DailyDirt: The Little Things In Physics Make Big News
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Scientific discoveries often build upon past scientific discoveries, and it looks like investments in huge particle colliders are really paying off now. But even without gigantic particle accelerators, physicists have been taking some cool measurements recently. Here are just a few examples of some significant discoveries in physics that are verifying some of our models of how the universe works.- CERN has cautiously announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle with a mass-energy of about 125-126 GeV. There's a lot of verification that still needs to be done, but it looks like they've found the "God particle" that explains how all matter has mass. CERN also said there's about a 0.000057% statistical chance of this measurement being wrong. [url]
- The faster-than-light neutrino that was seen in 2011... isn't actually faster than light. The cause of the measurement error was determined to be a loose cable. So no time traveling for you! [url]
- Some astrophysicists say they've discovered a filament of dark matter between two galaxy clusters about 2.7 billion light years away. This filament of dark matter appears to be around 58 million light years long, and the astronomers were lucky to find two galaxies oriented in a way that allowed them to measure the effects of this dark matter trail. [url]
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Filed Under: astrophysicists, cern, dark matter, god particle, higgs boson, neutrino, physics, science
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FTL neutrinos
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Re: FTL neutrinos
Do your brain cell get lonely?
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Re: FTL neutrinos
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Re: FTL neutrinos
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Re: FTL neutrinos
54 nanoseconds is the time it takes for light (or the neutrinos) to travel 18 metres. The 700km distance between the LHC and Gran Sasso was known accurately enough to discern a timing discrepancy that small.
High-energy physics is a complicated business these days. It took 3 years of careful checking before the researchers concluded that they couldn’t find any obvious source of the error. And even after the result was released, it took more than another year before the loose cable was discovered.
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Re: Re: FTL neutrinos
Damn! That was one loose cable! I've never seen a fiber optic cable that was 18m "loose" before and still worked, but I guess that CERN gets good parts. ;) :D
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Correction: DOES your brain cell get lonely?
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“God Particle”
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Re: “God Particle”
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You know... All these space-based discoveries that scientists make, which are based on them measuring minute bits of light, are kind of like me discovering a swinging door in China by measuring wind patterns in the US.
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old joke
The priest says "We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here!"
The Higgs Boson says "But without me, you can't have mass!"
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Higgs field, not boson!
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