Category Archives: Physics

Physics

Renaming the Higgs boson

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Higgs

Peter Higgs was treated as something of a rock star and the rest of us were barely recognised. It was clear that Higgs was the dominant name because his name has become associated with the boson.

Prof Carl Hagen Rochester University, New York (BBC World News)

As you are all probably aware, on the 14th of March 2013 the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) presented new results that further support the discovery of the so called Higgs boson [1].

This has all reignited the debate on the naming of the standard model scalar boson, as “Higgs” only reflects one of the physicists who made early contributions to the generation of mass within the standard model.

In 1964 Robert Brout & François Englert [2], Peter Higgs [4] and Gerald Guralnik , Carl Hagen & Tom Kibble [4] published papers proposing similar, but different mechanisms to give mass to particles in gauge theories, such as the standard model. All of the six physicists were awarded the 2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics for their work on spontaneous symmetry breaking and mass generation.

winners
2010 Sakurai Prize Winners – (L to R) Kibble, Guralnik, Hagen, Englert, and Brout

The trouble now is that the nomenclature Higgs boson has been around for a while now and remaining it could probably course unnecessary confusion. Also, it is not clear who should decide the new name. Nomenclature in physics, and indeed mathematics, arises largely due to popular usage. The initial name may come from the discoverer, but it still takes the community to use this nomenclature before it becomes standard. Thus, the community would have to change nomenclature and this cannot really be imposed from “outside”.

Naming the particle after the six physicists as BEHGHK-boson, which would be pronounced “berk-boson” is one one possible solution, but not a very nice one!

Pallab Ghosh (Science correspondent, BBC News) discusses this further here.

References
[1] New results indicate that particle discovered at CERN is a Higgs boson, CERN press office 14th March 2013.

[2] Englert, F.; Brout, R. (1964). “Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons”. Physical Review Letters 13 (9): 321.

[3] Higgs, P. (1964). “Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons”. Physical Review Letters 13 (16): 508.

[4]Guralnik, G.; Hagen, C.; Kibble, T. (1964). “Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles”. Physical Review Letters 13 (20): 585.

Astronomy, General, Physics

Lee Smolin in London

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Lee Smolin is to mark the publication of his new book, “Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to the Future of the Universe” [1] by giving a talk in London, hosted by the Institute of Physics. The talk will he held at the Institute’s offices in London from 6pm, 22 May 2013.

In his new book Smolin suggests the laws of physics are not fixed, but rather they evolve in time. This hypothesis maybe a way of resolving some of the open questions in physics, such as the nature of the quantum mechanics and its unification with space-time and cosmology.

smolin

A poster for the talk can be downloaded from here (opens PDF)

If interested in attending, you need to register online here.

If you need more information then please contact Claudia Reideld via email claudia.reidegeld@iop.org

About Smolin

smolin

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His main contributions have been so far to the quantum theory of gravity, to which he has been a co-inventor and major contributor to two major directions, loop quantum gravity and deformed special relativity

Read more at Smolin’s homepage here.

Reference
[1]Lee Smolin, TIME REBORN: From The Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, April 23, 2013

Astronomy, Physics

Einstein's spooky action at a distance in space.

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space station
The International Space Station, image courtesy of NASA

Scheidl, Wille and Ursin [1] have proposed using the International Space Station to test the limits of spooky action at a distance. These experiments could help develop global quantum communication systems.

Part of their plans include a Bell test experiment which probes the theoretical contradiction between quantum mechanics and classical physics. A pair of entangled photons would be generated on the Earth. One of these would then be sent to a detector aboard the International Space Station, while the other photon would be measured locally on the ground for comparison.

According to quantum physics, entanglement is independent of distance. Our proposed Bell-type experiment will show that particles are entangled, over large distances — around 500 km — for the very first time in an experiment…

Professor Ursin

It is also not really known if gravity plays any role in quantum entanglement. These experiments would be the first to really probe the potential effects of gravity.

References
[1] T Scheidl, E Wille and R Ursin, Quantum optics experiments using the International Space Station: a proposal, 2013, New J. Phys. 15 043008 (online here)

Link
“Spooky action at a distance” aboard the ISS IOP News

Education, General Mathematics, Physics

60 years of DNA

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DNA

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA to most of us. In the USA, there is DNA Day, which is a holiday celebrated on the 25th of April. The holiday commemorates the day in 1953 when James Watson and Francis Crick published their paper in Nature on the structure of DNA.

It is also the 10th anniversary of the first sequencing of the human genome.

Knot theory
One area of mathematics that has been rather useful in the study of DNA, and in particular how it tangles is knot theory. DNA is tightly packed into genes and chromosomes. This packing can be thought of as two very long strands that have been intertwined many times and tied into knots. Before the DNA can replicate it needs to be arranged much neater than that and so needs to be unpacked. Thus knot theory is important in understanding this “unknotting” of DNA.

