this particle are as we expect, it
will be strong evidence for the so-called standard model of particle
physics, the theory that explains all our experiments so far,' Hawking
said.
Monday, July 23, 2012
A Blip That Speaks of Our Place in the Universe
From : The New York Times: A Blip That Speaks of Our Place in the Universe
ASPEN, Colo. — Last week, physicists around the world were glued to computers at very odd hours (I was at a 1 a.m. physics “party” here with a large projection screen and dozens of colleagues) to watch live as scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, outside Geneva, announced that they had apparently found one of the most important missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is nature.
ASPEN, Colo. — Last week, physicists around the world were glued to computers at very odd hours (I was at a 1 a.m. physics “party” here with a large projection screen and dozens of colleagues) to watch live as scientists at the Large Hadron Collider, outside Geneva, announced that they had apparently found one of the most important missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is nature.
The “Higgs particle,”
proposed almost 50 years ago to allow for consistency between
theoretical predictions and experimental observations in elementary
particle physics, appears to have been discovered
— even as the detailed nature of the discovery allows room for even
more exotic revelations that may be just around the corner.
It is natural for those not deeply involved in the half-century quest
for the Higgs to ask why they should care about this seemingly esoteric
discovery. There are three reasons.
First, it caps one of the most remarkable intellectual adventures in
human history — one that anyone interested in the progress of knowledge
should at least be aware of.
Second, it makes even more remarkable the precarious accident that
allowed our existence to form from nothing — further proof that the
universe of our senses is just the tip of a vast, largely hidden cosmic
iceberg.
And finally, the effort to uncover this tiny particle represents the
very best of what the process of science can offer to modern
civilization.
If one is a theoretical physicist working on some idea late at night or
at a blackboard with colleagues over coffee one afternoon, it is almost
terrifying to imagine that something that you cook up in your mind might
actually be real. It’s like staring at a large jar and being asked to
guess the number of jelly beans inside; if you guess right, it seems too
good to be true.
The prediction of the Higgs particle accompanied a remarkable revolution
that completely changed our understanding of particle physics in the
latter part of the 20th century.
Just 50 years ago, in spite of the great advances of physics in the
previous half century, we understood only one of the four fundamental
forces of nature — electromagnetism — as a fully consistent quantum
theory. In just one subsequent decade, however, not only had three of
the four known forces succumbed to our investigations, but a new elegant
unity of nature had been uncovered.
It was found that all of the known forces could be described using a
single mathematical framework — and that two of the forces,
electromagnetism and the weak force (which governs the nuclear reactions
that power the sun), were actually different manifestations of a single
underlying theory.
How could two such different forces be related? After all, the photon,
the particle that conveys electromagnetism, has no mass, while the
particles that convey the weak force are very massive — almost 100 times
as heavy as the particles that make up atomic nuclei, a fact that
explains why the weak force is weak.
What the British physicist Peter Higgs and several others showed is that
if there exists an otherwise invisible background field permeating all
of space, then the particles that convey some force like
electromagnetism can interact with this field and effectively encounter
resistance to their motion and slow down, like a swimmer moving through
molasses.
As a result, these particles can behave as if they are heavy, as if they
have a mass. The physicist Steven Weinberg later applied this idea to a
model of the weak and electromagnetic forces previously proposed by
Sheldon L. Glashow, and everything fit together.
This idea can be extended to the rest of particles in nature, including
the protons and neutrons and electrons that make up the atoms in our
bodies. If some particle interacts more strongly with this background
field, it ends up acting heavier. If it interacts more weakly, it acts
lighter. If it doesn’t interact at all, like the photon, it remains
massless.
f anything sounds too good to be true, this is it. The miracle of mass —
indeed of our very existence, because if not for the Higgs, there would
be no stars, no planets and no people — is possible because of some
otherwise hidden background field whose only purpose seems to be to
allow the world to look the way it does.
Dr. Glashow, who along with Dr. Weinberg won a Nobel Prize
in Physics, later once referred to this “Higgs field” as the “toilet”
of modern physics because that’s where all the ugly details that allow
the marvelous beauty of the physical world are hidden.
But relying on invisible miracles is the stuff of religion, not science.
To ascertain whether this remarkable accident was real, physicists
relied on another facet of the quantum world.
Associated with every background field is a particle, and if you pick a
point in space and hit it hard enough, you may whack out real particles.
The trick is hitting it hard enough over a small enough volume.
And that’s the rub. After 50 years of trying, including a failed attempt
in this country to build an accelerator to test these ideas, no sign of
the Higgs had appeared. In fact, I was betting against it, since a
career in theoretical physics has taught me that nature usually has a
far richer imagination than we do.
Until last week.
Every second at the Large Hadron Collider, enough data is generated to
fill more than 1,000 one-terabyte hard drives — more than the
information in all the world’s libraries. The logistics of filtering and
analyzing the data to find the Higgs particle peeking out under a
mountain of noise, not to mention running the most complex machine
humans have ever built, is itself a triumph of technology and
computational wizardry of unprecedented magnitude.
The physicist Victor F. Weisskopf — the colorful director in the early 1960s of CERN,
the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which operates the
collider — once described large particle accelerators as the gothic
cathedrals of our time. Like those beautiful remnants of antiquity,
accelerators require the cutting edge of technology, they take decades
or more to build, and they require the concerted efforts of thousands of
craftsmen and women. At CERN, each of the mammoth detectors used to
study collisions requires the work of thousands of physicists, from
scores of countries, speaking several dozen languages.
Most significantly perhaps, cathedrals and colliders are both works of
incomparable grandeur that celebrate the beauty of being alive.
The apparent discovery of the Higgs may not result in a better toaster
or a faster car. But it provides a remarkable celebration of the human
mind’s capacity to uncover nature’s secrets, and of the technology we
have built to control them. Hidden in what seems like empty space —
indeed, like nothing, which is getting more interesting all the time —
are the very elements that allow for our existence.
By demonstrating that, last week’s discovery will change our view of
ourselves and our place in the universe. Surely that is the hallmark of
great music, great literature, great art ...and great science.
¶
Saturday, July 21, 2012
'God-particle' Nobel Prize winning Pakistani physicist shunned in own country over religious beliefs
From Newstrack India: 'God-particle' Nobel Prize winning Pakistani physicist shunned in own country over religious beliefs
London, July 10 (ANI): Abdus Salam (died in 1996) , the first Pakistani to win a Nobel Prize in physics after he predicted the existence of the so-called 'God particle', had been shunned in his own country because of his religious beliefs.
Salam had predicted the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle in the 1970s but despite being a leading figure in Pakistan's Space and Nuclear Program, he was shunned by Muslim fundamentalists when they took control of the country during those years.
According to the Daily Mail, although Salam was a Muslim, the physicist, who died in 1996, belonged to the Ahmadi sect, who believed Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was their spiritual leader as opposed to the Prophet Muhammad.
As a result Salam, along with Pakistanis from other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Christians and Hindus were attacked by militants from the Sunni Muslim majority.
The physicist's life, along with the fate of the three million other Ahmadis in Pakistan, drastically changed in 1974 when parliament amended the Constitution to declare that members of the sect were not considered Muslims under Pakistani law.
Salam resigned from his government post in protest and eventually moved to Europe to pursue his work and created a centre in Italy for theoretical physics to help physicists from the developing world.
He reportedly received a string of international prizes and honours for his groundbreaking work in the world of subatomic physics, while in 1979, he shared the Nobel Prize with Steven Weinberg for his research on the Standard Model of particle physics, which theorized that fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe.
Salam died on 21 November 1996 at the age of 70 in Oxford, England, after a long illness.
London, July 10 (ANI): Abdus Salam (died in 1996) , the first Pakistani to win a Nobel Prize in physics after he predicted the existence of the so-called 'God particle', had been shunned in his own country because of his religious beliefs.
Salam had predicted the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle in the 1970s but despite being a leading figure in Pakistan's Space and Nuclear Program, he was shunned by Muslim fundamentalists when they took control of the country during those years.
According to the Daily Mail, although Salam was a Muslim, the physicist, who died in 1996, belonged to the Ahmadi sect, who believed Hadrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was their spiritual leader as opposed to the Prophet Muhammad.
As a result Salam, along with Pakistanis from other religious minorities, such as Shiite Muslims, Christians and Hindus were attacked by militants from the Sunni Muslim majority.
The physicist's life, along with the fate of the three million other Ahmadis in Pakistan, drastically changed in 1974 when parliament amended the Constitution to declare that members of the sect were not considered Muslims under Pakistani law.
Salam resigned from his government post in protest and eventually moved to Europe to pursue his work and created a centre in Italy for theoretical physics to help physicists from the developing world.
He reportedly received a string of international prizes and honours for his groundbreaking work in the world of subatomic physics, while in 1979, he shared the Nobel Prize with Steven Weinberg for his research on the Standard Model of particle physics, which theorized that fundamental forces govern the overall dynamics of the universe.
Salam died on 21 November 1996 at the age of 70 in Oxford, England, after a long illness.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
'The Real Work Has only Just Begun'
From der Spiegel.com: 'The Real Work Has only Just Begun'
In a SPIEGEL interview, physicist Rolf-Dieter Heuer, general director of the particle physics research center at CERN near Geneva, discusses the remaining unsolved mysteries in his field following the spectacular discovery of the Higgs boson.
In a SPIEGEL interview, physicist Rolf-Dieter Heuer, general director of the particle physics research center at CERN near Geneva, discusses the remaining unsolved mysteries in his field following the spectacular discovery of the Higgs boson.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Heuer, now that the Higgs boson has finally been discovered at CERN, are there plans to shut down the particle accelerator?
Heuer: By no means. We have achieved a breakthrough, but the real
work has only just begun. We need to measure our find, observe its
interaction with other particles and also determine its properties. And
if, when doing that, we find something that contradicts our theory, then
that will automatically open the door to a new type of physics. After
all, our so-called Standard Model only describes 4 to 5 percent of our
universe.
SPIEGEL: And the rest?
Heuer: About one-fourth is made up of dark matter. It's what keeps the rotating galaxies from simply flying apart. That cannot be explained with visible matter alone. What we call dark energy accounts for the almost three-fourths that remain. It causes the universe to expand at an ever faster rate. But we still don't understand the mechanism which expands space equally in all directions.
SPIEGEL: Could the Higgs provide new clues?
