Cern? New Particle? Maybe....

Not so long ago we were watching CERN do it's thing and crunch it's numbers - hunting for the elusive Higgs Boson particle.   When confirmed it seemed most of the research community had a collective release, followed almost immediately with a "now what?"

I have to step back here with an observation.  Many of the news outlets treat a possible discovery as the real thing.  Not a maybe but an IS.  

Case in point.  Once the H.B. was confirmed, the data was re-examined for data that seemed to point towards another much more complex particle.   Nothing was confirmed but the data suggested a follow on particle, nothing was confirmed though.   So you can imagine my consternation when I was informed that CERN indeed HAS discovered a new ultra dense particle, leaving Higgs Boson in some sort of particle physics, jerk water by-way, buuuuuuuuuuut..... 

Reading the Wired UK article  - The team at Switzerland's Cern Large Hadron Collider may have discovered a new particle.

Since it's upgrade earlier this year, LHC researchers have observed spikes that could be the
result of particle collisions between a new boson even larger than the Higgs.  In my book, this is a MAY have not an HAS made a discovery. 

The particle -- if truly a new discovery --  would be about four times larger than the top quark,
the heaviest particle so far discovered. And it would be six times bigger than the Higgs. 

In any event, this is still an amazing piece of research on a totally amazing machine. 

To read the complete Wired article  Click Here

Large Hadron Collider Observes a Very Rare Event

Scientists at the LHC announced that they have observed the decay of a particle that if anything is harder to discover that the elusive Higgs particle.   The strange B meson which plays an important role to play in the Standard Model of particle physics.

The Standard Model allows particle physicists to classify subatomic particles and make predictions about particles and processes still not yet observed. The Higgs boson being the most famous example.

Mesons are one of many subatomic particle. This particle can decay into several "flavors" of which the strange B mesons being just such a particle flavor of the subatomic particle. Every sub-atomic particle will decay. Mesons should decay at a rate of four out of every billion strange B mesons ever produced, and non-strange B mesons at a rate of one in 10 billion.

Now teams of physicists have detected the decay of strange B mesons for the first time, but the kicker is that the decay rate strange B meson was four times what the Standard Model predicted.

Discounting the amount of decay seems to support the Standard Model which is good and bad. The SM is known to be incomplete and it also can not account for Dark Matter or why the universe is made of matter instead of anti-matter.

Inside the LHC with LightBox

Oh wow, you HAVE to take a look at this!!!! Courtney sent me in a link for a Lightbox tour of the Large Hadron Collider! You can pan 360 up and down and zoom in to see I swear individual bolts and read signs! Wonderful! highlight the code below, or click the article title

http://lightbox.time.com/2012/07/12/interactive-panorama-step-inside-the-large-hadron-collider/?hpt=hp_c2#end

Higgs boson Confirmed?

This is why I love my daughter...Oh she is going to kill me..but early Wednesday morning I receive a call from her. She informs me that something very exciting happened today.. Well a twenty something with two young boys still in diapers I expected what....the oldest has finally decided to use the potty exclusively? Now I am not putting the situation down, but a young family takes up all your time and most of your attention so when she hit me with the discover confirmation of the Higgs boson particle, well I had to pinch myself...Two great things...for all intents, the particle that started everything spinning on it's merry way and my daughter is a geek. Lol...see why she will most likely kill me?! lol.

But there we are. The particle search characterized as "one of the longest, most expensive searches in the history of science.. Has finally been confirmed Wednesday, by the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider.

This is heady stuff. It almost has to be particle physic's version of Apollo 11. This seemingly iniquitous Higgs boson is the particle predicted by the standard model to imbue elementary particles with mass. Think about that for a second....no Higgs no universe...

Of course there are those still hedging their bet with "the new particle may not be the particle that has been described by the Standard model and has been the focus of every Physicist for the last fifty years.

LHC physicist Dr. Rolf-Dieter Heuer called the discovery “a historic milestone.” but It may be an impostor as yet unknown to physics, perhaps the first of many particles yet to be discovered.

Well I am a glass half full kind of person. I think that the hemming and hawing that has taken place since December needs to be over with. I am not a physicist and don't pretend to fully understand the full implications of the discovery, but the addage of "if it quacks like a duck....certainly should be in play now.

