PHYSICS & MATHThere’s an art in the science of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. It’s not simply a method for smashing atoms together, but rather it’s a uniquely painstaking process that can reveal some of the smallest hidden secrets our world has to offer. And while the particles that CERN researchers are studying may be smaller than the smallest atom, by bringing to light quantifiably distinct particles only often thought of in physical theory courses, the discovery of every new particle is a large step forward for the advancements of mankind’s science.
While earlier this week news surrounded a presumptuous theory that researchers at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in fact had not discovered the elusive Higgs Boson particle as they claimed in 2012, news from the people behind the discovery announced that the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) anticipates an even brighter future with a new Director-General at its helm. Selected at the 173rd closed session held earlier this month, Italian physicist Dr. Fabiola Gianotti will begin her five-year mandate starting on January 1st, 2016.
Coming off the toes of Nov. 10 World Science Day for Peace and Development, established by UNESCO in 2001, CERN announced this week that an exhibition held in Belfast, Ireland may reveal another view of famed physicist John Stewart Bell’s extraordinary career. The exhibition entitled Action at a Distance: The Life and Legacy of John Stuart Bell celebrates the 50th anniversary of Bell’s famous theorem that revolutionized the field of quantum theory, and reveals much more than the numbers and variables in the head of the man.
In the preface to a new book entitled “Starmus”, published last month, Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking said that if indeed the particle is the Higgs Boson, then CERN’s discovery could lead to the demise of the universe if its contents were to become unstable. But a new research analysis published this month in the journal Physical Review D, says that Hawking and the rest of the universe may need not fear, because the particle may in fact not be what it appears.
The Higgs Boson particle has been at the center of theoretical physics debates for quite some time now, and while the elusive particle is conjectured to be at the center of every atom, giving them their mass, researchers have been hard-pressed to prove its existence. Last year, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) revealed that an anomaly discovered in the Large Hadron Collider when atoms were compounded together may have in fact been the Higgs Boson, however, new research says that they may have been mistaken. And the particle CERN found may very well be something entirely different.
Laser physicists at Australian National University have constructed a tractor beam that can both repel and attract objects, like a sort of shield-tractor beam combo.
Researchers in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich have calculated new benchmark figures to precisely describe the Ebola epidemic in West Africa from a mathematical perspective. Their results may help health authorities to contain the epidemic.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Believes Humans on Mars in 10 to 12 Years Earlier this month the National Research Council deemed NASA's strategies to send humans to Mars unsustainable and unsafe.