Heuer: The Higgs field, which is part of the particle, has a decisive characteristic that fits with dark energy: It works in all directions simultaneously.
SPIEGEL: So Higgs could be the bridgehead to the unknown?
Heuer: Precisely. We don't know if it has anything to do with dark energy. But we suspect that there is a similar field beyond the Standard Model -- the other end of the bridgehead, so to speak.
SPIEGEL: And what if Higgs doesn't do you the favor of revealing such secrets?
Heuer: We will still have found a particle that helps provide all other particles with mass. It finally proves that our Standard Model is completely accurate. What we must do now is find the hole in this model through which we can advance to the remaining 95 percent of the universe. We still don't know what role the particle we have found plays. It's like catching sight of your best friend from a distance. At first it could also be someone who looks a lot like that person, but it turns out to be someone totally different. You only find out for sure when you get closer.
SPIEGEL: What do you plan to do next?
Heuer: By the end of the year, we plan to fire protons at each other. Then we will shut down the accelerator for around two years for maintenance work. When it goes back into commission, things will get exciting: Step by step we will double the energy, allowing us to create particles with ever greater mass. And it could be that by doing so, we will also exceed the threshold to dark matter. That would open new doors.
SPIEGEL: What do you hope to find?
Heuer: Primarily the first traces of supersymmetry. That's the name of the theory which holds that every particle also has a shadow particle -- a mirror world predicted by the theory of anti-matter. Supersymmetry's lightest particle could be stable enough to be within the reach of our accelerator. That would be a good candidate for dark matter. If we find it, it would represent a massive leap forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you know exactly where you need to search? Or do you just look randomly?
Heuer: Both. We have to be entirely open to unexpected findings. Still, with supersymmetry, we already have a direction and our search is targeted. But it will no longer be as focused as it was with Higgs.
SPIEGEL: When searching for Higgs, you essentially had a ready-made profile of the particle, the one published by Peter Higgs in 1964. Does he deserve the Nobel prize?
Heuer: I think so. But there are also others who were working on similar models back then …
SPIEGEL: … while the Nobel rules only allow for a maximum of three prize winners at a time.
Heuer: Yes, that needs to be changed. In many areas of research -- from particle physics to genetics -- ever larger groups of people work together because that's the only way it can work. At some point, the time will have passed when individuals are capable of major discoveries.
SPIEGEL: How many researchers were involved in the long journey towards finding Higgs?
Heuer: In the end, between three and four thousand took part in each of the two major participating experiments.
SPIEGEL: Are such large groups able to change focus and commit to new goals? Or will each researcher soon go back to doing his or her own thing?
Heuer: No, our people will surely stick with it, especially now. The ability to work together has to be in the blood of particle physicists. They learn very early on that it is impossible to advance on one's own and that constant exchange is necessary.
SPIEGEL: Doesn't an individual's achievements get lost in the crowd?
Heuer: No, it is still very easy to identify an excellent physicist. Good people climb quickly -- just like in a company.
SPIEGEL: How large can research teams be and still remain manageable?
Heuer: Fifteen years ago, I led a project with 350 people. At the time we thought that was the upper end. Now we have 10 times as many. I would say the real limits we are experiencing are in technology and in the detectors that we are capable of building.
SPIEGEL: For how much longer will you be able to continue conducting experiments with the Large Hadron Collider? At which point will it have done its duty?
Heuer: We are planning up until 2030. It may be worthwhile to
upgrade the machine again during the 2020s -- for a relatively low extra
investment, we would then be able to collide considerably more
particles. But it depends on what we have found by that time.
SPIEGEL: And afterwards? Will you need even bigger machines?
Heuer: It's the energy, and not the size, that is decisive. The closer we want to look, the faster we have to accelerate the particles. In our case, it's the protons. A lot suggests that our next undertaking will be an accelerator that fires electrons at positrons. That would open up a new view of matter, and of the Higgs particle. There are already plans for it. The main question is which region of the world would be ready to build such a machine?
Interview conducted by Manfred DworschakHeuer: About one-fourth is made up of dark matter. It's what keeps the rotating galaxies from simply flying apart. That cannot be explained with visible matter alone. What we call dark energy accounts for the almost three-fourths that remain. It causes the universe to expand at an ever faster rate. But we still don't understand the mechanism which expands space equally in all directions.
SPIEGEL: Could the Higgs provide new clues?
Heuer: The Higgs field, which is part of the particle, has a decisive characteristic that fits with dark energy: It works in all directions simultaneously.
SPIEGEL: So Higgs could be the bridgehead to the unknown?
Heuer: Precisely. We don't know if it has anything to do with dark energy. But we suspect that there is a similar field beyond the Standard Model -- the other end of the bridgehead, so to speak.
SPIEGEL: And what if Higgs doesn't do you the favor of revealing such secrets?
Heuer: We will still have found a particle that helps provide all other particles with mass. It finally proves that our Standard Model is completely accurate. What we must do now is find the hole in this model through which we can advance to the remaining 95 percent of the universe. We still don't know what role the particle we have found plays. It's like catching sight of your best friend from a distance. At first it could also be someone who looks a lot like that person, but it turns out to be someone totally different. You only find out for sure when you get closer.
SPIEGEL: What do you plan to do next?
Heuer: By the end of the year, we plan to fire protons at each other. Then we will shut down the accelerator for around two years for maintenance work. When it goes back into commission, things will get exciting: Step by step we will double the energy, allowing us to create particles with ever greater mass. And it could be that by doing so, we will also exceed the threshold to dark matter. That would open new doors.
SPIEGEL: What do you hope to find?
Heuer: Primarily the first traces of supersymmetry. That's the name of the theory which holds that every particle also has a shadow particle -- a mirror world predicted by the theory of anti-matter. Supersymmetry's lightest particle could be stable enough to be within the reach of our accelerator. That would be a good candidate for dark matter. If we find it, it would represent a massive leap forward.
SPIEGEL: Do you know exactly where you need to search? Or do you just look randomly?
Heuer: Both. We have to be entirely open to unexpected findings. Still, with supersymmetry, we already have a direction and our search is targeted. But it will no longer be as focused as it was with Higgs.
SPIEGEL: When searching for Higgs, you essentially had a ready-made profile of the particle, the one published by Peter Higgs in 1964. Does he deserve the Nobel prize?
Heuer: I think so. But there are also others who were working on similar models back then …
SPIEGEL: … while the Nobel rules only allow for a maximum of three prize winners at a time.
Heuer: Yes, that needs to be changed. In many areas of research -- from particle physics to genetics -- ever larger groups of people work together because that's the only way it can work. At some point, the time will have passed when individuals are capable of major discoveries.
SPIEGEL: How many researchers were involved in the long journey towards finding Higgs?
Heuer: In the end, between three and four thousand took part in each of the two major participating experiments.
SPIEGEL: Are such large groups able to change focus and commit to new goals? Or will each researcher soon go back to doing his or her own thing?
Heuer: No, our people will surely stick with it, especially now. The ability to work together has to be in the blood of particle physicists. They learn very early on that it is impossible to advance on one's own and that constant exchange is necessary.
SPIEGEL: Doesn't an individual's achievements get lost in the crowd?
Heuer: No, it is still very easy to identify an excellent physicist. Good people climb quickly -- just like in a company.
SPIEGEL: How large can research teams be and still remain manageable?
Heuer: Fifteen years ago, I led a project with 350 people. At the time we thought that was the upper end. Now we have 10 times as many. I would say the real limits we are experiencing are in technology and in the detectors that we are capable of building.
SPIEGEL: For how much longer will you be able to continue conducting experiments with the Large Hadron Collider? At which point will it have done its duty?
Heuer: It's the energy, and not the size, that is decisive. The closer we want to look, the faster we have to accelerate the particles. In our case, it's the protons. A lot suggests that our next undertaking will be an accelerator that fires electrons at positrons. That would open up a new view of matter, and of the Higgs particle. There are already plans for it. The main question is which region of the world would be ready to build such a machine?
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
TIME Talks to the Physicists Who Found the Higgs
From Time Science: TIME Talks to the Physicists Who Found the Higgs
It's not often that the world stops, cheers and generally goes nuts over a new discovery in particle physics. But that's what happened on July 4, when physicists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced that they had at last confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, the particle that gives the universe mass. The Higgs suffuses an energy field that permeates space, and as particles move though it, they acquire a degree of mass that corresponds to their own energy level. Failing to find the Higgs would not only have meant that a new theory would have to be developed, but that the standard model of particle physics — one of the great pillars of the field for the past several decades — would fall apart.
But the Higgs was indeed run to ground, thanks to work conducted at the massive new Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which straddles the border of Switzerland and France (read more about it in the new issue of TIME,). Thousands of physicists from dozens of countries contributed to the work, but there are three undisputed leaders: Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti, who led the two research teams that made the discovery; and Rolf Heuer, CERN's Director General. TIME spoke to them all by phone in Melbourne, Australia, where just three days earlier they had presented their momentous findings to the International Conference on High Energy Physics.
TIME: So you did it. Almost 50 years after the Higgs was first theorized, you found it. How does that feel?
Gianotti: First of all, we are happy. To me personally this event is an arrival point and departure point. It's an arrival point because it's been the dream of all of us. But there's more. It brings more physics beyond the standard model. Among the questions we have in mind: dark matter, antimatter and matter symmetry. It's a very nice reward for the work.
Heuer: It does open as many questions as it answers. You always find an answer but this answer usually gets you to more questions.
Gianotti: provided you know the right question to ask.
Incandela: If you look at all the particles we've discovered before, they're either matter particles or copies of them. But the Higgs involves what makes up the universe. I give lectures to the public and say what we're searching for is the genetic code of the universe.
TIME: Of those other doors the Higgs could open, one of the most tantalizing involves dark matter, the as-yet unidentified force or particle that makes up 80% of the universe and holds the galaxies together gravitationally. How can the Higgs help?
Incandela: Dark matter enters in a funny way. Any particle at the subatomic level is constantly interacting with other particles in space time. Some of this is described through supersymmetry, in which sets of particles exactly parallel other particles but cancel out some of the mass. Dark matter enters because we believe that in supersymmetry the lightest supersymmetric particle doesn't decay. This is the dark matter. When you do the calculation it almost perfectly matches the mass or density for the amount of dark matter we think is in the universe.
TIME: And what about dark energy — the even less-understood force that contributes to the expansion of the universe?