The way the knots were classified had nothing to do with biology, but now you can calculate the things important to you.

Nicholas Cozzarelli, in [1].

A knot is just a embedding of a circle in 3d.

knot
The knot diagram of the Trefoil knot

The classification of knots has been a harder problem that one might expect. The general idea is to construct ways to see if two knots are equivalent, meaning they are the same knot. More mathematically two knots are equivalent if they can be transformed into each other via a special kind of transformation known as an ambient isotopy. Such transformations are really just “distortions” of the knot without any cutting.

A powerful way of deciding of knots are the same or not, is to calculate their Jones polynomial [2]. Interestingly, there is a relation between the Jones Polynomial and Chern-Simons gauge theory, which was first discovered by Witten [3].

References
[1] David Austin, That Knotty DNA, Feature Column of the AMS.

[2] Jones, V.F.R. (1985),A polynomial invariant for knots via von Neumann algebra, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.(N.S.) 12: 103–111

[3]Edward Witten, Quantum field theory and the Jones polynomial, Comm. Math. Phys. Volume 121, Number 3 (1989), 351-399

Astronomy, Physics

Planck backs the ideas of an inflationary epoch

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The Planck space telescope has produced the most detailed picture yet of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) [1].

planck comparison
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA

Detailed analysis supports the idea that \(10^{-32}s\), or there about, the Universe went into a phase of rapid expansion known as inflation. This rapid growth of the Universe explains why the Universe is so big and nearly flat, as well as providing an explanation as to why the CMBR temperature is uniform. More than this, the small anisotropies in the temperature are well explained by tiny quantum fluctuations in the early Universe that get blown-up by the inflationary phase. These small differences seeded the large scale structure of the Universe we see today.

planck
ESA/PLANCK COLLABORATION

Hubble constant
From Planck we also know that the Universe is expanding today at a slightly lower rate than previous estimates have given. The Hubble constant is now revised to 67.3 kilometers per second per megaparsec, which makes the Universe about 80 million years older than WMAP data suggests.

Make up of the Universe
The new data has meant a revision in the proportions of “stuff” in the Universe:

Dark Energy – 68.3%
Dark Matter – 26.8%
Normal matter < 5%

Oddities in the CMBR
WMAP found and Planck has now confirmed, that there is an asymmetry between opposite hemispheres of the sky in the anisotropies of the CMBR. This suggests the rather unnatural possibility that there is a preferred direction in the cosmos. This does rule out some specific models of inflation, but the generic idea is still sound.

cold spot
The cold spot

The CMBR cold spot is another strange feature that Planck has confirmed. This colder region of the CMBR, 70 µK colder that the average 2.7K was first discovered by WMAP. It is thought a possibility that the cold spot and the asymmetry maybe connected.

Links

Planck Science Team Home

Planck telescope peers into the primordial Universe, Nature, 21 March 2013

References
[1] Planck Collaboration, Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and results, submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2013.

Education, General, Physics

IOP Lab in a Lorry is comming to Wales

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lorry

The Lab in a Lorry will be touring around Wales in April and June 2013. Follow the link below for more details

Lab in a Lorry is an interactive mobile science laboratory staffed by practising scientists and engineers.

The aim of Lab in a Lorry is to give young people aged 11-14 the opportunity to do experimental science in the way it actually happens; exploratory, accidental, informed by curiosity and intuition, but also bounded and guided by the experience and insight of practicing scientists.

http://www.labinalorry.org.uk/about_lab_in_a_lorry.cfm

Looking for volunteers
James Bamford, Senior Operations Coordinator – Lab in a Lorry, has made a call for volunteers to help run the events. A poster for the call can be found here (opens pdf).

Link
Lab in a Lorry

Astronomy, Education, General Mathematics, Physics

National Science and Engineering Week 2013

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logo

National Science and Engineering Week 2013 in the UK is running from the 15th to the 24th March. The events are coordinated by the British Science Association, though it is other organisations and community groups that actualy run the events and activities. The theme this year is invention and discovery.

For those of you in the UK, follow the link below and get involved in something near you.

National Science & Engineering Week shines the spotlight each March on how the sciences, technology, engineering and maths relate to our everyday lives, and helps to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers with fun and participative events and activities.

Last year’s National Science and Engineering Week consisted of something like 500 events and activities from thousands of different organisers. More than 2 million people at schools, museums, universities, shopping centres, cafes etc. attended the various events.

Engineering Education Scheme Wales Awards & Presentation Day 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 – 10:00 to 16:00
Celtic Manor Resort, Newport

Follow the link below for more details.

The British Science Association
The British Science Association is a registered charity that exists works to advance public understanding, accessibility and the accountability of the sciences and engineering in the UK.

Link
National Science and Engineering Week 2013

Engineering Education Scheme Wales Awards & Presentation Day 2013