Read the complete article in the NYT Science

LHC Finds Bottomonium

Dvice.com has an article about a recent discovery from the Large Hardron Colider of a particle they have labeled Bottomonium. Like the writer of the article says, you can't make this stuff up! Anyway, Bottomonium is a quark "particle" comprised of a bottom quark and it's anti bottom quark double. Usually you combine a normal particle with an anti-particle you would get instant annihilation. But in the sub-atomic world of the quark, the outward forces of the two particles trying to destroy each other can be off set by the same strong force that binds protons and neutrons. At least for a few hundred millionths of a second, ample enough time to study.

Particle physics predicted Bottomonium but this is the first it has been observed in the lab. The particle's name is "χb(3P)" which is pronounced "kye-bee three pee."

Wikipedia article on quarkonium

CERN's LHC Finds the Higgs Boson?!

According to The Daily Galaxy blog -

• (there is a rumor that) the world's largest atom smasher may have detected a long-sought subatomic particle called the Higgs boson
• The controversial rumor is based on what appears to be a leaked internal note from physicists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (that note can be read on the Daily Galaxy page)
  

Researchers reported in January that they have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds of existence. An in depth discussion on the Higgs Boson event would send most of us screaming after only a few seconds, but suffice it to say:

• The Higgs boson is the only Standard Model particle that has not been observed in particle physics experiments.
  

But as the Wiki article points out:

• If the Higgs boson exists, it is an integral and pervasive component of the material world

Of course the ultimate point here is, how close to the first event in the Universe, the big Bang can the LHC get. Well according to CERN spokesman James Gillies, who stated back in 2010:

• "We're within a billionth of a second of the Big Bang,"

The main stumbling block now is the fact that the LHC is still running on only partial power owing to damage that occurred during the first full power test when several banks of magnets were irreparably damaged due in part to sub par welding. The LHC can only achieve 14 TeV restricting the collider to .001% under the speed of light. It is hoped that LHC will be able to attain full power some time in 2012.

Does the M in M-Theory Stand for Mental?

When i was ever so much younger, one of the meanest things a sib could insult you with was calling you mental. And not in a good way, because you were either being called a person of diminished capacity or just plain strange. Which in a slightly less PC manner brings me around to an article in Dvice concerning the LHC and time travel across the fifth dimension with help from dimensions six through possibly eleven according to one specific "theory of everything" called M-theory. Hence my response oh that has to stand for "mental"! So how does the LHC tie into this? Well it seems that scientists are looking for a Higgs singlet. And no that's not some sort of wife-beater that some guy named Higgs would wear, but is in fact a little beastie that cannot be stopped by any force in the universe.... You see, researchers say that if the Large Hadron Collider ever finds a Higgs boson that it just might spit out a Higgs singlet which believe it or not can pop out of the fifth dimension whenever it feels like it, and can hypothetically appear at more or less any point along the space-time continuum.
Hummmm kinda sounds like a time machine don't it now?

Believe me, there is more in this article that will fry a few synapses. Check out the complete Dvice Article here

Man From Future Try to Halt LHC Experiments

Oh man, I couldn't make this up if I tried! It seems an oddly dressed man was arrested for disrupting the normal operation of the Large Hadron Collider. His statement said he was from the future and was trying to prevent the LHC from destroying Earth. And how did Eloi Cole disrupt operations? Why by stopping supplies of Mountain Dew to the experiment’s vending machines, that's how. To be fair this was not his first attempt. Mr. Cole's first attempt took the form of a sandwich dropped into the works. Yes - THAT sandwich......

Oh it gets weirder! From the article:

• Mr Cole was seized by Swiss police after CERN security guards spotted him rooting around in trash bins. He explained that he was looking for fuel for his ‘time machine power unit’, a device that resembled a kitchen blender.

Mountain Dew.... Blender.... he might be onto something here.....

LHC down again!

From Dvice blog I read that the large Hadron Collider is again offline. However this is no magnetic ring losing containment no this time it was caused by something almost beyond comprehension!

Would you believe a piece of bread? I am not making this up, one of the world's most complicated machines was brought low by a bread crumb. Oh and it gets weirder! The crumb did not come from a careless workman, sandwich in one had and a welder in the other, no - said crumb was thought to have been dropped by one of our feathered friends.