Heuer: The Higgs would be the first fundamental scalar which we have in our hands. A scalar has zero spin — it has no preferred direction. If you are swimming in a river, the force exerted on you by the water is different depending on which way you're swimming. If you're in a swimming pool there's no preferred direction. The Higgs must be a scalar, or mass would depend on the direction a particle is moving. Dark energy must be a scalar too because dark energy moves in all directions. So now we have two scalars. We might with these be able to determine the nature of fundamental scalars.
TIME: What was it about the Higgs that made it such a consuming goal for physicists? After all, the field has looked for — and found — other particles before.
Heuer: It's not just another type of particle.
Gianotti: The top quark was discovered in 1995 and since then the Higgs has become our obsession because the standard model was incomplete with out it. We had to understand things like why the top quark was so heavy and the electron is so light. The Higgs is a big, important step.
Heuer: The difference between finding the top quark and the Higgs was that we knew the top quark had to be there but for the Higgs we were wishing it would be there but it didn't have to be. One thing that's important to say is that if we had excluded the Higgs in the energy range of the LHC we would have found its replacement. But it would have taken much longer because we wouldn't know its nature.
TIME: Had you begun to worry that you indeed might not find it?
Incandela: Only in the past few years did I begin to worry. Once we started in the LHC we eliminated a huge amount of space so quickly [in the particle weight spectrum.] We looked between 100 and 600 GeV [billion electron volts] and had only about a 15 GeV rage around 125. That's all that was left.
TIME: And that's right where you found it. What there a particular moment that you realized you'd succeeded?
Incandela: We were working so hard to put everything together, but when we unblinded the data and saw a big signal, I realized we had something. But I was reserved. The work was not done until I walked into the room [at the Melbourne meeting.] As I was giving the presentation and showed the distribution, it hit me. We really discovered this thing! It wasn't just that I had the moment, it was having the whole community and they believed it. If you get married by a judge in his office it's not like a church wedding.
Heuer: For me it's a little bit different. I'm not in the details. I have to be neutral. We had the agreement that they come to my office and show me their data and nothing leaks out. When I saw the first plot from Joe and the first plot from Fabiola, I thought 'OK, we have it.' They didn't know their own discovery. I had to spell it out to them. They were very resistant to use the world discovery, but I persuaded them, yes, it is a discovery. We can use discovery.
It's not often that the world stops, cheers and generally goes nuts over a new discovery in particle physics. But that's what happened on July 4, when physicists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced that they had at last confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, the particle that gives the universe mass. The Higgs suffuses an energy field that permeates space, and as particles move though it, they acquire a degree of mass that corresponds to their own energy level. Failing to find the Higgs would not only have meant that a new theory would have to be developed, but that the standard model of particle physics — one of the great pillars of the field for the past several decades — would fall apart.
But the Higgs was indeed run to ground, thanks to work conducted at the massive new Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which straddles the border of Switzerland and France (read more about it in the new issue of TIME,). Thousands of physicists from dozens of countries contributed to the work, but there are three undisputed leaders: Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti, who led the two research teams that made the discovery; and Rolf Heuer, CERN's Director General. TIME spoke to them all by phone in Melbourne, Australia, where just three days earlier they had presented their momentous findings to the International Conference on High Energy Physics.
TIME: So you did it. Almost 50 years after the Higgs was first theorized, you found it. How does that feel?
Gianotti: First of all, we are happy. To me personally this event is an arrival point and departure point. It's an arrival point because it's been the dream of all of us. But there's more. It brings more physics beyond the standard model. Among the questions we have in mind: dark matter, antimatter and matter symmetry. It's a very nice reward for the work.
Heuer: It does open as many questions as it answers. You always find an answer but this answer usually gets you to more questions.
Gianotti: provided you know the right question to ask.
Incandela: If you look at all the particles we've discovered before, they're either matter particles or copies of them. But the Higgs involves what makes up the universe. I give lectures to the public and say what we're searching for is the genetic code of the universe.
TIME: Of those other doors the Higgs could open, one of the most tantalizing involves dark matter, the as-yet unidentified force or particle that makes up 80% of the universe and holds the galaxies together gravitationally. How can the Higgs help?
Incandela: Dark matter enters in a funny way. Any particle at the subatomic level is constantly interacting with other particles in space time. Some of this is described through supersymmetry, in which sets of particles exactly parallel other particles but cancel out some of the mass. Dark matter enters because we believe that in supersymmetry the lightest supersymmetric particle doesn't decay. This is the dark matter. When you do the calculation it almost perfectly matches the mass or density for the amount of dark matter we think is in the universe.
TIME: And what about dark energy — the even less-understood force that contributes to the expansion of the universe?
Heuer: The Higgs would be the first fundamental scalar which we have in our hands. A scalar has zero spin — it has no preferred direction. If you are swimming in a river, the force exerted on you by the water is different depending on which way you're swimming. If you're in a swimming pool there's no preferred direction. The Higgs must be a scalar, or mass would depend on the direction a particle is moving. Dark energy must be a scalar too because dark energy moves in all directions. So now we have two scalars. We might with these be able to determine the nature of fundamental scalars.
TIME: What was it about the Higgs that made it such a consuming goal for physicists? After all, the field has looked for — and found — other particles before.
Heuer: It's not just another type of particle.
Gianotti: The top quark was discovered in 1995 and since then the Higgs has become our obsession because the standard model was incomplete with out it. We had to understand things like why the top quark was so heavy and the electron is so light. The Higgs is a big, important step.
Heuer: The difference between finding the top quark and the Higgs was that we knew the top quark had to be there but for the Higgs we were wishing it would be there but it didn't have to be. One thing that's important to say is that if we had excluded the Higgs in the energy range of the LHC we would have found its replacement. But it would have taken much longer because we wouldn't know its nature.
TIME: Had you begun to worry that you indeed might not find it?
Incandela: Only in the past few years did I begin to worry. Once we started in the LHC we eliminated a huge amount of space so quickly [in the particle weight spectrum.] We looked between 100 and 600 GeV [billion electron volts] and had only about a 15 GeV rage around 125. That's all that was left.
TIME: And that's right where you found it. What there a particular moment that you realized you'd succeeded?
Incandela: We were working so hard to put everything together, but when we unblinded the data and saw a big signal, I realized we had something. But I was reserved. The work was not done until I walked into the room [at the Melbourne meeting.] As I was giving the presentation and showed the distribution, it hit me. We really discovered this thing! It wasn't just that I had the moment, it was having the whole community and they believed it. If you get married by a judge in his office it's not like a church wedding.
Heuer: For me it's a little bit different. I'm not in the details. I have to be neutral. We had the agreement that they come to my office and show me their data and nothing leaks out. When I saw the first plot from Joe and the first plot from Fabiola, I thought 'OK, we have it.' They didn't know their own discovery. I had to spell it out to them. They were very resistant to use the world discovery, but I persuaded them, yes, it is a discovery. We can use discovery.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Physicists in Mainz and all around the world cheer the discovery of the Higgs particle
From Science Codex: Physicists in Mainz and all around the world cheer the discovery of the Higgs particle
The mystery of the origin of matter seems to have been solved. At the middle of last week, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, announced the discovery of a new particle that could be the long sought-after Higgs boson. The particle has a mass of about 126 gigaelectron volts (GeV), roughly that of 126 protons. "Almost half a century has passed since the existence of the Higgs boson was first postulated and now it seems that we at last have the evidence we have been looking for. What we have found perfectly fits the predicted parameters of the Higgs boson," says Professor Dr. Volker Büscher of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The Higgs boson is important to our current fundamental theory of physics as it explains why the elementary building blocks of matter have a mass at all. Initial indications that the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were going to lead to a breakthrough were documented in December 2011.
"We have since corroborated the recorded signal, and the new data demonstrate with a high level of significance the presence of a Higgs-like particle in the region we expected," explains Büscher.
The new evidence comes from an enormously large volume of data that has been more than doubled since December 2011. According to CERN, the LHC collected more data in the months between April and June 2012 than in the whole of 2011. In addition, the efficiency has been improved to such an extent that it is now much easier to filter out Higgs-like events from the several hundred million particle collisions that occur every second.
The data analyzed by the ATLAS detector, to which the Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics (ETAP) working group in Mainz made a significant contribution, found an excess of Higgs-like particles in all of the final states studied. "The rapid and yet careful analysis of the new data required a strong commitment over the recent weeks and months, and so we are especially proud to be able to announce such an exciting finding," says Dr. Christian Schmitt of the ETAP working group. At the same time, the second large particle detector of the LHC, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), recorded events consistent with those of ATLAS and which matched precisely the footprint of the postulated Higgs boson. "We have been working towards this moment for years and are amazed that the LHC and its experiments have produced such results in only two and a half years after the first proton-proton collision," states Professor Dr. Stefan Tapprogge of the ETAP working group.
The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 and it is named after the British physicist Peter Higgs. It is the last piece of the puzzle that has been missing from the Standard Model of physics and its function is to give other elementary particles their mass. According to the theory, the so-called Higgs field extends throughout the entire universe. The mass of individual elementary particles is determined by the extent to which they interact with the Higgs bosons. "The discovery of the Higgs boson represents a milestone in the exploration of the fundamental interactions of elementary particles," states Professor Dr. Matthias Neubert, Professor for Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics and spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence PRISMA at JGU. On the one hand, the Higgs particle is the last component missing from the Standard Model of particle physics. On the other hand, physicists are struggling to understand the detected mass of the Higgs boson. "Using our theory as it currently stands, the mass of the Higgs boson can only be explained as the result of a random fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe at a level of accuracy of one in one quadrillion," explains Neubert.
Thus, physicists hope that the "new physics" will provide a more straightforward explanation for the characteristics of the Higgs boson than that derived from the current Standard Model. This new physics is sorely needed to find solutions to a series of yet unresolved problems, as presently only the visible universe is explained, which constitutes just four percent of total matter. "The Standard Model has no explanation for the so-called dark matter, so it does not describe the entire universe – there is a lot that remains to be understood," Büscher summarizes
.
The mystery of the origin of matter seems to have been solved. At the middle of last week, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, announced the discovery of a new particle that could be the long sought-after Higgs boson. The particle has a mass of about 126 gigaelectron volts (GeV), roughly that of 126 protons. "Almost half a century has passed since the existence of the Higgs boson was first postulated and now it seems that we at last have the evidence we have been looking for. What we have found perfectly fits the predicted parameters of the Higgs boson," says Professor Dr. Volker Büscher of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The Higgs boson is important to our current fundamental theory of physics as it explains why the elementary building blocks of matter have a mass at all. Initial indications that the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were going to lead to a breakthrough were documented in December 2011.
