Particle Physics RSS feed for topic: Particle Physics en Neutrino astronomy: Balloon with a view UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; Sheikhs v shale Fly Title:&nbsp; Neutrino astronomy Rubric:&nbsp; An experiment in Antarctica may solve the mystery of cosmic rays Main image:&nbsp; Up, up and away! Up, up and away! MEET ANITA. Strictly, ANITA III—for she is the third iteration of the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna. Her job, when she is launched sometime in the next few days, will be to float, suspended from a giant balloon, over Antarctica’s ice, in order to record radio waves which that ice is giving off. These radio waves are generated by neutrinos passing through the ice, making Antarctica the biggest neutrino-detection laboratory in the world. The particular neutrinos that ANITA seeks are of extremely high energy. Where they come from, no one knows—nor, strictly speaking, is it actually known that they exist, for ANITAs I and II, which were smaller devices, failed to find them. But theory says they should be there, generated in whatever giant explosions also create cosmic rays. Cosmic rays ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 04 Dec 2014 13:34:37 +0000 21635452 at Science and technology: Small steps, big change UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Fly Title:&nbsp; Science and technology Rubric:&nbsp; A science-fiction writer, Alastair Reynolds, considers what will soon be science fact Byline:&nbsp; Alastair Reynolds Main image:&nbsp; 20151101_stp005.jpg A common complaint about science fiction is that it promises more than our world’s humdrum reality ever delivers—a refrain summed up in the question: “Where’s my flying car?” But change happens in small, incremental ways, and it can catch us off-guard if we pay insufficient attention. Flying cars may still be some way off (although maybe not that far), but driverless cars are on the cusp of becoming a mainstream technology. From 2015, they will be legal on certain roads in Britain. While these cars must contain a driver capable of taking over at any moment, they represent a significant step towards fully autonomous vehicles. Guided ­by on-board cameras, radar and&nbsp;gps, driverless cars stand to be both safer and more energy-efficient than present-day vehicles, and they ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:30:07 +0000 21631806 at Cosmic-ray astronomy: Moonbeams UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; The Party v the people Fly Title:&nbsp; Cosmic-ray astronomy Rubric:&nbsp; An intriguing proposal to study cosmic rays by looking at Earth’s satellite THE Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is far and away the most powerful particle accelerator built by the hand of man. Yet it is puny compared to the most powerful particle accelerator of them all: the universe itself. Earth is under constant bombardment from cosmic rays (mostly atomic nuclei travelling at high velocity) that streak in from deep space, smash into the atmosphere and disintegrate in a puff of radiation and subatomic debris. Though the vast majority of cosmic rays are pale shadows of the things physicists cook up in atom-smashers, a real whopper arrives occasionally. The most energetic of all are millions of times more potent than anything the LHC can generate, packing the energy of a rapidly delivered cricket ball into a single, blisteringly fast atomic nucleus. Studying such ultra-high-energy rays is difficult, though, because they are so rare. Each square kilometre of Earth is ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:00:54 +0000 21621705 at Particle physics: The ghosts and the machine UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; Creative destruction Fly Title:&nbsp; Particle physics Rubric:&nbsp; Studying the diaphanous neutrino will be America’s contribution to a new generation of physics Location:&nbsp; Batavia, Illinois Main image:&nbsp; 20140628_STD001_0.jpg DEEP beneath the plains of Illinois, in a man-made cavern filled with racks of scientific equipment, someone has spray-painted a white circle onto the bare rock wall. Stand in front of it and you are standing in the path of the most powerful beam of neutrinos in the world, which is emerging from a nearby particle accelerator at Fermilab, America’s main particle-physics laboratory. With any other kind of accelerator, standing in the beam would have spectacular and fatal consequences. But your correspondent was not vapourised—nor, several weeks later, has he developed either cancer or superpowers. And that is the point: neutrinos are ghostly things. Billions a second stream ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 26 Jun 2014 14:58:07 +0000 21605867 at Fundamental physics: Casting light on dark matter UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; Leviathan of last resort Fly Title:&nbsp; Fundamental physics Main image:&nbsp; 20140412_STP001_0.jpg This picture, physicists think, shows telltales of dark matter: mysterious stuff which makes up five times as much of the universe as the more familiar matter of atoms. The image, based on data from Fermi, an American satellite, and created by Dan Hooper, an astrophysicist