Physics

The Say of the Week

" It is better to treat p values as nothing more than useful exploratory tools or measures of surprise. In any search for new physics,  a small p value should only be seen as a first step in the interpretation of the data, to be followed by a serious ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 11 2009 - 6:40pm

Force & Motion- 5th Grade Style (DAY 1)

Started a unit on Force&Motion with my 5th grade class last week.  So far they are loving it!  My general style is to let them discover and play first, and explain the science behind it later.  If we start out reading about concepts or a lecture style, ...

Blog Post - Diana Flores - Sep 7 2009 - 6:11pm

Rubbia and the Brutalized Gorilla

Sometimes I come to think this blog is overextended: it happens when I realize it contains more things than I can remember, even ones I would really like to have at my fingertips. I was reminded yesterday of a very funny story which a reader left in the co ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 8 2009 - 9:26am

Watch Out For Anomalous Couplings In WW Production

The CDF collaboration has recently released a study of the production of pairs of W bosons in a large bounty of proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron collider-3.6 inverse femtobarns of them, or roughly 300 trillions, give or take 6%. The me ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 9 2009 - 10:56am

Quantum Viruses

Can we bring life forms into pure quantum states? Will we ever manage to elevate Schrodinger's cat from thought experiment to real-life experiment? A recent publication suggests the answers to above questions are affirmative. ...

Article - Johannes Koelman - Sep 9 2009 - 10:54am

The Higgs Potential: Source Of All Our Troubles

The slide below was shown yesterday at an invited talk that Antonio Masiero gave in the University of Bologna, during an open session of the CMS Physics week (see, I am careful to note I am not breaking any rules by showing material relevant to internal CM ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 10 2009 - 12:52pm

Quantum Emissions Caught Pants Down

Today I wish to bring to your attention a figure recently obtained by the CDF collaboration, one which really tells a thousand words. Before I describe it to you, however, I would like to discuss at an elementary level a few basic concepts of particle theo ...

Article - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 14 2009 - 9:30pm

The Current Status of Quantum Gravity Research.

What happened to all the enthusiasm?  Perhaps new astronomy will shed light on the matter. In 2005 the anniversary of Einstein's miracle year there was much talk of " new Einstien"s and why there have been no new ones.   Carlo Rovelli publis ...

Blog Post - Hontas Farmer - Sep 15 2009 - 7:39am

Geese and Physicists always return to Fermilab

Fermilab is a wonderful place to travel to in the late summer or fall. The site of the laboratory is a wide chunk of land just east of the Fox river, 30 miles west of Chicago. It is home to not just physicists and engineers, but to a wide variety of animal ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 15 2009 - 2:57pm

The Say of the Week

"There is, in my opinion, no doubt that by the time we are ready to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson, the whole world will know it". James Gillies, Head of Communications at CERN, interviewed by Physics World's Matin Durrani- video ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Sep 17 2009 - 2:11pm