[sotd] The Higgs Boson [January 2, 2008]
- From: "The Site of the Day" <sotd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: sotd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:01:58 -0400
Site of the Day for Wednesday, January 2, 2008
The Higgs Boson
Today's site, from the Exploratorium, presents a segment from its exhibit
on CERN, the European Consortium for Nuclear Research. Gentle Subscribers
will discover an informative summary of the latest theories in particle
physics, nicely explained for the nonscientist.
"When you get on the scale in the morning, you may be hoping that it
registers a smaller number than the day before -- you may be hoping that
you've lost weight. It's the quantity of mass in you, plus the force of
gravity, that determines your weight. But what determines your mass? ...
That's one of the most-asked, most-hotly pursued questions in physics
today." - from the website
The web page features clarifying analogies, accompanied by cartoon
illustrations, to explain the scientific theory of the Higgs Mechanism. In
what may be startling news to some, anti-matter has moved from the realm of
science fiction to actual fact, and is now being produced at CERN "at a
rate of more than 10 million particles per second", in the Large Electron
Positron Collider. Additional external links provide up-to-date material on
the completion of the upgrade to CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the
current work being undertaken there and a noteworthy gallery of some
striking photographs.
Careen over to the site for an overview of some very upmarket physics at:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/higgs.html
A.M. Holm
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