Physics

Quaternion Scalars, Quaternion Vectors: Life Without An Orthonormal Basis (2/2)

Everyone's introduction to quaternions always has the same math one-liner: This blog will dive into an issue that has bothered me for years, namely that the line assume the only coordinate system that can be used for quaternions are both normal and o ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Jun 16 2012 - 4:40pm

Recent Results Of CMS

Two days ago I discussed at ICFP 2012 the most recent results of the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. In the allotted time of my talk I could only cover few analyses, and I obviously chose some of the most interesting ones, so that was alr ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 14 2012 - 9:47am

How Fast Do We Get Higgs Mass Plots From Raw Data?

With the approach of Summer conferences-most notably, ICHEP, which alone has set a make-or-die deadline for the LHC experiments- physicists in ATLAS and CMS are frantically producing their results with data collected in 2012. ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 17 2012 - 11:25am

Higgs News?!

While Higgs rumors are appearing in blogs of the usual suspects, I cannot comment on those-and I decided it is better if I do not even link them here (I have grown wary of oversensitive reactions in my colleagues). The only thing I think I can discuss with ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 17 2012 - 9:57pm

B-bar Meson Makes Cracks In The Standard Model?

Recent data from BaBar, a high energy physics experiment at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) may suggest possible flaws in the Standard Model of particle physics, the reigning description of how the unive ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 19 2012 - 10:00am

Smore Snarky Puzzle Answers

April 24, 24 Steps To The Precession Of The Perihelion Of Mercury Snarky puzzle The only metric that is spherically symmetric and solves the Einstein field equations is the Schwarzschild metric, or so sayith Jørg Tofte Jebsen aka Birkhoff's theorem. ...

Blog Post - Doug Sweetser - Jun 18 2012 - 10:36pm

Seeking A PhD In Italy?

The CaRiPaRo foundation offers 15 grants for students willing to follow a Ph.D. program at the University of Padova (Italy). The winners of these grants will get a (modest, but normal for Italian standards) yearly check of about 13.500 euros, plus full boa ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 20 2012 - 6:08am

To All You Disgruntled Particle Hunters...

The tirade below (a bit over the top, admittedly, but I'm in the middle of a stressful week) is inspired by a post written today by Chad Orzel in his blog, Uncertain Principles. It is a breath of fresh air to hear that scientists outside high-energy p ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 21 2012 - 3:59pm

Live Blogging On July 4th- Tune In Here!

CERN announced today (slightly preceded by Physics World) that the LHC experiments will present updates of their searches for the Higgs boson on July 4th. I will be there, blogging from the main auditorium at CERN in real time. By the way, since I just lin ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 22 2012 - 2:37pm

The Quote of the Week

"It is pure craziness what Politics is doing in our country (Italy, T.'s n.): that is, investing little and bad in research, letting the brightest minds escape, not rewarding excellence, and failing to attract foreign researchers. Not doing, tha ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Jun 22 2012 - 4:53pm