This Wednesday I was visiting the University of Massachusetts, in the currently colorful town of Amherst, where I gave a colloquium(an hour-long talk aimed at a physics department’s undergraduate majors, graduate students and faculty who are not themselves experts in particle physics) entitled The Quest for the Higgs Boson. It’s similar to the one I gave two weeks ago at the University of Toronto, which is available on-line now. There’s audio and there are slides, but no video, so I’m afraid you’ll have to figure out on your own how the slides and audio fit together; but I think it should be fairly obvious.
If, however, you’re not a physicist or physics student, but you have been following particle physics a little bit, perhaps by reading this blog or Scientific American articles or books for laypeople by, say, Brian Greene or Lisa Randall, then you might instead want to try listening to this lecture I gave recently, which is also in the form of an audio feed plus slides. It makes far fewer assumptions about what audience members are familiar with. And of course there’s always my [in]famous video clips from my March 2011 public lecture on the Large Hadron Collider; a bit out of date since they were made before the new Higgs-like particle was found, but still basically covering what you need to know.
Please note these presentations are under copyright.
To the five articles in my very-slightly-mathy series on Fields and Particles [sorry, the non-mathy series will be probably appear a couple of months from now] I have now added a 6th:
Meanwhile, I remind you that I’m giving a talk on-line, about The Quest for the Higgs Particle. No math required there. (Saturday, September 8th, 1 p.m. New York time/10 a.m. Pacific, through the MICA Popular Talks series, held online at the Large Auditorium on StellaNova, Second Life. You’ll need a Second Life viewer to watch it live. Should you miss it, both the audio and the slides will be posted later for you to look at.) And also, if you missed my colleague Sean Carroll being interviewed about his new book and the science behind the Higgs Discovery, an opportunity I recommended to you yesterday, all is not lost; you can hear it here.
And I myself am giving a public lecture about the Quest for the Higgs Particle this Saturday, September 8th, 1 p.m. New York time/10 a.m. Pacific, through the MICA Popular Talks series, held online at the Large Auditorium on StellaNova, Second Life. You’ll need a Second Life viewer to watch it live. Should you miss it, both the audio and the slides will be posted later for you to look at. (I gave one of these talks, on the Large Hadron Collider, back in April, but the sound quality over the web was a bit problematic; hopefully it will be better this time.)
On Saturday I gave a lecture, newly minted, on how Einstein is perceived in the public eye, and on how the numerous misconceptions about Einstein affect the way many non-experts believe that science is actually carried out. Doing the research for the lecture involved, among other things, going back to some original sources I’d never read or had only read a long time ago, looking a bit at Einstein’s notebook from the period around 1912 (online here), and re-reading large portions of a wonderful biography of Einstein that I’m afraid was written by a physicist for physicists — and consequently largely unreadable without technical background, but a must-read for anyone who has that background. I refer here to Abram Pais’s famous biography: “Subtle is the Lord…”, whose title refers to Einstein’s famous quip: “Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.” (You can read about the origin of this quip in Pais’s book.)
I also enjoyed tracking down some videos online of various physical effects that Einstein explained, or that he predicted in advance. These included videos (linked below) of (more…)
First, I’m participating in a panel discussion today (Thursday June 7th) on the transition that has seen me add science writer and popularizer to my resume’. Here’s the link… free tickets required, click here for details and tickets. Sponsored by SoNYC (Science online New York City), panel discussion entitled “Reaching out of the Ivory Tower”, about the experiences of scientists who are reaching out to the public. Panelists: Ethan Perlstein, Sarah Weisberg, Matt Strassler, Jeanne Garbarino. Location and time: Weiss 305, Rockefeller University, East 66th and York Ave. New York, NY, 7:00 PM. Presenting science to the public in a digestible but honest form is something I feel is important, and I’ll have a few words to say about why I chose to do it now and why via a website and blog. And then I guess the floor will be open to questions, so come on by and ask one!
Reminder: again in New York, Saturday June 16th at 2pm, I’ll be giving a lecture (click here for details): THE EINSTEIN OBSESSION: SCIENCE, MYTH AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION.
Next: I hope you all enjoyed seeing Venus in transit across the Sun Tuesday, in whatever method you chose. If you missed it live, there are of course opportunities to see films of the event — and they’ll save you time, since they’re all speeded up so that the hours pass in a minute or so. Nice views of Venus are complemented by several good-sized sunspots that are roughly the size of the Earth. Venus, you may recall, is the same size as the Earth, but as it was only a third as far away as the Sun yesterday, it appeared three times larger in radius (10 times larger in surface radius) than those sunspots. I managed to see it with the naked eye (with eclipse glasses), but just barely… so tiny! (By the way, if you missed my article on how a transit of Venus was used to obtain the first high-precision measurement of the distance to the sun, here’s the link.)
Here’s one of my own best shots, which I show you not because you can’t find better shots on the internet but because I have learned that most people do not realize you can get such nice views of the sun with so little work.
Venus in transit, at bottom. Several sunspots dot the central region of the sun’s disk. Photo of projection through binoculars onto white screen. Image has been darkened slightly to sharpen contrast between sun and background. Photo: M. Strassler 2012, all rights reserved.