at Fermilab, in Illinois, superimposes onto a picture of the visible substance of the Milky Way’s centre a map of part of its gamma-ray production—the part in excess of that which visible matter would be expected to produce in the turmoil of the galactic core. This excess, theory suggests, is produced by invisible stuff dubbed Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, or WIMPs. Physicists believe in WIMPs because everything from the chemistry of the early universe to the ways in which galaxies rotate suggests there is far more matter out there than can be seen directly. Exactly what WIMPs are, though, is hotly debated. The characteristics of the radiation Dr Hooper ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 10 Apr 2014 14:59:07 +0000 21600658 at Writing worth reading: Dark matter The health effects of a world without darkness (Aeon) Humans evolved to fit round natural rhythms of day and night. Is an artificial light a health hazard?Waiting for BQP fever (Scott Aaronson) Partly a review of the particle physics film "Particle Fever", and&nbsp;partly a post about the unique success of particle physics and cosmology&nbsp;in arguing that science, like art,&nbsp;should be done for its own sake.Just how ephemeral are ephemeral apps? (Bruce Schneier). Snapchat, Wickr, Frankly and similar apps promise to delete your messages soon after they're sent. But do they really?Google Flu and the hubris of Big Data (Steven Salzberg) Tracking flu-related web searches seemed like&nbsp;a great way of tracking the ebb and flow of seasonal influenza. So why has Google's project got it so wrong?The Great Barrier Reef: an obituary (The Guardian) At once fascinating, and a natty example of interactive web writing done well.Revenge on the Nerds (The Atlantic) First they laughed at the nerds, then they decided they were cool. Now Mike Judge (the creator of "Beavis and Butthead") is back to laughing at them again, skewering Silicon Valley and startup culture in general.&nbsp; Comment Expiry Date:&nbsp; Sat, 2014-04-19 <div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Fri, 04 Apr 2014 19:26:58 +0000 21600296 at Astrophysics: Gotcha! ONE of the reasons science is so powerful is its ability to predict the existence of things long before they can be confirmed by experiment. To take just the most recent, and famous, example, the existence of the Higgs boson was predicted on blackboards decades before it was finally run to ground by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.Now the physicists have done it again. Earlier today the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced that the BICEP-2 telescope at the South Pole had seen unambiguous evidence of the existence of gravitational waves. Predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity, these are ripples in the fabric of space itself.Assuming it stands the test of time (and a few physicists were already making sceptical noises, in the best sense of that word, on Twitter), the announcement is a big deal. Detecting gravitational waves has long been a goal of astrophysicists; a Nobel prize was handed out in 1993 for indirect proof of their existence. In fact, this is a scientific double whammy, for the particular type of gravitational wave that the telescope has detected provides strong evidence that physicists' ideas about how the universe came into being are true as well. Specifically, they provide direct physical evidence for the inflationary hypothesis, which holds that very shortly after the Big Bang, space itself went through a brief but dramatic period ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Mon, 17 Mar 2014 15:28:24 +0000 21599160 at The search for neutrinos: Digging deep UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; The triumph of Vladimir Putin Fly Title:&nbsp; The search for neutrinos Rubric:&nbsp; Common yet coy, neutrinos are a mystery. But they are important Main image:&nbsp; 20140201_BKP001_0.jpg Neutrino Hunters: The Thrilling Chase for a Ghostly Particle to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. By Ray Jayawardhana. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 256 pages; $27. Oneworld; £11.99. Buy from, The Perfect Wave: With Neutrinos at the Boundary of Space and Time. By Heinrich Päs. Harvard University Press; 312 pages; $26.95 and £19.95. Buy from, NEUTRINOS are weird. The wispy particles are far more abundant than the protons and electrons that make up atoms. Billions of them stream through every square centimetre of Earth’s surface each second, but they leave no trace and rarely interact with anything. Yet scientists increasingly agree that they could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries in physics: why the cosmos is made of ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:01:43 +0000 21595398 at Quick Study: Edward Frenkel on math: It's a lot like borscht EDWARD FRENKEL is a Russian mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. He is professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Love and Math”, recently published by Basic Books.You describe math as "beautiful". What do you mean?Imagine you had an art class in which they taught you how to paint a fence, but never showed you the great masters. Of course, you would say; ‘I hate art.' You were bad at painting the fence but you wouldn’t know what else there is to art. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens with mathematics. What we study at school is a tiny little part of mathematics. I want people to discover the magic world of mathematics, almost like a parallel universe, that most of us aren’t aware even exists.How did you discover it?When I was growing up near Moscow I thought mathematics was the most boring and irrelevant subject, but I was fascinated with quantum physics and elementary particles. Luckily for me a professional mathematician was a friend of my family and when I was about 15 years old he said to me; ‘Do you know that this theory of elementary particles is based on mathematics?’ He showed me a book full of formulas and equations I could not understand, but I realised that&nbsp; these were glimpses of this magic world that was hidden from me and this was portal into ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 05 Dec 2013 15:01:26 +0000 21591088 at Discovering the Higgs: A smashing show "WHAT colour is a proton?" is not a question physicists ask themselves. But it is one that curators at the Science Museum in London needed an answer to. (Since nobody knows, they went with yellow, explains Ian Blatchford, the museum's director.) This was far from the biggest challenge they faced when putting together "Collider", a new exhibition about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the experiment which in 2012 famously nabbed the Higgs boson, the elusive particle which gives others mass.The significance of the discovery of the Higgs is huge. Like the uncovering of DNA's structure by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953, finding the Higgs helps makes sense of what would otherwise be incomprehensible. Without it there would be no mass, and therefore no atoms, no planets—and no people to ponder such things. Much of modern physics hinges on the particle, first predicted in 1964 by Peter Higgs, a British physicist. Its discovery puts the finishing touch on the Standard Model, the best explanation to date for how the universe works.The&nbsp;scientific experiment to discover the Higgs is arguably the biggest, most complicated and most expensive in history. The pride of CERN, the world's premier particle-physics lab, the LHC occupies a 27km circular tunnel 100 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss countryside, near Geneva. It whips protons up to 99.9999991% of the speed of light ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Mon, 18 Nov 2013 18:54:10 +0000 21590116 at Dark matter: Absence of evidence, or evidence of absence? UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; Go on, bet the farm Fly Title:&nbsp; Dark matter Rubric:&nbsp; Physicists are learning more about what dark matter isn’t. That will help them find out what it is Main image:&nbsp; 20131102_STD001_0.jpg COSMOLOGY and particle physics—or at least, the popular versions of them—tend to the grandiose. The Higgs boson, recently discovered at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory, is not just any old particle. To the despair of many physicists, it has been dubbed the “God particle”. Books on cosmology promise to reveal the “fabric of the cosmos”, while their academic authors discuss different flavours of a “theory of everything”. The reality, though, is more disappointing—or perhaps more exciting, depending on your point of view. Physicists have excellent, accurate theories to describe the behaviour of the matter that makes up atoms. But they also know that this matter constitutes less than 5% of the substance of creation. The remainder is split between “dark energy”, a ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Wed, 30 Oct 2013 17:50:14 +0000 21588829 at Particle accelerators: Small really is beautiful UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; How science goes wrong Fly Title:&nbsp; Particle accelerators Rubric:&nbsp; Fundamental physics seems to have an insatiable appetite for bigger, more expensive machines. There may, though, be a way to shrink them radically Main image:&nbsp; 20131019_STD001_2.jpg BIG science tends to get bigger with time. The first modern particle accelerator, Ernest Lawrence’s cyclotron, was 10cm across and thus fitted comfortably on a benchtop. It cost (admittedly at 1932 prices) $25. Its latest successor, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has a diameter of 8.6km (5.3 miles) and does not even fit in one country: it straddles the border between France and Switzerland, near Geneva. It cost $5 billion. Clearly, this is a trend that cannot continue. And two groups of physicists, one American and one German, think they know how to stop it. Their suggestion, which (if it works) will benefit not only physics but also cancer treatment, is to cease making accelerators out of metal and start ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 17 Oct 2013 15:02:27 +0000 21588048 at The 2013 Nobel prizes: Higgs’s bosuns UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; The gated globe Fly Title:&nbsp; The 2013 Nobel prizes Rubric:&nbsp; Awards for