Conversations About Science with Theoretical Physicist Matt Strassler
As someone who has spent several years thinking hard about how to detect “hidden particles” — ones that are not affected by the three forces of the Standard Model, the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces — I am pleased to see the result that just appeared from the APEX experiment, at the … 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
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
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
I posted on Friday that 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 … Read more
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, … Read more