The CDF experiment at the Tevatron claims to have observed a long-sought rare process — the decay of a particle called the B_s meson to a muon and anti-muon — and the observed rate is at least 1.5 times and perhaps as much as 6 times what was expected in the Standard Model. Very interesting, but very early days yet. I have a preliminary post here — to be updated when I fully understand the result.
Blog – Of Particular Significance
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON July 14, 2011
Terrible news indeed, that there is a serious chance that the James Webb Telescope, the successor to the Hubble space telescope, will be cancelled by the House of Representatives. I myself am horrified watching this country voluntarily give up its leadership in one scientific field after another, killing projects that are not even a drop in the bucket of our yearly debt, and for which we have already paid a significant fraction of the bill. I can’t describe the benefits of this telescope nearly as well as my astronomy colleagues, so please read what they have to say. Here is a post by my former colleague at the University of Washington, Julianne Dalcanton.
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON July 12, 2011
30 years ago, I took a battery-operated radio along on an 8th grade camping trip so I could listen with excitement to the first space shuttle launch. Today I watched the last one on streaming video, sadness mixed in with the thrill. And once, 12 years ago, I witnessed a nighttime space shuttle launch in person. The experience was so extraordinary that I had to write it all down. Here is the story: Sunrise [html]
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON July 8, 2011
Have you noticed it has gone very quiet in LHC land? Here’s why! #fb
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON July 6, 2011
I’ve taken some old posts on the Large Hadron Collider that I’ve written and brought them over to the new website. Check them out here.
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON June 29, 2011
Welcome to my new website! This site will serve as a clearing house for all the wonderful conversations that I hope to have with the public about science, and for my posts with the answers to the most commonly asked questions concerning science most broadly, physics in general, my own field of particle physics, and the Large Hadron Collider in particular.
POSTED BY Matt Strassler
ON June 29, 2011
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