Of Particular Significance

Tag: atlas

Recently, a reader raised a couple of central questions about speed and relativity. Since the answers are crucial to an understanding of Einstein’s relativity in particular and of the cosmos in general, I thought I’d bring them to your attention, in case you’ve had similar questions.

The Questions

I understand that the vacuum speed of light [“c“] is constant throughout the Universe, and I’m familiar with the math that shows that the energy required to accelerate a particle becomes infinite as the speed approaches c. But what physical effect enforces this behavior? If a proton, for example, gets ejected in a supernova explosion, how does it “know” that it’s getting close to c and can’t go any faster?

And as a corollary to this question, what is the reference frame for measuring these relativistic velocities? For example, when a particle beam at CERN is said to be moving at 99.99% the speed of light, is that speed relative to the infrastructure at CERN? Or does it somehow account for the velocity components that arise from the rotation of the Earth, the orbital motion of the Earth around the Sun, the galactic motion of the Sun in the Milky Way, and so on?…

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POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON March 6, 2024

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POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON March 5, 2024

A lot is happening on this end. 

Carroll is a professor of theoretical physics and philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, while Whiteson is a professor of experimental particle physics — a member of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider — at the University of California, Irvine. Both are well-known authors and great communicators; check them out!

Stay tuned for far more book-related material; there will be a whole wing of this website devoted to answering readers’ questions and providing additional information for those who want to know more!

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON March 5, 2024

How confident can we be that light’s speed across the universe is really constant, as I assumed in a recent post? Well, aspects of that idea can be verified experimentally. For instance, the hypothesis that light at all frequencies travels at the same speed can be checked. Today I’ll show you one way that it’s done; it’s particularly straightforward and easy to interpret.

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POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON February 27, 2024

Quick note today: I’m pleased and honored to share with you that the world-renowned journal Science has published a review of my upcoming book!

The book, Waves in an Impossible Sea, appears in stores in just 10 days (and can be pre-ordered now.) It’s a non-technical account of how Einstein’s relativity and quantum physics come together to make the world of daily experience — and how the Higgs field makes it all possible.

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON February 23, 2024

Nothing goes faster than the speed of light in empty space, also known as the cosmic speed limit c. Right? Well, umm… the devil is in the details.

Here are some of those details:

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POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON February 20, 2024

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A decay of a Higgs boson, as reconstructed by the CMS experiment at the LHC