fundamental physics, how cells transport chemicals, and ways of modelling on a computer how those chemicals react once they have arrived Main image:&nbsp; 20131012_STD001_0.jpg WILL he or won’t he? That was the question on the mind of anyone with a passing interest in the topic as representatives of Sweden’s Royal Academy of Science prepared to announce the winner of this year’s Nobel physics prize. Well, he did. Half a century after predicting the existence of the particle which bears his name Peter Higgs, of Edinburgh University, was awarded science’s highest accolade. Another, even bigger mystery was who would share the honour—and the cheque for SKr8m ($1.2m). In the event, after postponing the announcement twice (rare for the punctual Swedes) the prize-givers plumped for François Englert of the Free University of Brussels. Unusually for Nobel laureates in science, Dr Higgs is already a ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 10 Oct 2013 15:00:39 +0000 21587771 at The Economist explains: Why are some scientists unhappy with the Nobel prizes? THE Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine, physics and chemistry are the most prestigious gongs in science. The annual announcement of the winners&nbsp;is a big event in the scientific calendar, as is the ritzy party that takes place on December 10th to honour the winners directly. But talk to scientists in private, and many will grumble. The Nobels are a great way to get people interested in science, they’ll say, and it’s good that we have them. But there have been strange omissions, with people who should have won a prize denied. The grumpiest complain that despite the glitz of the prizes, and the ensuing media attention in articles like this one, the rules that govern them no longer reflect the way modern science works. Why (besides jealousy, perhaps) are some scientists unhappy with the Nobels?One reason is that the committees can often be slow to recognise achievement. Alfred Nobel, the dynamite magnate who set up the prizes in 1895 (pictured above), specified in his will that the prizes should reward work done in the previous year. But experience soon showed that this was risky, as medals were given out for discoveries that later proved questionable. So a degree of caution is probably advisable. Sometimes, though, it can be taken too far. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, for instance, had to wait until 1983 to win a prize for work he had done in the 1930s on the ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Wed, 09 Oct 2013 23:50:00 +0000 21587745 at The 2013 Nobel prizes: Physics: And the award goes to... WILL he or won't he? That was the big question on the mind of anyone with a passing interest in science as the representatives of the Nobel Committee prepared to announce the winner of this year's physics prize in Stockholm on October 8th. Well, he did. Half a century after predicting the existence of the particle which bears his name Peter Higgs was awarded science's highest accolade. Another, even bigger mystery was who would share in the honours—and the cheque for $1.2m—with the Briton? In the event, after postponing the announcement twice—a first for the fastidious Swedes—the prize-givers plumped for François Englert of Belgium (pictured left with Dr Higgs).Unusually for science Nobel laureates, Dr Higgs is a household name. As unusual, he was a shoo-in for this year's prize. Any boffin will tell you that owing to the profusion of worthy research carried out around the world, the Nobels are a lottery. But when scientists at CERN, the world's leading particle-physics laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva, revealed in 2012 that they had at last nabbed the Higgs boson, the odds were stacked firmly in its eponymous predictor's favour.Not only was this the biggest scientific news in years, even decades. It also enabled the Nobel Committee to abide by the letter of Alfred Nobel's will—which states that the award be conferred for an achievement "during the preceding year", ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:46:19 +0000 21587452 at Babbage: October 2nd 2013: Spurring innovative genius SPACEX embarks on another ambitious project for private space flight, researchers find new uses for smart-phone sensors and particle accelerators get smaller <div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Wed, 02 Oct 2013 16:14:23 +0000 21587179 at Quick Study: Leonard Susskind on string theory: Using maths to explain the universe LEONARD SUSSKIND is a professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is regarded as one of the fathers of string theory, a somewhat controversial attempt to explain physics using a single mathematical framework.He is the author of several popular-science books about matters cosmological. His new book, “The Theoretical Minimum”, co-written with George Hrabovsky, an amateur physicist, is a primer for readers who want to know how to think like a physicist.Can you outline what we know about string theory?The most important single thing about string theory is that it’s a highly mathematical theory and the mathematics holds together in a very tight and consistent way. It contains in its basic