Physics

Hangout to Talk About Physics This Friday, Jan. 23, 3-5pm

Each January, I scamper out of the basement and talk to folks during MIT's Independent Activities Period. The Alumni Association is the sponsor (no one from the physics or math department is inviting me). ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Jan 19 2015 - 10:30pm

One Year In Pictures

A periodic backup of my mobile phone yesterday- mainly pictures and videos- was the occasion to give a look back at things I did and places I visited in 2014, for business and leisure. I thought it would be fun to share some of those pictures with you, wit ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 22 2015 - 7:43am

Deflate-gate: Cheating People versus a Flawed Pre-Game Process

I live in Massachusetts, home of the National Football League team the New England Patriots.  I admit to being a fan, being raised as a Minnesota Viking by two enthusiastic parents.  The Vikings have been to two super bowl 5 times (and lost 5 times, ouch) ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Feb 2 2015 - 11:04pm

The Plot Of The Week: CMS Search For Majorana Neutrinos

The CMS collaboration has released yesterday results of a search for Majorana neutrinos in dimuon data collected by the CMS detector in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC in 2012. If you are short of time and just need an executive summary ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 29 2015 - 3:33pm

Happy 150th Birthday To Maxwell's Theory Of Electromagnetism

Time-dependent Maxwell's equations in media  By Robyn Arianrhod, Monash University It’s hard to imagine life without mobile phones, radio and television. Yet the discovery of the electromagnetic waves that underpin such technologies grew out of an ab ...

Article - The Conversation - Jan 26 2015 - 9:00am

Penalty Kicks By Schroedinger's Cat That Score And Miss At The Same Time

Can a penalty kick simultaneously score a goal and miss? In the realm of quantum mechanics that is certainly be true, because microscopic objects can take different paths at the same time.  Almost 100 years ago physicists Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Er ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2015 - 8:30am

Reviews In Physics- A New Journal

The publishing giant Elsevier is about to launch a new journal, Reviews in Physics. This will be a fully open-access, peer-reviewed journal which aims at providing short reviews (15 pages maximum) on physics topics at the forefront of research. The web pag ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 26 2015 - 8:20am

Me

This blog- which, in different sites, has been online since 2005, hence for over 10 years now- enjoys a core of faithful readers, who over the years have learnt more detail on my personal life than they probably thought they'd need. But it also occasi ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 30 2015 - 4:41am

The ATLAS Top Production Asymmetry And One Thing I Do Not Like Of It

ATLAS sent today to the Cornell arxiv and to the journal JHEP their latest measurement of the top-antitop production asymmetry, and having five free minutes this afternoon I gave a look at the paper, as the measurement is of some interest. The analysis is ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 30 2015 - 12:11pm

Classical Gravity, Part 1: The Problems

In this post, I will provide the ultra orthodox fringe view (translation: just my view) on the problems that face physics when doing classical problems with gravity.  The difference between this blog and a more conventional presentation is that I will emp ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Feb 25 2015 - 12:26pm