It’s really quite easy. And though there won’t be any more transits of Venus for us to see, there will be bigger sunspots, transits of Mercury, and solar eclipses to watch over the coming 15 years, so you may as well learn how to do this. You just aim the binoculars, big side toward the sun (as though someone were going to look at the sun — BUT DON’T LET ANYONE LOOK, of course), in the rough direction of the sun, wiggle the binoculars until the shadow of the binoculars becomes as small as it possibly can (which tells you they are aligned with the sun) and at that point the sun will shine through the two sides of the binoculars, giving you two images. Put a lens cover on one of the sides if you want to just get one image. Then let the image project onto something white and smooth that can serve as a screen. By moving the screen forward or back you can get a larger or smaller image; by using the focus on the binoculars you can bring the image of the sun into focus. Works great!
Here’s a picture, taken in a similar way, from the annular eclipse last month — a transit of the moon, even though we don’t usually call it that — taken the same way. I like this shot (though focus is imperfect and it was taken from a funny angle) because where the moon’s shadow touches the sun’s limb you can see a bit of light shining between mountain ranges on the moon!
A few seconds before annularity begins during the annular eclipse of the sun on May 20, 2012. Note, in the region where the moon’s silhouette touches the sun’s limb, a patch of sunlight shining through the mountain ranges on the moon. Light and dark regions at left and right of photo are due to shadows on the projection screen. Photo: M. Strassler 2012, all rights reserved.
Venus, passing between the Sun and the Earth on Tuesday, has now transitioned from an object in the evening sky to one in the morning sky; if you want to see it, large and a very thin crescent through binoculars, you’ll need to get up early, before sunrise. Not yet, though; it will be a few days before Venus is far enough from the Sun to pick out in the dawn sky. For now, you can see Venus via the SOHO satellite, which blots out the sun so what’s nearby can be observed.
A final transition: Ray Bradbury died. Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s great science fiction writers, and I especially enjoyed reading his stories because he didn’t write classic geeky science fiction. His work was much more thoughtful and human than that. I think one could make a case that what made his writing unique was that he didn’t separate science from the rest of life. It’s a good example for the rest of us to follow.
Posts are limited this week and next — partly because a draft of a document about “exotic” Higgs particle decays (which I wrote about here, here, here, here and here), relevant to how the Large Hadron Collider experiments ATLAS and CMS might collect their data in 2012 (in particular, how they might trigger on such decays), needs to get done right away. (Data’s already coming in! we’re later than I’d like.) And it really has to get done now since I’m traveling next week with limited internet.
Meantime, a reminder in case you missed it: For those of you in the New York City area: I’ll be joined by the wonderfully talented singer-songwriter-pianist Andrea Wittgens in giving a physics/music joint performance/presentation at the storied Cornelia Street Cafe, Sunday May 13th at 6 p.m., as part of their Entertaining Science series. It’s entitled Rhapsody for Piano and Universe, and intended for the general public. The place is pretty small, so get reservations in advance by calling 212.989.9319.
One more heads-up: again in NYC, June 16th, I’ll be giving a lecture:
THE EINSTEIN OBSESSION: SCIENCE, MYTH AND PUBLIC PERCEPTION
June 16th, 2pm
Jefferson Market Library, 425 6th Ave. West Village, NYC
Free and open to the public!
Who hasn’t heard of Einstein? We all know Einstein failed eighth grade math. (Although he didn’t.) We know he showed energy is the same thing as mass (or was it “matter”?), that he’s the father of the atomic bomb, that he was an old man with frizzy hair, and that he was a patent clerk whose theory was that everything is relative and that nothing can move faster than light. This messy assortment of half-truths and misconceptions permeates our culture and affects public perceptions of science, at many different levels. In this talk we’ll consider how our culture’s obsession with Einstein impacts efforts to convey science to the public.
My talk for the general public about the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] and the search for the Higgs particle, given online as part of the series of talks put on by MICA (Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics) at Caltech, is now posted. The pdf of the slides, and the audio, are available here:
What is MICA? Here’s what they say at their website.
Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics
The Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA) is a professional scientific and educational, non-profit organization based in virtual worlds [VWs]. We are currently using Second Life (SL), and the Intel’s OpenSim-based world ScienceSim, and may expand to other venues as the VWs evolve.
You will sense, if you listen to the talk, that the virtual world is still a little buggy, there are some amusing moments! But on the whole, the virtual world offers many new opportunities for bringing together large but dispersed communities of people with common interests.
Since particle physicists are dispersed across the globe, in professional settings we use video and audio conferencing all the time. In fact, in just a few minutes after posting this, I’m going to listen to and watch a presentation at a conference at the CERN Laboratory (which houses the LHC) from the comfort of my office. I’ve attended conferences in Geneva while in Ontario, and attended conferences in India while in New York. I’ve even given a talk to a conference in Europe while I was just outside one of our National Parks in California! (You can either view this as letting work intrude into a vacation, or not allowing work to prevent a vacation; up to you.) And any experimentalist at the LHC probably attends at least one virtual meeting each day. So for our especially international and collaborative community, virtual experiences have been the norm for quite a while.