structure both quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity. That’s big news.Why?Basically, from the time of Einstein’s [theory of] general relativity there was no good idea about how quantum mechanics and gravity fit together. They were always at each other’s throat, apparently inconsistent. String theory’s biggest and most important impact is to show that gravity and quantum mechanics can and do fit together. That, more than anything else, has maintained interest in it. <div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:52:44 +0000 21580253 at The future of physics: Beyond the numbers UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; The sleepwalkers Fly Title:&nbsp; The future of physics Rubric:&nbsp; Fundamental physics has made important advances. Where does it go from here? Main image:&nbsp; 20130525_BKP001_0.jpg The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos. By Neil Turok. House of Anansi Press; 292 pages; C$19.95. Faber and Faber; £17.99. Buy from,&nbsp; Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth. By Jim Baggott. Pegasus; 352 pages; $26.95. Constable; £12.99. Buy from,&nbsp; Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to the Future of the Universe. By Lee Smolin. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 319 pages; $28. Allen Lane; £20. Buy from,&nbsp; PHYSICISTS have a lot to crow about. Last year they finally found the Higgs boson, which some call “the God particle”. The discovery completes the Standard Model, a 40-year-old blueprint for how nature behaves at the smallest end of the scale. In April the ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 23 May 2013 15:05:16 +0000 21578366 at Dark matter: Fractional distillation UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Issue:&nbsp; Korean roulette Fly Title:&nbsp; Dark matter Rubric:&nbsp; The hunt for the missing 85% of matter in the universe is closing in on its quarry Location:&nbsp; GENEVA &nbsp; IF YOU thought the Higgs boson was elusive, consider the case of dark matter. The Higgs—the particle that gives other subatomic species mass—was predicted in 1964 but actually nabbed only last year. That 48-year hunt, though, was a breeze compared with the one for dark matter. Physicists have known the stuff must exist since 1933, when Fritz Zwicky, a Swiss astro-physicist, coined the term to describe a substance which cannot be seen but without which visible galaxies would fly apart as they rotate. The latest results from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite suggest it makes up 85% of all the matter in the universe (up from an earlier estimate of around 80%). Like the Higgs boson, though, the actual particles of which dark matter is composed have proved elusive. Eight decades after Zwicky’s ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:48:49 +0000 21575729 at The Fundamental Physics Prize: And the award goes to...the Big Bang theory THE acceptance speeches were less tearful, the crowds more camera-shy and jokes nerdier. But the inaugural Fundamental Physics Prize gala, held in Geneva on March 20th, really was "a bit like the Oscars", in the words of Morgan Freeman, the American actor who hosted the event. There were dazzling frocks, comely hostesses, musical interludes (by the pianist Denis Matsuev and singer Sarah Brightman), and even a sealed envelope with the name of this year's winner.There were plenty of stars, too, albeit of the physics firmament rather than the silver screen (Mr Freeman excepted). The nine original winners of the $3m award, founded last summer by Yuri Milner, a Russian theoretical physicist turned internet entrepreneur, picked up their trophies, a volleyball-sized mesh of silver wire which swirls into two wormhole-like vortices at opposite poles to interconnect in the middle.So did the seven experimentalists who have over the years led the effort at CERN, Europe's chief particle-physics lab, to nab the Higgs boson, and whom the original nine awarded a special prize in December. (After the septet took the stage Mr Matsuev regaled them, and an enchanted audience, with a bravura performance of Edvard Grieg's "The Hall of the Mountain King", particularly apposite given the cavernous nature of the underground experiments where the Higgs was spotted.) Stephen Hawking, the British ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:51:11 +0000 21573784 at Babbage awards: Wackier than thou SCIENCE had its share of Earth-shattering news in 2012. The Higgs boson—or at least something beguilingly like the elusive, mass-giving particle—was nabbed after decades of trying, a hatchback-sized rover landed on Mars without crashing and immediately began beaming high-definition images, and the 99% of the human genome that is not protein-coding became a good deal less mysterious. And that is just the three we picked as top of the pile in our round-up of the year, which also saw the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station, a better appreciation of the key role that microbes play in the functioning of the human body and the confirmation that time does indeed flow in one direction.