"We have since corroborated the recorded signal, and the new data demonstrate with a high level of significance the presence of a Higgs-like particle in the region we expected," explains Büscher.
The new evidence comes from an enormously large volume of data that has been more than doubled since December 2011. According to CERN, the LHC collected more data in the months between April and June 2012 than in the whole of 2011. In addition, the efficiency has been improved to such an extent that it is now much easier to filter out Higgs-like events from the several hundred million particle collisions that occur every second.
The data analyzed by the ATLAS detector, to which the Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics (ETAP) working group in Mainz made a significant contribution, found an excess of Higgs-like particles in all of the final states studied. "The rapid and yet careful analysis of the new data required a strong commitment over the recent weeks and months, and so we are especially proud to be able to announce such an exciting finding," says Dr. Christian Schmitt of the ETAP working group. At the same time, the second large particle detector of the LHC, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), recorded events consistent with those of ATLAS and which matched precisely the footprint of the postulated Higgs boson. "We have been working towards this moment for years and are amazed that the LHC and its experiments have produced such results in only two and a half years after the first proton-proton collision," states Professor Dr. Stefan Tapprogge of the ETAP working group.
The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 and it is named after the British physicist Peter Higgs. It is the last piece of the puzzle that has been missing from the Standard Model of physics and its function is to give other elementary particles their mass. According to the theory, the so-called Higgs field extends throughout the entire universe. The mass of individual elementary particles is determined by the extent to which they interact with the Higgs bosons. "The discovery of the Higgs boson represents a milestone in the exploration of the fundamental interactions of elementary particles," states Professor Dr. Matthias Neubert, Professor for Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics and spokesman for the Cluster of Excellence PRISMA at JGU. On the one hand, the Higgs particle is the last component missing from the Standard Model of particle physics. On the other hand, physicists are struggling to understand the detected mass of the Higgs boson. "Using our theory as it currently stands, the mass of the Higgs boson can only be explained as the result of a random fine-tuning of the physical constants of the universe at a level of accuracy of one in one quadrillion," explains Neubert.
Thus, physicists hope that the "new physics" will provide a more straightforward explanation for the characteristics of the Higgs boson than that derived from the current Standard Model. This new physics is sorely needed to find solutions to a series of yet unresolved problems, as presently only the visible universe is explained, which constitutes just four percent of total matter. "The Standard Model has no explanation for the so-called dark matter, so it does not describe the entire universe – there is a lot that remains to be understood," Büscher summarizes
.
n his article for the
July-August issue of the Bulletin, "Entangled histories: Climate science
and nuclear weapons research," University of Michigan historian Paul
Edwards notes that climate science and nuclear weapons testing have a
long and surprisingly intimate relationship. In the wake of the
Fukushima disaster, for example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Organization tracked the radioactive plume emanating from damaged
Japanese nuclear reactors via a global network of monitoring stations
designed to measure airborne radionuclides. That network is a direct
descendant of systems and computer models created to trace the fallout
from weapons tests, Edwards explains.
But ways of tracking radiation as it moves through the atmosphere have
applications that extend far beyond the nuclear industry. Tracing
radioactive carbon as it cycles through the atmosphere, the oceans, and
the biosphere has been crucial to understanding anthropogenic climate
change.
Mathematical models with nuclear science roots have also found a place
in the environmental scientists' toolboxes. The earliest global climate
models relied on numerical methods, very similar to those developed by
nuclear weapons designers, for solving the fluid dynamics equations
needed to analyze shock waves produced in nuclear explosions.
The impacts of nuclear war on the climate represent another major
historical intersection between climate science and nuclear affairs.
Without the work done by nuclear weapons designers and testers,
scientists would know much less than they do now about the atmosphere.
In particular, this research has contributed enormously to knowledge
about both carbon dioxide, which raises Earth's temperature, and
aerosols, which lower it. Without climate models, scientists and
political leaders would not have understood the full extent of nuclear
weapons' power to annihilate not only human beings, but other species as
well.
Facilities built during the Cold War, including US national laboratories
constructed to create weapons, now use their powerful supercomputers,
expertise in modeling, and skills in managing large data sets to address
the threat of catastrophic climate change. This has benefitted the labs
themselves -- without a new direction, the argument to continue funding
these laboratories would have been less compelling -- and the science
and scientists who are studying climate change.
"Today, the laboratories built to create the most fearsome arsenal in
history are doing what they can to prevent another catastrophe – this
one caused not by behemoth governments at war, but by billions of
ordinary people living ordinary lives within an energy economy that we
must now reinvent," Edwards says.
More information: "Entangled histories: Climate science and nuclear
weapons research" by Paul N. Edwards published July 13 2012 in The
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Journal reference: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists search and more
info website
Provided by SAGE Publications search and more info website
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
n his article for the
July-August issue of the Bulletin, "Entangled histories: Climate science
and nuclear weapons research," University of Michigan historian Paul
Edwards notes that climate science and nuclear weapons testing have a
long and surprisingly intimate relationship. In the wake of the
Fukushima disaster, for example, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Organization tracked the radioactive plume emanating from damaged
Japanese nuclear reactors via a global network of monitoring stations
designed to measure airborne radionuclides. That network is a direct
descendant of systems and computer models created to trace the fallout
from weapons tests, Edwards explains.
But ways of tracking radiation as it moves through the atmosphere have
applications that extend far beyond the nuclear industry. Tracing
radioactive carbon as it cycles through the atmosphere, the oceans, and
the biosphere has been crucial to understanding anthropogenic climate
change.
Mathematical models with nuclear science roots have also found a place
in the environmental scientists' toolboxes. The earliest global climate
models relied on numerical methods, very similar to those developed by
nuclear weapons designers, for solving the fluid dynamics equations
needed to analyze shock waves produced in nuclear explosions.
The impacts of nuclear war on the climate represent another major
historical intersection between climate science and nuclear affairs.
Without the work done by nuclear weapons designers and testers,
scientists would know much less than they do now about the atmosphere.
In particular, this research has contributed enormously to knowledge
about both carbon dioxide, which raises Earth's temperature, and
aerosols, which lower it. Without climate models, scientists and
political leaders would not have understood the full extent of nuclear
weapons' power to annihilate not only human beings, but other species as
well.
Facilities built during the Cold War, including US national laboratories
constructed to create weapons, now use their powerful supercomputers,
expertise in modeling, and skills in managing large data sets to address
the threat of catastrophic climate change. This has benefitted the labs
themselves -- without a new direction, the argument to continue funding
these laboratories would have been less compelling -- and the science
and scientists who are studying climate change.
"Today, the laboratories built to create the most fearsome arsenal in
history are doing what they can to prevent another catastrophe – this
one caused not by behemoth governments at war, but by billions of
ordinary people living ordinary lives within an energy economy that we
must now reinvent," Edwards says.
More information: "Entangled histories: Climate science and nuclear
weapons research" by Paul N. Edwards published July 13 2012 in The
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Journal reference: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists search and more
info website
Provided by SAGE Publications search and more info website
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Nuclear weapons testing may
at first glance appear to have little connection with climate change
research. But key Cold War research laboratories and the science used to
track radioactivity and model nuclear bomb blasts have today been
repurposed by climate scientists. The full story appears in The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Nuclear weapons testing may
at first glance appear to have little connection with climate change
research. But key Cold War research laboratories and the science used to
track radioactivity and model nuclear bomb blasts have today been
repurposed by climate scientists. The full story appears in The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Nuclear weapons testing may
at first glance appear to have little connection with climate change
research. But key Cold War research laboratories and the science used to
track radioactivity and model nuclear bomb blasts have today been
repurposed by climate scientists. The full story appears in The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Nuclear weapons testing may
at first glance appear to have little connection with climate change
research. But key Cold War research laboratories and the science used to
track radioactivity and model nuclear bomb blasts have today been
repurposed by climate scientists. The full story appears in The Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-nuclear-weapons-contribution-climate-science.html#jCp
Monday, July 16, 2012
The Man Who Harnessed the Sun
From the WallStreetJournal: The Man Who Harnessed the Sun
The sun is an ordinary yellow dwarf star that has been active for 4.6 billion years. Every second, five million metric tons of mass are converted into nuclear energy, equivalent to the detonation of 90 billion one-megaton hydrogen bombs. It is this constant blast of nuclear reactions that pushes energy to the surface, releasing it as light and heat.
Hans Bethe (1906-2005) did more than anyone else to solve the mystery of what makes the sun shine. His astonishing career spanned eight decades and included fundamental research in nuclear physics, astrophysics and many other fields. "If you know his work," said collaborator John Bahcall, "you might be inclined to think he is really several people, all of whom are engaged in a conspiracy to sign their work with the same name."
"The history of theoretical physics is a history dominated by 'off-scale' people," argues Silvan Schweber in "Nuclear Forces," borrowing a term from the laboratory. Most scientists analyze data within accepted frameworks; only a few can absorb complex data and produce a new synthesis of knowledge. "As a physicist," explains Mr. Schweber, "Bethe was a pragmatic, highly mathematically skilled problem solver." His way of theorizing combined thoroughness and rigor with conceptual lightness, simplicity and back-of-the-envelope insight.
Mr. Schweber, who worked briefly as a post-doc with Bethe in the 1950s, also wrote "In the Shadow of the Bomb" (2006), a fine study in parallel lives that contrasted the dangerous ambition of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, with the workmanlike modesty of Bethe, whom Oppenheimer appointed head of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project. Now Mr. Schweber returns to Bethe's youth to explain how "Bethe became Bethe." Though scholarly, "Nuclear Forces" is a highly readable account of a remarkable period in physics, tracing the future Nobel laureate through his formative years and up to the eve of World War II.
Born in July 1906 in Strasbourg, then a part of Germany, Bethe showed a childhood enthusiasm for science and mathematics. After university studies in Frankfurt, Bethe went to Munich, where in 1928 he earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics under Arnold Sommerfeld, who had done pioneering mathematical work on quantum theory (among much else). At Munich, Sommerfeld created what he described as "a nursery of theoretical physics" that attracted talented young theorists, including the future definers of quantum mechanics Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli.
