Physics

CMS Leads Search For Higgs Pair Production

Eight years ago the CMS and ATLAS experiments, giant electronic eyes watching proton-proton collisions delivered in their interior by the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), discovered the Higgs boson. That particle was the last piece of the subnuclear puzzl ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Jan 28 2021 - 5:40am

Challenge: Measure Muons Energy With High-School Math And Win A Mug!

Today I wish to offer you, dear reader, the chance to contribute to scientific research in particle physics. And I claim you can do that by only leveraging basic high-school knowledge in mathematics and geometry. Let me explain what the problem is, first o ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Feb 8 2021 - 8:34am

A New CMS Discovery: The Xi_b** Baryon

Wait, I can almost hear you say it: "Xi_b what? Let's move on, where's the sports section?" Ok, if you need to, please go. But do not underestimate excited Xi_b baryons. They are a helluva lot of fun to watch as they pop into existence ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 2 2021 - 6:20am

Artificial Intelligence At The Accademia Dei Lincei

The Italian "Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei" is an old institution, founded in 1603 to promote and cultivate natural science studies. It counted Galileo Galilei as a member, and it has never ceased to pursue its goal. Nowadays, it is an excellenc ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 12 2021 - 1:35pm

Who Discovered The Odderon?

And to complement the title: "...and what the heck is that, anyway?"  ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 15 2021 - 11:45am

Another 3 Sigma Fluke From LHCb

Ok, don't get me wrong here- the title of this post is not meant to mock my LHCb colleagues. I have friends there, and the experiment has been doing amazing physics in the past decade, with scores of new particles found, and tough questions posed to t ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 27 2021 - 11:11am

This $1000 Says Lepton Universality Is OK

Almost exactly 15 years ago, I was following a nice conference in the Azores island of San Miguel, where I witnessed with a bit of gloom how the Standard Model was capable of explaining to the tiniest level all observed features not only of electroweak phy ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Mar 29 2021 - 9:08am

Just How Hard Did the Ever Given Hit The Suez Canal UPDATE Totally Freed

B asic physics can answer this question in a few different ways and it gives an insight into just how hard it will be to get the Ever Given out of the Canal.  First there is the question of how to quantify in scientific terms “hitting hard”.   This can be ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Mar 29 2021 - 10:14am

Remembering Marni

The remains of what probably was Marni Dee Sheppeard were found last week in the mountains of the west coast of New Zealand, near Otira. Although a positive identification is still pending, this does seem to mean that Marni has died while hiking in her bel ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 1 2021 - 3:19pm

New Muon G-2 Results!

Note: this is an updated version of the article. For the original discussion of the muon anomaly, published before the release of results, please scroll down. ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Apr 7 2021 - 10:50am