Of Particular Significance

Category: LHC News

After a tiring spring that followed the publication of the book, I’ve taken a little break. But starting tomorrow, I’ll be posting on the blog again, focusing again on the important differences between the conventional notion of “particle” and the concept of “wavicle”. I prefer the latter to the former when referring to electrons, quarks and other elementary objects.

Today, though, some book-related news.

First, a book review of sorts — or at least, a brief but strong informal endorsement — appeared in the New York Times, courtesy of the linguist, author and columnist John McWhorter. Since McWhorter is not a scientist himself, I’m especially delighted that he liked the book and found it largely comprehensible! The review was in a paragraph-long addendum to a longer column about language; here’s an excerpt:

Another positive review recently appeared in Nautilus magazine, written by Ash Jogalekar, a scientist himself — but a chemist rather than a physicist. The full review is available here.

Lastly, the audiobook is in preparation, though I still don’t know the time frame yet.

Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON July 8, 2024

For those of you currently in western Massachusetts or eastern upstate New York, some news: I’ll be speaking about my book today, Monday, June 24th, 5:30 pm, in Lenox, MA. At this free event, held at the local institution known simply as “The Bookstore“, I’ll read from the text and discuss its central message. After that, I’ll answer questions from the audience and sign books.


In other news — for those of you waiting (im)patiently for the audiobook, I am glad to report that there is finally some forward movement on that front. I’m still not sure how long it will take for the audio version to become available, but progress should be steady and rapid from here.

Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON June 24, 2024

[Update: unfortunately, the link below was taken down before the tour, with no explanation. The tour was instead recorded at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67mF5Yx7ZG0.]

Would anyone like a tour of the ATLAS and CMS experiments, the general purpose particle detectors at the Large Hadron Collider that were used to discover the particle known as the Higgs boson? A live, virtual tour is being given today (Tuesday June 11) on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=askq7-9CzrU, at 1700 CERN time — that’s 1600 London time, 11:00 New York time, 8:00 San Francisco time. Find out how these enormous, complex, magnificent devices are constructed, and learn how their various parts work together, 25 million times every second, to allow scientists to track the tiniest objects in the universe. Includes a Q&A at the end for participants.

Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON June 11, 2024

This evening, Thursday June 6th at 6:30 pm, I’ll be joined at the Boston Public Library by Sarah Demers, professor at Yale and member of the ATLAS experiment, and Katrina Miller, Ph.D. in neutrino physics and writer for, among other publications, the New York Times. We’ll serve on a panel entitled “Particle Physics: Where the Universe and Humanity Collide”, talking about the future of particle physics and about how we got into physics in the first place. This event, intended for the general public, is part of the international scientific meeting that I’m attending this week, the 12th annual Large Hadron Collider Physics conference. I hope to see some of you there!

Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON June 6, 2024

At a conference like LHCP12, covering all of Large Hadron Collider [LHC] physics and beyond, there’s far too much to summarize: hundreds of talks, with thousands of incremental experimental results and theoretical insights. So instead, today I’ll draw attention to one of the longest-running puzzles of the LHC era, and to a significant step that’s been made toward resolving it. The puzzle in question involves a rare decay of bottom quarks.

[All figures in this post are taken from LHCP12 talks by Zhangqier Wang and Eluned Smith.]

(more…)
Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON June 5, 2024

The 12th Large Hadron Collider Physics conference is taking place this week in Boston, and for the first time in a several years, I’ll be able to attend in person. I’ll post about it all week.

As part of the conference activities, I will be participating in a public event Thursday night at the Boston Public Library, a panel discussion entitled “Where the Universe and Humanity Collide.” The other panelists are Yale Professor Sarah Demers, a member of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, and Dr. Katrina Miller, a particle physicis and a writer and essayist for the New York Times and other publications. We’ll be discussing the future of particle physics, talking about how we got into the field, and answering whatever questions the audience might have for us. If you’re in Boston, please consider attending!

Picture of POSTED BY Matt Strassler

POSTED BY Matt Strassler

ON June 3, 2024

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