The author plots Bethe's scientific progress against the backdrop of the cultural environment during the turbulent interwar years of German hyperinflation and political strife. Though Bethe never considered himself Jewish, he was dismissed from his university post in April 1933 because of his mother's Jewish roots. Most of Bethe's friends came from secular, assimilated Jewish families who under the Kaiser had expected, as Mr Schweber explains, that being "outstanding, creative, original and productive in mathematics or in the sciences—and recognized and accepted as such by the leading authorities and practitioners in these fields—was seen as trumping all supposed deficiencies, including Jewish roots." By the time the Nazis seized power in 1933, this was no longer true.
Sommerfeld, a patriotic German nevertheless disgusted by the treatment of his protégés, helped place many in England and America. Bethe secured a position at the universities of Manchester and Bristol and then, in 1935, went to Cornell, which he helped establish as a major center of physics that soon attracted the likes of Richard Feynman and Freeman Dyson. Despite the threat of war and the fallout from a broken engagement, Bethe later said that "the thirties were a very happy period." Before the end of the decade, he would make his most famous contribution to physics.
In 1938, Bethe attended a conference where he heard the Danish astrophysicist Bengt Strömgren challenge his colleagues to discover the chain of nuclear reactions that could generate the energy required to give rise to the observed luminosities of the sun and other stars. Bethe solved the problem in a matter of weeks, proposing two mechanisms by which different types of stars released the energy they radiated; he eventually worked out a six-step cycle in which carbon and nitrogen act as catalysts in producing a helium nucleus from hydrogen atoms. Even before the conference had ended, Bethe had worked out how a "proton-proton" chain-reaction mechanism could also build a helium nucleus from hydrogen.
The rates at which these two cycles occur in stars is sensitive to temperature, and Bethe concluded that for stars with internal temperatures greater than that of the sun, the carbon cycle predominates. For the sun and cooler stars, the proton-proton reaction is the driving force. The net result of the cycle of nuclear fusion is a 1% difference in mass that accounts for the energy released.
Bethe's insight into star power earned him a Nobel Prize in 1967 but would earlier make him crucial to the efforts to unleash atomic power. He regarded America's participation in the World War II as inevitable and desperately wanted to play his part. But he had to wait until he became a U.S. citizen in 1941 before being allowed to work on classified projects such as the development of radar at MIT. Shortly after, he renewed his acquaintance with Oppenheimer, whom he had first met in 1929 in Germany, and was appointed to lead the theorists at Los Alamos in explaining how the atomic bomb would work and produce its devastating effect. Bethe was 37, while the average age of those working on the bomb was 27.
After the war, Bethe initially refused to participate in the development of the hydrogen bomb, which relied on the fusion process he had described. He soon changed his mind. "If I did not work on the bomb, somebody else would—and I had thought if I were around Los Alamos I might still be a force for disarmament," he later wrote. "Sometimes I wish I were a more consistent idealist." As the years passed that is exactly what he became, in the best possible sense. On the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima he called "on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons—and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."
Of course, Mr. Schweber ends his fine book in September 1939, as Bethe is about to embark on his war work—which means that we must ask the author for more, please.
—Mr. Kumar is the author of "Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality."
The sun is an ordinary yellow dwarf star that has been active for 4.6 billion years. Every second, five million metric tons of mass are converted into nuclear energy, equivalent to the detonation of 90 billion one-megaton hydrogen bombs. It is this constant blast of nuclear reactions that pushes energy to the surface, releasing it as light and heat.
Hans Bethe (1906-2005) did more than anyone else to solve the mystery of what makes the sun shine. His astonishing career spanned eight decades and included fundamental research in nuclear physics, astrophysics and many other fields. "If you know his work," said collaborator John Bahcall, "you might be inclined to think he is really several people, all of whom are engaged in a conspiracy to sign their work with the same name."
"The history of theoretical physics is a history dominated by 'off-scale' people," argues Silvan Schweber in "Nuclear Forces," borrowing a term from the laboratory. Most scientists analyze data within accepted frameworks; only a few can absorb complex data and produce a new synthesis of knowledge. "As a physicist," explains Mr. Schweber, "Bethe was a pragmatic, highly mathematically skilled problem solver." His way of theorizing combined thoroughness and rigor with conceptual lightness, simplicity and back-of-the-envelope insight.
Mr. Schweber, who worked briefly as a post-doc with Bethe in the 1950s, also wrote "In the Shadow of the Bomb" (2006), a fine study in parallel lives that contrasted the dangerous ambition of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, with the workmanlike modesty of Bethe, whom Oppenheimer appointed head of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project. Now Mr. Schweber returns to Bethe's youth to explain how "Bethe became Bethe." Though scholarly, "Nuclear Forces" is a highly readable account of a remarkable period in physics, tracing the future Nobel laureate through his formative years and up to the eve of World War II.
Born in July 1906 in Strasbourg, then a part of Germany, Bethe showed a childhood enthusiasm for science and mathematics. After university studies in Frankfurt, Bethe went to Munich, where in 1928 he earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics under Arnold Sommerfeld, who had done pioneering mathematical work on quantum theory (among much else). At Munich, Sommerfeld created what he described as "a nursery of theoretical physics" that attracted talented young theorists, including the future definers of quantum mechanics Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli.
The author plots Bethe's scientific progress against the backdrop of the cultural environment during the turbulent interwar years of German hyperinflation and political strife. Though Bethe never considered himself Jewish, he was dismissed from his university post in April 1933 because of his mother's Jewish roots. Most of Bethe's friends came from secular, assimilated Jewish families who under the Kaiser had expected, as Mr Schweber explains, that being "outstanding, creative, original and productive in mathematics or in the sciences—and recognized and accepted as such by the leading authorities and practitioners in these fields—was seen as trumping all supposed deficiencies, including Jewish roots." By the time the Nazis seized power in 1933, this was no longer true.
Sommerfeld, a patriotic German nevertheless disgusted by the treatment of his protégés, helped place many in England and America. Bethe secured a position at the universities of Manchester and Bristol and then, in 1935, went to Cornell, which he helped establish as a major center of physics that soon attracted the likes of Richard Feynman and Freeman Dyson. Despite the threat of war and the fallout from a broken engagement, Bethe later said that "the thirties were a very happy period." Before the end of the decade, he would make his most famous contribution to physics.
In 1938, Bethe attended a conference where he heard the Danish astrophysicist Bengt Strömgren challenge his colleagues to discover the chain of nuclear reactions that could generate the energy required to give rise to the observed luminosities of the sun and other stars. Bethe solved the problem in a matter of weeks, proposing two mechanisms by which different types of stars released the energy they radiated; he eventually worked out a six-step cycle in which carbon and nitrogen act as catalysts in producing a helium nucleus from hydrogen atoms. Even before the conference had ended, Bethe had worked out how a "proton-proton" chain-reaction mechanism could also build a helium nucleus from hydrogen.
The rates at which these two cycles occur in stars is sensitive to temperature, and Bethe concluded that for stars with internal temperatures greater than that of the sun, the carbon cycle predominates. For the sun and cooler stars, the proton-proton reaction is the driving force. The net result of the cycle of nuclear fusion is a 1% difference in mass that accounts for the energy released.
Bethe's insight into star power earned him a Nobel Prize in 1967 but would earlier make him crucial to the efforts to unleash atomic power. He regarded America's participation in the World War II as inevitable and desperately wanted to play his part. But he had to wait until he became a U.S. citizen in 1941 before being allowed to work on classified projects such as the development of radar at MIT. Shortly after, he renewed his acquaintance with Oppenheimer, whom he had first met in 1929 in Germany, and was appointed to lead the theorists at Los Alamos in explaining how the atomic bomb would work and produce its devastating effect. Bethe was 37, while the average age of those working on the bomb was 27.
After the war, Bethe initially refused to participate in the development of the hydrogen bomb, which relied on the fusion process he had described. He soon changed his mind. "If I did not work on the bomb, somebody else would—and I had thought if I were around Los Alamos I might still be a force for disarmament," he later wrote. "Sometimes I wish I were a more consistent idealist." As the years passed that is exactly what he became, in the best possible sense. On the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima he called "on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons—and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."
Of course, Mr. Schweber ends his fine book in September 1939, as Bethe is about to embark on his war work—which means that we must ask the author for more, please.
—Mr. Kumar is the author of "Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality."
Chulalongkorn signs scientific research pact with Cern
From the Bangkok Post: Chulalongkorn signs scientific research pact with Cern
Cern earlier this month stunned the physics community with the
announcement of the preliminary discovery of the long sought Higgs boson
particle. The discovery of the particle would confirm the so-called
"Standard Model" of physics and represent a breakthrough in the
understanding of nature.
Albert De Roeck, a Cern scientist based in Switzerland and Joe Incandela, spokesman for Cern's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector programme, visited Thailand yesterday to sign an agreement on physics research and cooperation with Chulalongkorn University. The scientists also gave a brief presentation on the Higgs particle discovery to Thai scientists and students at the university.
Pirom Kamolrattanakul, the dean of Chulalongkorn University, said Thailand is the first country in Asean to have a cooperative agreement with Cern.
Thailand, Cern's 41st member, will benefit from the agreement in terms of data sharing. Mr Pirom said Thai scientists would be able to directly access any information from Cern to help further physics research and studies in Thailand.
He said Chulalongkorn University would work with he National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre to set up a data centre to support the analysis of information gained from Cern's CMS detector. The detector, which weighs 12,500 tonnes and is located in Cessy, France, is used for studies crossing a wide range of physics.
Mr Incandela said Cern is working to confirm the discovery of the "Higgs-like boson" found earlier this month following more research and experiments.
"It's not an easy thing to do. But we expect to get the results by the end of the year," he said.
"If we have found [the Higgs boson], we will have moved closer towards understanding the fabric of our universe.
"We believe that the particle is very important."
Mr De Roeck said the discovery was "far beyond a fluke".
"In the experiment, what we have found is not the particle, but a decayed particle," he said.
"But at least we have seen significant clues leading us to meet with the Higgs particle."
The Higgs boson is a particle that is part of the Standard Model of particle physics. The boson is named after physicist Peter Higgs, who predicted the particle in 1964.
Cern launched the large hadron collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, in 2008 with the aim of testing different physics theories, including the search for the Higgs boson. The collider is located in a 27km tunnel near Geneva.
