mass
Tag archives for mass
So just what is out there beyond the Standard Model?
Posted by Ethan on November 16, 2012 
“Other than the laws of physics, rules have never really worked out for me.” -Craig Ferguson Earlier this week, evidence was presented measuring a very rare decay rate — albeit not incredibly precisely — which point towards the Standard Model being it as far as new particles accessible to colliders (such as the LHC) go.…
Explaining the Higgs: on TV last night!
Posted by Ethan on July 5, 2012 
“We knew that we had indeed done something that was very different and very exciting, but we still didn’t expect it to have something to do with physical reality.” -Gerald Guralnik, co-developer of the Higgs mechanism Might as well make this entire week “Higgs week” here on Starts With A Bang, given how important yesterday’s…
How the Higgs gives Mass to the Universe
Posted by Ethan on July 4, 2012 
“This is evidently a discovery of a new particle. If anybody claims otherwise you can tell them they have lost connection with reality.” -Tommaso Dorigo You’ve probably heard the news by now: the Higgs boson — the last undiscovered fundamental particle of nature — has been found. Indeed the news reports just keep rolling in;…
Practically Everything Leaves Something Behind
Posted by Ethan on May 28, 2012 
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people…
Big News about Black Holes!
Posted by Ethan on May 16, 2008 This has been all over my inbox since the press release came out yesterday; it’s been on slashdot (thanks Brian), it’s been at space.com, and there’s a mediocre writeup on Universe Today. What’s the big news? Black Holes don’t destroy information after all! What is this whole information thing, anyway? Take a look at all…
Avoiding Armageddon!
Posted by Ethan on May 8, 2008 Let’s say we’re having a nice day here on Earth; the Sun is shining, the clouds are sparse, and everything is just looking like a peach: And then Lucas goes and tells me, Oh my God, Ethan! It’s Armageddon! An asteroid is coming straight for us! You’ve got to stop it! Really? Me? Well, how…
The Story of Neptune
Posted by Ethan on May 6, 2008 (This is adapted from my public lecture, Afraid of the Dark: How We Know What We Can’t See.) Let’s go back over 200 years ago, to 1781. William Herschel (left) discovered the planet Uranus, noticing that an object, as bright as a star, was actually moving relative to the other stars. The other five inner…
Will the LHC Create Dark Matter?
Posted by Ethan on May 5, 2008 Hector writes in and asks about someone from Sheffield in the UK who says that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will create Dark Matter: The massive ATLAS detector will measure the debris from collisions occurring in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which recreates the conditions found in the early universe during the Big Bang when…
Why are Brown Dwarfs so Dim?
Posted by Ethan on April 17, 2008 Ahh, stars. Giant furnaces of nuclear fusion. Doing the stuff our Sun does, burning hydrogen fuel into helium (among other things) and emitting lots of visible light and energy in the process. But when we take a look at brown dwarfs, they aren’t like normal (i.e., main sequence) stars like our Sun. Instead of burning…
Do all Stars Eventually Explode?
Posted by Ethan on April 7, 2008 What’s going to happen to all the stars in the Universe as they get older? Well, just as nothing can live forever, stars can’t live forever also. Why? Because they run on fuel: burning hydrogen into helium, for example. When they run out of fuel, something’s gotta give. Barbara Ryden reminds us of an excellent…