&nbsp;Given science's habit of confounding futurologists (and hacks), it is hard to say which of these feats of ingenuity will prove the most profound in the long run. In fact, we probably missed it altogether; ground-breaking ideas tend to begin life as flights of fancy pursued by folk curious about the way things—even apparently inconsequential ones—tick. Yet many, perhaps most, fanciful endeavours will remain just that. But they deserve credit for their sheer weirdness, if nothing else. Otherwise we wouldn't have written about them.Our Babbage awards therefore recognise that fun, and funny, side of science and technology (here is last year's shortlist; it does ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:24:18 +0000 21568576 at The Higgs boson: Double trouble AS DISCOVERIES go, that of the Higgs boson is as big as they get. Much of modern physics hinges on the particle, first predicted 48 years ago by Peter Higgs, a Briton, and independently by two other teams of theorists, and finally observed earlier this year at CERN, Europe's main particle-physics laboratory, outside Geneva (earning the seven leading experimenters a $3m prize earlier this week from a Russian internet mogul). Paradoxically, however, many boffins would rather Dr Higgs's prediction not be borne out to the letter.&nbsp;The latest results from ATLAS, one of the two experiments spearheading the Higgs hunt at CERN, offers the contrarians a glint of hope.The reason the Higgs is imperative is that without it, or something like it, to give mass to other particles, the entire elaborate mathematical edifice erected over the past four decades to describe the most fundamental constituents of reality&nbsp;would topple. The reason many physicists would prefer it to differ from what Dr Higgs and the others postulated is that this would give them an inkling of where the successor to the Standard Model, as that venerable theory is known, might be hiding.For all its explanatory power, the Standard Model leaves some big questions, like why the universe is made of matter, unanswered. Theorists have plenty of ideas which explain everything the model does, and more. But if ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Sun, 16 Dec 2012 13:34:15 +0000 21568562 at The Fundamental Physics Prize: In with a bang THIS year's biggest physics news must have given the Nobel Committee a headache. When on July 4th Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti, heads of two big experiments at CERN, Europe's main particle-physics laboratory, announced that they had finally nabbed what looks like the Higgs boson, many believed that the researchers behind the discovery had the 2012 prize in the bag. In the event, the secretive committee held their horses and recognised Serge Haroche and David Wineland for manipulating fragile quantum states instead. One reason might have been that it remains unclear whether the new particle discovered at CERN is precisely the sort of mass-giving beast its eponymous predictor, Peter Higgs, and five other less-well-known theorists came up with 48 years ago. Another could be that, since a Nobel prize can be shared by no more than three people, more time was needed to work out which three were the most deserving.&nbsp;Neither of these considerations encumbered the committee of Nobel's upstart rival, the Fundamental Physics Prize. On December 11th it revealed that Dr Incandela and Dr Gianotti will share a generous $3m special award with Peter Jenni, Michael Della Negra, Tejinder Singh Virdee, Guido Tonelli and Lyn Evans, who all spearheaded CERN's Higgs hunt since the project was approved in 1994.&nbsp;A second $3m special prize goes to another perennial Nobel ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:10:56 +0000 21568295 at Babbage: November 14th 2012: The perils of getting it right STEVEN Sinofsky leaves Microsoft unexpectedly, the International Energy Agency produces its annual report and physicists at CERN are spot on about a meson <div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:10:30 +0000 21566635 at Science and technology: Know your neutrinos UK Only Article:&nbsp; standard article Fly Title:&nbsp; Science and technology Rubric:&nbsp; The next big thing in physics will be the lightest matter particle of all Main image:&nbsp; 20130110_std001.jpg For physics buffs, 2012 was all about the Higgs boson. In July scientists at last nabbed the elusive particle, 48 years after it was first predicted. The Higgs, which is involved in giving other particles mass, is the keystone of the particle-physics rulebook known as the Standard Model. But long before they finally netted the Higgs, physicists were looking beyond that standard model, which leaves some fascinating questions unanswered—such as why the universe is made of matter. One of their most promising ways forward is the study of particles long since discovered but persistently perplexing: neutrinos. These diaphanous particles, far more abundant than the electrons and protons atoms are made of but loth to interact with them, have long been a source of head-scratching among physicists (not to mention, when it was claimed that they might travel faster than light, a certain amount ...<div class="og_rss_groups"></div> Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:32:07 +0000 21566416 at