Thailand's relationship with Cern dates to 2003 under the initiation of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Several Thai students and academics have since trained with Cern and developed projects with the organisation.
Chulalongkorn University yesterday joined hands
with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern), in an
agreement that will boost physics research within the country.
Albert De Roeck, a Cern scientist based in Switzerland and Joe Incandela, spokesman for Cern's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector programme, visited Thailand yesterday to sign an agreement on physics research and cooperation with Chulalongkorn University. The scientists also gave a brief presentation on the Higgs particle discovery to Thai scientists and students at the university.
Pirom Kamolrattanakul, the dean of Chulalongkorn University, said Thailand is the first country in Asean to have a cooperative agreement with Cern.
Thailand, Cern's 41st member, will benefit from the agreement in terms of data sharing. Mr Pirom said Thai scientists would be able to directly access any information from Cern to help further physics research and studies in Thailand.
He said Chulalongkorn University would work with he National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre to set up a data centre to support the analysis of information gained from Cern's CMS detector. The detector, which weighs 12,500 tonnes and is located in Cessy, France, is used for studies crossing a wide range of physics.
Mr Incandela said Cern is working to confirm the discovery of the "Higgs-like boson" found earlier this month following more research and experiments.
"It's not an easy thing to do. But we expect to get the results by the end of the year," he said.
"If we have found [the Higgs boson], we will have moved closer towards understanding the fabric of our universe.
"We believe that the particle is very important."
Mr De Roeck said the discovery was "far beyond a fluke".
"In the experiment, what we have found is not the particle, but a decayed particle," he said.
"But at least we have seen significant clues leading us to meet with the Higgs particle."
The Higgs boson is a particle that is part of the Standard Model of particle physics. The boson is named after physicist Peter Higgs, who predicted the particle in 1964.
Cern launched the large hadron collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, in 2008 with the aim of testing different physics theories, including the search for the Higgs boson. The collider is located in a 27km tunnel near Geneva.
Thailand's relationship with Cern dates to 2003 under the initiation of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Several Thai students and academics have since trained with Cern and developed projects with the organisation.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Triumph turns to tears as Italian physicists are given bleak budget news
From Nature News blog: Triumph turns to tears as Italian physicists are given bleak budget news
“We had just finished celebrating, and we got our reward.” Voice heavy with irony, Fernando Ferroni, the president of Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), had just learned on 6 July that of all the Italian research institutes, his will bear the greatest burden from government cuts.
The news came just two days after researchers at CERN, Europe’s particle physics centre near Geneva, Switzerland, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, in which the INFN had a key role. It contributed about 15% of the funding for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and has hundreds of researchers in the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaborations that made the discovery.
The cuts are part of the government’s desperate effort to reduce Italy’s huge debt by shrinking budgets in all sectors of public spending. The INFN budget will be cut by 3.8% this year — corresponding to a loss of about €9 million (US$11 million) — and 10% in 2013 and 2014 (a further reduction of about €24 million each year).
What is hardest to understand, say Ferroni and other Italian physicists, is why the cuts to the INFN budget are so disproportionate. The National Research Council, Italy’s largest research organization, will see cuts of 1.23% in 2012 and 3.28% thereafter; the Italian Space Agency will lose less than 1%. Ferroni, who has threatened to resign if the cuts are confirmed, has written a letter to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano — who had warmly congratulated INFN physicists for their work on the Higgs hunt — asking for his intervention. In the letter, he notes that the cuts will not just affect basic research: Italian participation in the LHC has brought contracts for hundreds of thousands of Euros to Italian companies.
In a letter sent today to the ANSA news agency, CERN’s research director Sergio Bertolucci, ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti and CMS honorary spokesperson Guido Tonelli (all Italian) say that these cuts would make it impossible for INFN to fulfill its international commitments, and would send a “devastating signal” to young Italian researchers, effectively inviting them to leave Italy. “The risk of irreversible damage is very high,” they wrote.
The Italian Research Minister Francesco Profumo has said that he hopes to recover some funds before the draft is turned into law, but has invited Ferroni to act “responsibly”. Profumo will meet representatives of all research organizations on 12 July to discuss possible adjustments to the budget plan.
“We had just finished celebrating, and we got our reward.” Voice heavy with irony, Fernando Ferroni, the president of Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), had just learned on 6 July that of all the Italian research institutes, his will bear the greatest burden from government cuts.
The news came just two days after researchers at CERN, Europe’s particle physics centre near Geneva, Switzerland, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, in which the INFN had a key role. It contributed about 15% of the funding for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and has hundreds of researchers in the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaborations that made the discovery.
The cuts are part of the government’s desperate effort to reduce Italy’s huge debt by shrinking budgets in all sectors of public spending. The INFN budget will be cut by 3.8% this year — corresponding to a loss of about €9 million (US$11 million) — and 10% in 2013 and 2014 (a further reduction of about €24 million each year).
What is hardest to understand, say Ferroni and other Italian physicists, is why the cuts to the INFN budget are so disproportionate. The National Research Council, Italy’s largest research organization, will see cuts of 1.23% in 2012 and 3.28% thereafter; the Italian Space Agency will lose less than 1%. Ferroni, who has threatened to resign if the cuts are confirmed, has written a letter to the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano — who had warmly congratulated INFN physicists for their work on the Higgs hunt — asking for his intervention. In the letter, he notes that the cuts will not just affect basic research: Italian participation in the LHC has brought contracts for hundreds of thousands of Euros to Italian companies.
In a letter sent today to the ANSA news agency, CERN’s research director Sergio Bertolucci, ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti and CMS honorary spokesperson Guido Tonelli (all Italian) say that these cuts would make it impossible for INFN to fulfill its international commitments, and would send a “devastating signal” to young Italian researchers, effectively inviting them to leave Italy. “The risk of irreversible damage is very high,” they wrote.
The Italian Research Minister Francesco Profumo has said that he hopes to recover some funds before the draft is turned into law, but has invited Ferroni to act “responsibly”. Profumo will meet representatives of all research organizations on 12 July to discuss possible adjustments to the budget plan.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Election 2012: It’s the particle physics, stupid
A satiric op-ed piece making fun of Americans and are current lack of leadership in any field!
From the Register-Guard : Election 2012: It’s the particle physics, stupid
From the Register-Guard : Election 2012: It’s the particle physics, stupid
Scientists in Geneva recently announced
that they had found a new subatomic particle that they were 99.999999
percent sure was the elusive Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle.”
Even though we had no earthly idea what that meant, we were definitely excited.
It’s given us so much to think about: how
existence began, the structure of the universe, the difference between
bosons and fermions. And of course, what it will mean to the
presidential race.
The first thing all patriotic Americans are
going to want to know is why something this important happened
elsewhere. The Large Hadron Collider, where the physicists did the work,
was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research. We were
building a Superconducting Super Collider of our own, in Waxahachie,
Texas, but Congress stopped the financing for it in 1993.
“It’s disheartening that a large number of
fairly intelligent people could do such a thing,” Leon Lederman, a Nobel
Prize-winning physicist, said when the budget-cutting House of
Representatives ended the program. That was, of course, a long time ago,
back when Americans still undertook expensive, daring construction
projects and believed the House of Representatives had a large number of
fairly intelligent people.
But about the Higgs boson. As Dennis
Overbye explained in The New York Times, it is “the only manifestation
of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and
imbues elementary particles with mass.” And we have so many questions.
Does it provide evidence of the existence of parallel worlds? If so, is
it possible to move to one that doesn’t have Michele Bachmann?
Most of all, however, we want to know whom this helps in the election:
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney today
denounced Barack Obama for allowing Europe to beat the United States at
particle physics research. Under his administration, Romney vowed, “All
particles that bind the earth together will be discovered in America, by
Americans and for Americans.”
Under questioning from reporters, Romney said that his favorite kind of subatomic particle is the fermion.
SOMEWHERE ON A BUS — Speaking to a crowd of
blue collar workers in Ohio, President Obama hailed the scientific news
from Geneva as “a great moment in history, not unlike my rescue of the
auto industry.” The physicists who made the discovery, Obama noted, all
had health insurance.
TRENTON, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie today
called for the privatization of the Higgs boson. “Binding the earth
together is something that could be handled much more efficiently by the
for-profit sector,” the Republican governor and deeply available vice
presidential prospect said: “Auctioning off the rights to the Higgs
boson will create American jobs and balance American budgets.”
When a reporter noted that the boson was discovered in Switzerland, Christie called him “stupid” and “off-topic.”
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Rick Santorum today
denounced the European Organization for Nuclear Research for discovering
something that is nicknamed the God particle. “If God had wanted there
to be a particle, he’d have given it to Adam and Eve,” said Santorum,
who is traveling through the Hawkeye State this week because, really, he
doesn’t have much else to do.
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Aides to Mitt Romney said the former governor’s favorite kind subatomic particle is actually the boson.
SOMEWHERE ELSE ON A BUS — President Obama
told a crowd of blue collar workers that there have been more Higgs
bosons discovered during his administration than during those of both
George Bushes combined.
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney said today
that when he called for an American effort to beat the Europeans in
particle physics research, he did not actually mean spending money to
build a supercollider, but merely “the need for our physicists to think
harder.” The Republican presidential contender said he believed this
could be accomplished by “the elimination of onerous,
physics-research-killing regulations.”
JUST OUTSIDE OF WOLFEBORO, N.H. —
Protesters today passed out cartoons of Mitt Romney with a large, cuddly
looking Higgs boson strapped to a crate on the front of his jet ski.
WASHINGTON — Surrogates for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sparred over the meaning of the potential discovery of the Higgs boson.
On “Meet the Press,” Gov. Bobby Jindal of
Louisiana called it “a questionable throw of the dice by the same folks
who gave us the euro.”
On “Face the Nation,” David Axelrod, the
Obama campaign communications director, said that if the Large Hadron
Collider had been acquired by Bain Capital, it would have been “burdened
with debt and sold for scrap metal” and that Romney would be “the most
anti-physics president since Franklin Pierce.”
NEW YORK — Donald Trump told reporters that
“my people in Hong Kong” have uncovered evidence that America’s failure
to take the lead in subatomic particle research was because of a
conspiracy between the Obama administration and unnamed Chinese
industrialists.
Trump also said that he had invited the Higgs boson to be a contender on “All-Star Celebrity Apprentice.”
Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Fun with physics' God-like particles
From Pasadena News: Fun with physics' God-like particles
Somewhat to the regret of his fellow scientists, a physicist dubbed a subatomic particle that once existed only in theory as the "God particle," because without it the physical universe - stars, planets, us - wouldn't exist.
The Higgs boson - named for University of Edinburgh professor Peter Higgs, one of the six physicists who postulated the particle's existence in 1964 - endows other basic particles, protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., with mass. Scientists compare the process of an object acquiring size and weight to passing through molasses - the "Higgs field."
Actually proving its existence proved considerably more difficult.
The method chosen involved a 17-mile circular tunnel called the Large Hadron Collider, operated by CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva. The physicists would send particles rocketing around the collider at high speeds until the particles collided, and then the scientists would study the debris for traces of the Higgs boson.
To show how painstaking this was, Joe Incandela, the American physicist who led one of the two teams, said out of some 500 trillions collisions only several dozen produced "events" that could be studied.
Advanced physics doesn't come cheaply or easily. This discovery took two years, cost $110 billion and the work of 6,000 physicists. The scientists detected a faint glimmer of what might be the Higgs boson last winter and began honing in on the fleeting, microscopic sightings of what may or may not have been the sought-after particle.
CERN's director, Rolf Heuer, was at first reluctant to go beyond saying they had found "a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson." But Wednesday in Geneva, he told physicists gathered there and at webcam viewing stations around the world, "I think we have it."
This was greeted with standing ovations, but perhaps no one welcomed his announcement more than Dr. Higgs, now 83, who was there in Geneva for the celebration.
The discovery vindicated the Standard Model, the predictive theory of particle physics - but, like so many breakthroughs, it raises as many questions as it answers. As one elated scientist put it, now the fun begins.
Somewhat to the regret of his fellow scientists, a physicist dubbed a subatomic particle that once existed only in theory as the "God particle," because without it the physical universe - stars, planets, us - wouldn't exist.
The Higgs boson - named for University of Edinburgh professor Peter Higgs, one of the six physicists who postulated the particle's existence in 1964 - endows other basic particles, protons, neutrons, electrons, etc., with mass. Scientists compare the process of an object acquiring size and weight to passing through molasses - the "Higgs field."
Actually proving its existence proved considerably more difficult.
The method chosen involved a 17-mile circular tunnel called the Large Hadron Collider, operated by CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva. The physicists would send particles rocketing around the collider at high speeds until the particles collided, and then the scientists would study the debris for traces of the Higgs boson.
To show how painstaking this was, Joe Incandela, the American physicist who led one of the two teams, said out of some 500 trillions collisions only several dozen produced "events" that could be studied.
Advanced physics doesn't come cheaply or easily. This discovery took two years, cost $110 billion and the work of 6,000 physicists. The scientists detected a faint glimmer of what might be the Higgs boson last winter and began honing in on the fleeting, microscopic sightings of what may or may not have been the sought-after particle.
CERN's director, Rolf Heuer, was at first reluctant to go beyond saying they had found "a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson." But Wednesday in Geneva, he told physicists gathered there and at webcam viewing stations around the world, "I think we have it."
This was greeted with standing ovations, but perhaps no one welcomed his announcement more than Dr. Higgs, now 83, who was there in Geneva for the celebration.
The discovery vindicated the Standard Model, the predictive theory of particle physics - but, like so many breakthroughs, it raises as many questions as it answers. As one elated scientist put it, now the fun begins.
Friday, July 6, 2012
China reports milestone in operating nuclear accelerator
From Global Times: China reports milestone in operating nuclear accelerator:
The tandem accelerator in China's first major accelerator lab on nuclear physics had safely run for 100,000 hours by last week, according to a Wednesday statement from the China Institute of Atomic Energy.
The US made HI-13 accelerator was installed in the Beijing-based national lab in the early 1980s and provides over 3,300 hours of ion beam each year for both Chinese and overseas researchers, said the statement.
It noted that the achievement should be taken as a milestone in China's research in low-energy nuclear physics, which had also lead to progress in nuclear data analysis and electronic components for space activities.
In addition, the statement briefed the ongoing upgrading project of the accelerator lab, which is expected to be finished by April 2014.
China aims to build itself into an innovative country by 2020, when scientific progress will contribute to nearly 60 percent of the nation's economic growth, according to a national outline for scientific and technological development (2006-20).
Last year, China's research and development spending surged 21.9 percent year-on-year to 861 billion yuan ($139.7 billion),representing 1.83 percent of its gross domestic product in 2011.
At the same time, China spent 39.6 billion yuan on basic scientific research projects, and the country constructed 130 national engineering research centers and 119 national engineering laboratories, according to a report from China's National Bureau of Statistics.
The tandem accelerator in China's first major accelerator lab on nuclear physics had safely run for 100,000 hours by last week, according to a Wednesday statement from the China Institute of Atomic Energy.
The US made HI-13 accelerator was installed in the Beijing-based national lab in the early 1980s and provides over 3,300 hours of ion beam each year for both Chinese and overseas researchers, said the statement.
It noted that the achievement should be taken as a milestone in China's research in low-energy nuclear physics, which had also lead to progress in nuclear data analysis and electronic components for space activities.
In addition, the statement briefed the ongoing upgrading project of the accelerator lab, which is expected to be finished by April 2014.
China aims to build itself into an innovative country by 2020, when scientific progress will contribute to nearly 60 percent of the nation's economic growth, according to a national outline for scientific and technological development (2006-20).
Last year, China's research and development spending surged 21.9 percent year-on-year to 861 billion yuan ($139.7 billion),representing 1.83 percent of its gross domestic product in 2011.
At the same time, China spent 39.6 billion yuan on basic scientific research projects, and the country constructed 130 national engineering research centers and 119 national engineering laboratories, according to a report from China's National Bureau of Statistics.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Will new sanctions convince Iran to yield?
This article is about 5 days out of date, but I thought it was necessary to share it. Just goes to show if you don't nip these things in the bud, there's no stopping them.
From UPI.com: Will new sanctions convince Iran to yield?
TEHRAN, June 28 (UPI) -- New sanctions may not convince Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the country can no longer afford its nuclear intransigence, some experts say.
They point out Iran took a harder economic hit during the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Iranian nuclear physics is beating out Western economics -- they're not yet feeling such severe pressure that they feel they have to compromise," said Mark Dubowitz, an energy specialist at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which supports sanctions.
The middle-class is already feeling the pinch. Ali, a print shop employee who did not want his full name used, told the Times he has "downsized" his life by switching to Iranian cigarettes, convincing his wife to give up her health club and cutting back on meat.
"As time passes and dollars are lost, inevitably ordinary Iranians are going to ask the question, 'Is it worth it?' " said Cliff Kupchan, who moved from the U.S. State Department official to the Eurasia Group consulting firm.
New sanctions kick in this week, including an embargo by the United States and European Union on Iranian oil and a ban on insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil that would prevent them from getting insurance through Lloyds of London.
From UPI.com: Will new sanctions convince Iran to yield?
TEHRAN, June 28 (UPI) -- New sanctions may not convince Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the country can no longer afford its nuclear intransigence, some experts say.
They point out Iran took a harder economic hit during the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"Iranian nuclear physics is beating out Western economics -- they're not yet feeling such severe pressure that they feel they have to compromise," said Mark Dubowitz, an energy specialist at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which supports sanctions.
The middle-class is already feeling the pinch. Ali, a print shop employee who did not want his full name used, told the Times he has "downsized" his life by switching to Iranian cigarettes, convincing his wife to give up her health club and cutting back on meat.
"As time passes and dollars are lost, inevitably ordinary Iranians are going to ask the question, 'Is it worth it?' " said Cliff Kupchan, who moved from the U.S. State Department official to the Eurasia Group consulting firm.
New sanctions kick in this week, including an embargo by the United States and European Union on Iranian oil and a ban on insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil that would prevent them from getting insurance through Lloyds of London.
US NRC Presents Long Term Priorities For US Nuclear Physics Program
From Space Today: US NRC Presents Long Term Priorities For US Nuclear Physics Program
Nuclear physics is a discovery-driven enterprise aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of visible matter in the universe. For the past hundred years, new knowledge of the nuclear world has also directly benefited society through many innovative applications. In its fourth decadal survey of nuclear physics, the National Research Council outlines the impressive accomplishments of the field in the last decade and recommends a long-term strategy for the future.
The report builds on the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee's 2007 five-year plan and commends the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation for effective management of the U.S. nuclear physics program.
Recommended priorities for the future include exploiting recent upgrades of nuclear physics facilities, the timely completion of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the development and implementation of a targeted program of underground science, and the creation of two national competitions for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
"The recommendations in this report will help ensure a thriving and healthy field that continues to benefit society from new applications at an accelerating pace," said Stuart Freedman, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and chair of the committee that wrote the report.
"The impact of nuclear physics extends well beyond furthering our scientific knowledge of the nucleus and the nature and origin of visible matter. Nuclear physics is relevant to the most important of today's problems in energy, health, and the environment."
Sophisticated new tools and protocols have been developed for successful management of the largest projects in nuclear physics, the report says. But to keep the U.S. program nimble and competitive, the committee recommends that federal agencies develop streamlined and flexible procedures tailored for initiating and managing smaller-scale nuclear science projects.
The report also advises the theoretical nuclear science community to develop a plan for exploiting the rapidly increasing power of modern computing, and to establish the infrastructure and collaborations now in order to take advantage of these capabilities as they become available. Additional priorities for the field should include continued investment in accelerator and detector research and the possible development of an electron-ion collider.
Two videos have been prepared in conjunction with the report to illustrate several of its main ideas. The videos are suitable for classroom use and clearly articulate the scientific rationale and objectives for nuclear physics, placing near-term goals in a broader international context. The videos are available here.
Nuclear physics is a discovery-driven enterprise aimed at understanding the fundamental nature of visible matter in the universe. For the past hundred years, new knowledge of the nuclear world has also directly benefited society through many innovative applications. In its fourth decadal survey of nuclear physics, the National Research Council outlines the impressive accomplishments of the field in the last decade and recommends a long-term strategy for the future.
The report builds on the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee's 2007 five-year plan and commends the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation for effective management of the U.S. nuclear physics program.
