Physics

Theories of physics rest on fundamental assumptions and those assumptions are based on how the real world works, and often produce amazingly precise predictions.  The most comprehensive theory of elementary particles to-date, Quantum Field Theory, explains nature's electromagnetic, weak and strong nuclear forces (though not gravity). And in all the assumptions underlying quantum mechanics and the theory that describes how particles interact at the most elementary level, perhaps the most basic is that particles are either bosons or fermions. Bosons, such as photons, play by one set of…

Physics and Technology of CCD A charge-coupled device (CCD) is a device for the movement of electrical charge from one capacitor to another one developed by W. Boyle and G. Smith in Bell Laboratories from Bucket-Brigade Device (BBD) which is a device basically transfers charge packets from one transistor to another [1]. The CCD can perform a wide range of the electronic functions, including image sensing and signal processing. Boyle and Smith share one half of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention of the CCD used to generate high quality images in electronic form [2]. 1. The…

A neutrino has a mass, physics says, but it is elusive to figure out and extremely hard to measure – a neutrino is capable of passing through a light year (about six trillion miles) of lead without hitting a single atom. How do you measure a ghost particle?   We have a giant particle detector already, say cosmologists - space.   A new survey of galaxies in the universe has University College London researchers putting neutrino mass at no larger than 0.28 electron volts – less than a billionth of the mass of a single hydrogen atom. They say this is one of the most accurate…

Naked girls as you have never seen them before: Eizo, a Japanese company, has an interesting way to advertise their radiological products. I'd comment that seeing underneath clothing might be good for a pervert, but it takes a bigger pervert to appreciate this total see-through...

On July 4th I will speak at ESOF 2010, in Torino (Italy), about the topic of "What's up with peer review: The future of peer review in policy, research and public debates", in a panel which includes Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature (the magazine, not the bitch), and Adrian Mulligan from Elsevier. As you might imagine, the topic is varied and spans several levels. Each of us will have 8 minutes to make a few points, and then a debate moderated by Tracey Brown (from Sense about Science, the organizer of the session) will ensue. Here is the "abstract" for the session: What is the…

The DZERO collaboration just sent to the Cornell ArXiv a paper which presents their new precise cross-section limits for the rare decay of mesons into pairs of muons. This important new article hides a small controversy, at least to my untrained eye. And since I am a bitch who thrives in the mud of controversies (or, at least some would describe me that way), let me do precisely that here. As usual, before I go to the heart of the matter, I wish to give some background for those of you who spent their life doing better things than studying the phenomenology of bottom-flavoured mesons,…

The CDF Collaboration has recently produced results of a search for Supersymmetric Higgs bosons in events with three or more bottom-quark jets. Here I wish to give just the highlights of this analysis, but before I do I will try to spend 5' on making sense of the previous sentence. In good order, below I explain first of all 1) what is CDF, 2) what is the Tevatron, 3) what are Higgs bosons from Supersymmetry, 4) how can these be sought with bottom quarks, and 5) what are bottom quark jets. After I am done with these five explanations, those of you who are still here will no doubt appreciate…

Today, for the first time in 18 years of association to the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN), I leave for a trip abroad, to the CERN laboratories, on my own wallet. The situation into which basic research has been thrown by our crazy government borders the ridiculous, but is pretty darn serious. Italian physicists often travel to foreign laboratories to attend their apparata, collect data, perform their research, discuss with colleagues. If they lose money to do this, they will stop their foreign activities. I think in particular at graduate students and young post-docs,…

Today is a good day: I can rest in peace without working out my daily share of science popularization here, because I have something better to do, which will have a much more sizable positive effect for the diffusion of particle physics. In fact, I hold in my hands a brand new copy of Gian Francesco Giudice's book, "A Zeptospace Odyssey - A Journey into the Physics of the LHC". All I have to do is to explain to you why you really should buy, read, and give as a present this book to all your friends. Gian Francesco Giudice First of all, a word on the author. Gian Francesco Giudice is a…

Is David Beckham a keen physicist?   Though he wouldn't know how to do the equations on a chalkboard, he certainly does it in his head and then with his feet - so perhaps he is an experimental physicist at heart. I've often used baseball to talk about concepts such as drag, the Bernoulli principle, Reynolds number and the Magnus effect but Beckham's ability to curve the football so much can teach the same things. The Bernoulli effect tells us faster moving air reduces pressure and a pressure difference is on either side of the ball  creates a net force called the Magnus effect…