Conversations About Science with Theoretical Physicist Matt Strassler
Restructured the post: My preliminary discussion is first, the updates from the talks are now at the end. The take-away message from the LHC talks: The most interesting point here is that ATLAS and CMS [crudely] taken together exclude all regions for the Standard Model Higgs particle except below 145 GeV, the range 288-296 GeV, and … Read more
Here’s an article intended to give a layperson a sense for why so many types of particles — most of them, in fact — decay away almost instantly, forcing us to discover them through various types of trickery. This is relevant in the search for the Higgs particle, which decays away far too quickly to … Read more
On Tuesday, the New York Times had an article on the Higgs particle search. Not bad, and does quote relevant people, but just a little bit thin on content. If you want some actual content, try my article on the hints of the Higgs particle. Also, the article falls into the common mistake of not … Read more
Just finished my new article on the hints of a Higgs particle. I hope you find it useful! I have tried to explain, in largely non-technical terms, how experimentalists at the Large Hadron Collider are looking for the Higgs, using various methods; what makes methods of this type easy or difficult, with analogies; that the … Read more
Ok, the third video clip from my talk at the Secret Science club from March 2011 is now uploaded for your enjoyment. [But watch the other two clips first, it will make it a lot easier to follow!] Learn how to find the Higgs particle! (Or at least the easier ways — an explanation of … Read more
Nice post went up yesterday on the ATLAS experiment’s blog [ATLAS is one of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider] from Kyle Cranmer (Professor at New York University) ; as I posted on this blog, Kyle gave Friday’s presentation summarizing ATLAS’s results on the search for the Higgs particle. Kyle is a young star … Read more
On the plane back to the US, I put together a couple of answers to very basic questions about particle physics that I often get from friends and acquaintances who know little or nothing about the subject. I hope you find them interesting! Note also: my previous post repeated a misquote of the CERN director … Read more
Taking advantage of our day and a half off from physics talks in Grenoble, I’ve written the answers to some questions that are often asked (or should be asked) about the Higgs particle. I had planned to do a very careful job of explaining what the Higgs particle is all about — and eventually I … Read more