Recommended priorities for the future include exploiting recent upgrades of nuclear physics facilities, the timely completion of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, the development and implementation of a targeted program of underground science, and the creation of two national competitions for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
"The recommendations in this report will help ensure a thriving and healthy field that continues to benefit society from new applications at an accelerating pace," said Stuart Freedman, professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, and chair of the committee that wrote the report.
"The impact of nuclear physics extends well beyond furthering our scientific knowledge of the nucleus and the nature and origin of visible matter. Nuclear physics is relevant to the most important of today's problems in energy, health, and the environment."
Sophisticated new tools and protocols have been developed for successful management of the largest projects in nuclear physics, the report says. But to keep the U.S. program nimble and competitive, the committee recommends that federal agencies develop streamlined and flexible procedures tailored for initiating and managing smaller-scale nuclear science projects.
The report also advises the theoretical nuclear science community to develop a plan for exploiting the rapidly increasing power of modern computing, and to establish the infrastructure and collaborations now in order to take advantage of these capabilities as they become available. Additional priorities for the field should include continued investment in accelerator and detector research and the possible development of an electron-ion collider.
Two videos have been prepared in conjunction with the report to illustrate several of its main ideas. The videos are suitable for classroom use and clearly articulate the scientific rationale and objectives for nuclear physics, placing near-term goals in a broader international context. The videos are available here.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Brookhaven Lab Central to Future of Nuclear Physics
posting schedule: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
From Brookhaven Today: Brookhaven Lab Central to Future of Nuclear Physics
Nuclear physicists explore the basic, subatomic building blocks of all visible matter in the universe, revealing fundamental laws of nature and often revolutionizing both science and technology. The National Research Council, the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, released on June 26 its fourth decadal report on nuclear physics: “Exploring the Heart of Matter.” The report outlines the significant advances of the past 10 years and offers critical recommendations for a competitive, trailblazing future.
Brookhaven National Laboratory operates at the forefront of nuclear physics research in the United States, in large part because of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile atom-smashing tunnel that recreates the conditions of the early universe. The report notes RHIC’s groundbreaking discovery of the primordial quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a super-hot “perfect” liquid that only existed moments after the Big Bang.
The council recommends the continued development of research projects throughout the country, including rare isotope production facilities, supercomputing infrastructure, and competitions to encourage the next generation of scientists. RHIC is mentioned as a candidate for an electron-ion collider, which would take “snapshots” of fundamental particles traveling at nearly the speed of light to reveal the forces of nature behind the Big Bang. The report also notes the ongoing work at Brookhaven Lab to develop the next generation of accelerators for precise, safe cancer therapy.
“We are especially encouraged to see the leading conclusion of the report state clearly that ‘exploiting strategic investments should be an essential component of the U.S. nuclear science program in the coming decade,’” said physicist Steven Vigdor, head of Brookhaven’s nuclear and particle physics program. “The recently completed upgrade of RHIC luminosities is one of two such investments explicitly called out in the preamble to that conclusion. The nuclear physics community still has a daunting task ahead to steer a course toward the recommendations of this decadal survey within the very tight budget guidance it has received from the administration and Congress.”
The decadal report video below looks at the exciting field of nuclear physics and features two RHIC physicists, Brookhaven Lab’s Paul Sorensen and Stony Brook University’s Barbara Jacak, who discuss the forces underlying all visible matter, the thrill of solving fundamental mysteries, and RHIC’s remarkable role in the hunt for knowledge.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the
National Science Foundation. The National Academy of Sciences, National
Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research
Council make up the National Academies. They are private, nonprofit
institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice
under a congressional charter. The Research Council is the principal
operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org.
From Brookhaven Today: Brookhaven Lab Central to Future of Nuclear Physics
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) tunnel
Nuclear physicists explore the basic, subatomic building blocks of all visible matter in the universe, revealing fundamental laws of nature and often revolutionizing both science and technology. The National Research Council, the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, released on June 26 its fourth decadal report on nuclear physics: “Exploring the Heart of Matter.” The report outlines the significant advances of the past 10 years and offers critical recommendations for a competitive, trailblazing future.
Brookhaven National Laboratory operates at the forefront of nuclear physics research in the United States, in large part because of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a 2.4-mile atom-smashing tunnel that recreates the conditions of the early universe. The report notes RHIC’s groundbreaking discovery of the primordial quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a super-hot “perfect” liquid that only existed moments after the Big Bang.
The council recommends the continued development of research projects throughout the country, including rare isotope production facilities, supercomputing infrastructure, and competitions to encourage the next generation of scientists. RHIC is mentioned as a candidate for an electron-ion collider, which would take “snapshots” of fundamental particles traveling at nearly the speed of light to reveal the forces of nature behind the Big Bang. The report also notes the ongoing work at Brookhaven Lab to develop the next generation of accelerators for precise, safe cancer therapy.
“We are especially encouraged to see the leading conclusion of the report state clearly that ‘exploiting strategic investments should be an essential component of the U.S. nuclear science program in the coming decade,’” said physicist Steven Vigdor, head of Brookhaven’s nuclear and particle physics program. “The recently completed upgrade of RHIC luminosities is one of two such investments explicitly called out in the preamble to that conclusion. The nuclear physics community still has a daunting task ahead to steer a course toward the recommendations of this decadal survey within the very tight budget guidance it has received from the administration and Congress.”
The decadal report video below looks at the exciting field of nuclear physics and features two RHIC physicists, Brookhaven Lab’s Paul Sorensen and Stony Brook University’s Barbara Jacak, who discuss the forces underlying all visible matter, the thrill of solving fundamental mysteries, and RHIC’s remarkable role in the hunt for knowledge.
ORNL, UT team maps nuclear landscape
posting schedule: Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
From Oak Ridge Today: ORNL, UT team maps nuclear landscape
A supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been used to calculate the number of isotopes allowed by the laws of physics.
A team of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee researchers used the Jaguar supercomputer to determine that there are about 7,000 possible combinations of protons and neutrons allowed in bound nuclei with up to 120 protons.
The team’s results are presented in the June 28 issue of the journal Nature.
Most of these nuclei have not been observed experimentally, an ORNL press release said.
“They are bound, meaning they do not spit out protons or neutrons,” team leader Witek Nazarewicz explained in the release. “But they are radioactive—they are short-lived—because there are other processes, such as beta decay, that can give rise to transmutations.”
Of the total, about 3,000 have been seen in nature or produced in nuclear physics laboratories. The others are created in massive stars or in violent stellar explosions.
The team used a quantum approach known as density functional theory, applying it independently to six leading models of nuclear interaction.
Here is more information from the press release:
From Oak Ridge Today: ORNL, UT team maps nuclear landscape
A supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been used to calculate the number of isotopes allowed by the laws of physics.
A team of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and University of Tennessee researchers used the Jaguar supercomputer to determine that there are about 7,000 possible combinations of protons and neutrons allowed in bound nuclei with up to 120 protons.
The team’s results are presented in the June 28 issue of the journal Nature.
Most of these nuclei have not been observed experimentally, an ORNL press release said.
“They are bound, meaning they do not spit out protons or neutrons,” team leader Witek Nazarewicz explained in the release. “But they are radioactive—they are short-lived—because there are other processes, such as beta decay, that can give rise to transmutations.”
Of the total, about 3,000 have been seen in nature or produced in nuclear physics laboratories. The others are created in massive stars or in violent stellar explosions.
The team used a quantum approach known as density functional theory, applying it independently to six leading models of nuclear interaction.
Here is more information from the press release:
The computations allowed the team to identify the nuclear “drip lines” that mark the borders of nuclear existence.
For each number of protons in a nucleus, there is a limit to how many neutrons are allowed, the release said. For example, a helium nucleus, which contains two protons, can hold no more than six neutrons. If another neutron is added to the nucleus, it will simply “drip” off.
Likewise, there is a limit to the number of protons that can be added to a nucleus with a given number of neutrons. Placement of the drip lines for heavier elements is based on theoretical predictions extrapolated far from experimental data and is, therefore, uncertain.
The closer an isotope is to one of these drip lines the faster it decays into more stable forms.
Particle accelerators have been unable to identify most of these exotic isotopes, especially those approaching the neutron drip line, because they are impossible to produce using current combinations of beams and targets.
In fact, Nazarewicz said, all radioactive isotopes decay until they are transformed into one of 288 isotopes that form the so-called “valley of stability.” These stable isotopes have half-lives longer than the expected lifetime of the solar system (about 4.6 billion years).
Earlier estimates of the nuclear landscape varied from as few as 5,000 to as many as 12,000 possible nuclei, Nazarewicz noted. He said his team’s calculations were based on the microscopic forces that cause neutrons and protons to cluster into nuclei, adding that results from the six separate models were surprisingly consistent. By using several models, theorists were able for the first time to quantify uncertainties of predicted drip lines.
Because most of these nuclei are beyond our experimental reach, he explained, models must conform to known nuclei in a way that allows researchers to extrapolate results for exotic nuclei. Insight on the nature of most exotic nuclei must be extrapolated from models, he said.
“This is not a young field,” Nazarewicz noted. “Over the years we’ve tried to improve the models of the nucleus to include more and more knowledge and insights. We are building a nuclear model based on the best theoretical input guided by the best experimental data.”
The calculations themselves were massive, with each set of nuclei taking about two hours to calculate on the 244,256-processor Jaguar system. Nazarewicz noted that each of these runs needed to include about 250,000 possible nuclear configurations.
“Such calculation would not be possible two to three years ago,” he said. “Jaguar has provided a unique opportunity for nuclear theory.”
Nazarewicz noted that this work, supported by DOE’s Office of Science—which also supports the Jaguar supercomputer—and by the Academy of Finland, has both existential value, helping us to get a better understanding of the evolution of the universe, and potential practical applications.
“We are not doing nuclear physics just to see whether you can get 7,000 species,” he explained. “There are various nuclei that we can use to our advantage, eventually. Those we call ‘designer nuclei.’”
Among these valuable nuclei are iron-45, a collection of 26 protons and 19 neutrons, which may help us understand superconductivity between protons; a pear-shaped radium-225, with 88 protons and 137 neutrons, which will help us understand why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe; and terbium-149, with 65 protons and 84 neutrons, which has shown an ability to attach to antibodies and irradiate cancer cells without affecting healthy cells.
“They have done experiments on mice and now humans in which they would look at the effectiveness of this treatment,” he said. “This treatment is called an ‘alpha knife.’
“Applications will certainly follow from the basic knowledge.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)