From the article:

• The morsel found its way into the doomsday device's outdoor machinery, sparking a temperature differential that triggered an automatic shutdown sequence....

It shouldn't hurt the schedule too much, but it is going to take a couple of weeks getting the LHC restarted.

Is the LHC's bad luck coming from the future?

Oh, here is a wonderfully weird piece submitted by Shaun Saunders that he found in the U.K. Telegraph.

It seems as the article states in the opening:

• The much-delayed and maligned Large Hadron Collider has been hit by its most outlandish claim to date - it is being sabotaged by its own future.

HUH? Yep you read that right. Right out of sci-fi there is speculation that the run of bad luck is in fact sabotage. And not just normal sabotage, but sabotage from the future!

Are we talking about med taking wackos? Nope, it seems that a couple of well known physicists are claiming nature itself is stopping the troubled project from getting off the ground.

Their hypothesis is based on a weird particle called the Higgs Boson, thought to be the building block of life and one of the particles that it is hoped the LHC will discover.

Ok, so it is almost like the particle doesn't want to be discovered. But the scientists are making the supposition that the LHC DID make one in the future. However in creating the particle, it sends ripples down the space / time line back before the particle was discovered and stops the collider before it could make one.

Weird enough for you? Well, its not without president, read the complete article by clicking on the title.

LHC's troubles continue to mount

According to an article in the NYT Space & Cosmos section - faulty electrical connections plus the already discovered vacuum leaks continue to push back the full power tests. As many as 5000 splices in the super-conducting cables need to be redone otherwise the resistance in the splices will prevent the LHC from going to full power. It has also been discovered that many of the super-conducting magnets can no longer perform at the specified high currents. Before the magnets are installed, they are slowly exposed to higher and higher current loads there by conditioning them. Many magnets will have to be removed and "retrained" if the collider is to reach its' target of 7 tev or 7 trillion electron volts. Without reconditioning LHC may only reach 6.5 tev and it should be noted that a great deal of time would be be need for the retraining.

After being informed that it would be winter sometime before they could set a date for full power restarts, many scientists at LHC opted to move to Fermilab, where the Tevatron accelerator has been in operation for a decade.

Many scientists have stated that they would be happy with even 5 tev from the LHC as that is substantially higher than Fermilab's Tevatron which can reach 1 tev.

complete NYT article

Wana See What 10 Megajoules Worth of Damage Looks Like?

We have been hearing for quite some time now about the damage to the Large Hadron Collider when a malfunction during the initial startup phase brought further experiments to a screeching halt.

Here are some CERN's photos courtesy of Gizmodo, of the LHC's multi-million-dollar malf. They show the results of a single solder joint's failure on the world's most complex machine.

Aside from wrecking 53 of the Large Hadron's magnets, the incident released six tons of helium into the atmosphere.

CERN hope to get the Large Hadron Collider back into operation by June of next year. Two of the 53 replacement magnets have already been installed.

<- Gizmodo ->

Quantum Mechanics as Reality TV!

Only on Wired's site could you ever imagine taking the extremes of quantum mechanics and reality tv and putting them together. Why you might ask.... well if you can grasp the concept, it's a light hearted way to describe just what all the buzz is about with the lhc. With tongue firmly in cheek we are told that if you can grasp the compexities of reality tv you too can understand physics at the quantum level.

The article is certainly funny, but for me, it was a geeky way to learn how to understand reality tv!

<- More! ->

LHC rap!

It me, DJ Pacman layin this track down for ya. Oh yes, a rap video about the LHC. Good stuff from the TechRepublic blog:



yeah, I saw you...head a bobbin...can't fool me. The track might be fly but the video? lol well it IS the LHC

Dooms-Day Watch or Monitor Large Hadron Collider's Magnet Temperatures With Real Time Status Website

This is first class geeky awsomeingdom. The Large Hadron Collider is due to be fired up on August 7. Though there is no real danger of accidentally opening up a black hole that swallows the world, it's so very cool to have a page full of screen charts as the collider does its' well collider stuff! The Cern LHC Hardware Commissioning home page is hosting a real time website. On the site you are presented with a graphic of each sectory with which you can track the current temperatures of its 1600+ superconducting magnets in real time. Oh its techie goodness my friend. Pocket protectors are a must while logged in.

click the graphic! Thanks Gizmodo!