Tag: ek humor

Higgs Hiccup: Contradictory Results Show Up at LHC

By Adam Mann, Wired

12.14.12 2:08 PM

Ever since physicists found a particle that looks very much like the Higgs boson in July, they have been probing its properties, essentially running their experimental hands all over it to check out its features. They do this by smashing protons together at insanely high speeds in the Large Hadron Collider and watching the resulting rain of particles that gets produced. Within this melee, several Higgs bosons appear and almost immediately decay into other particles.

The LHC can detect the Higgs decaying in two different ways. One channel produces two characteristic photons while another creates four particles known as leptons. The two decay paths each give scientists a distinct value for the mass of the Higgs. But there’s a little problem.

“There turns out to be a slight tension between the two masses,” said physicist Beate Heinemann of the University of California, Berkeley, who works on ATLAS, one of the LHC’s Higgs-searching experiments. “They are compatible, just not super compatible.”

The two photon channel is saying that the Higgs mass is 126.6 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), or about 126 times the mass of a proton. The four lepton decay route suggests the mass is 123.5 GeV. A very tiny disagreement that is nonetheless very strange because the Higgs should have one identifiable mass. ATLAS scientists noticed the discrepancy in their data previously and thought it might simply be a problem with calibrating their machinery. Yet even after calibration and analyzing more data, the difference remained.

We looked for one. We may have found two.

Vasudevan Mukunth, The Hindu

December 15, 2012

There was initial surprise in Kyoto about the dilepton-decay data being suppressed. However, the experimental data of the Higgs’ decay into the other combinations of particles coincided (fairly) perfectly with the theoretical predictions, easing physicists toward the conclusion that the Standard Model had done a good job… again.

And now, the reason for suppression has been revealed! On December 13 (exactly a year to the day the first tentative spottings were announced), a new round of data from the ATLAS detector was revealed at CERN, showing that the Higgs boson seemed to be decaying into two photons twice as often as allowed by the Standard Model. Not just that: the elusive particle also seemed to exist at two different masses – almost as if there are two kinds of Higgs bosons, not one.

…

The “second mass” observation was derived from results of the particle’s decay into four leptons. More specifically, at 4.1 standard-deviations (a confidence level of 99.534 per cent), the mass of the Higgs boson from this channel was calculated to be 123.5 +/- 0.9 GeV, which is conspicuously lower than the mass observed from the diphoton-decay channel (by about 3 GeV).

Before we start jumping up and down: The ATLAS collaboration has also announced that the two masses are compatible only at 2.7 standard deviations, which represents a lower statistical confidence than is required to assert evidence. Moreover, results from the CMS collaboration will also have to be factored in before anything is confirmed, and the next batch of data-release from CERN is expected in March, 2013. And last, it’s quite unlikely that the Higgs would have a twin so close in mass – if you’ve already walked 122.6 m, would you consider another 3 m as requiring a lot more energy than what you’ve already spent?

But, if true, this result invalidates the ‘Standard Model‘.  Brains.

Why a Zombie Movie Made by Physicists is the Best Kind of Science PR

By J. Bryan Lowder, Slate

Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012, at 2:15 PM ET

Decay is totally ridiculous, in the best sense of the word. The 75-min, $3,500 movie is remarkably well-made, given the creative team’s lack of experience. It’s studded with all the gratuitous gore, cheap shocks, and absurd plot twists that zombie fans crave. Science nerds and those who love them will bask in its shameless use of sci-fi clichés like “the results are inconclusive at best,” and “my research is too important!”

You know, I do have other interests.

My comment at the moment was-

Fields have different expressions depending on how you interact with them.

Nothing so hard about that.

But the Standard Model is only as useful as Newtonian Mechanics.  Good for some things, not so much for others.

This is the kind of pithy insight that has some of my acquaintance begging me to get a crack habit twitter account.

Well, I have one and a few blogs that I frequent which leads me to gratefully accept affirmations of sanity.

Supersymmetry Fails Test, Forcing Physics to Seek New Ideas

By Natalie Wolchover, Scientific American

November 29, 2012

As a young theorist in Moscow in 1982, Mikhail Shifman became enthralled with an elegant new theory called supersymmetry that attempted to incorporate the known elementary particles into a more complete inventory of the universe.

“My papers from that time really radiate enthusiasm,” said Shifman, now a 63-year-old professor at the University of Minnesota. Over the decades, he and thousands of other physicists developed the supersymmetry hypothesis, confident that experiments would confirm it. “But nature apparently doesn’t want it,” he said. “At least not in its original simple form.”

…

“Supersymmetry is such a beautiful structure, and in physics, we allow that kind of beauty and aesthetic quality to guide where we think the truth may be,” said Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University.

…

“I think it is a mistake to focus on popular versions of supersymmetry,” said Matt Strassler, a particle physicist at Rutgers University. “Popularity contests are not reliable measures of truth.”

‘Cannibal cop’ planned to kidnap, eat woman for Thanksgiving: prosecutor

By BRUCE GOLDING, The New York Post

8:48 AM, November 21, 2012

Forget white meat or dark meat – he wanted “girl meat” for Thanksgiving.

Gilberto Valle, the NYPD officer busted by the feds as an alleged cannibal wannabe, saw his alleged holiday hopes dashed yesterday when prosecutors said he’d planned to dine on human flesh tomorrow.

…

Public defender Julia Gatto argued that Valle’s online chats were only “sick, twisted” sexual fantasies he shared on the Web with like-minded fetishists.

Gatto said her own, reluctant investigation into her client’s “subculture” – which she likened to “Star Trek geeks and science-fiction movie guys who dress up and go to conventions” – had apparently uncovered the site Valle frequented.

“All over the Web site, it says: No matter how real this sounds, this is all fantasy,” she insisted.

It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control.

Man pleads not guilty to cooking wife

UPI

Published: Nov. 22, 2012 at 8:51 AM

VISTA, Calif., Nov. 22 (UPI) — A California man pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, who police found dismembered, with body parts cooking on the stove and her head in the freezer.

…

Police found three pans of “meat” cooking on the stove and realized it was pieces of the victim, Anna Faris, 73, Deputy District Attorney Katherine Flaherty said. They found Faris’ head in a plastic bag inside the freezer and multiple pieces of freshly cut bone throughout the house.

“They also found a work area set up in the bathroom, with saws, a boning knife and other cutting instruments,” Flaherty said.

“There is no evidence of cannibalism at this time,” she added.

Wow, it’s hard to post anything interesting today. Everything – not just in America, but around the world – hinges on what happens tomorrow.

Hey, if Atrios can get away with it so should I.

Yeah, I know not everyone is as big a fan as I am but she’s also considerably left of ‘Pragmatic’ Villager opinion.

Part 1

Part 2

(1:33)

Johnson: Presidential Politics Trumps Jets’ Fate

By LYNN ZINSER, The New York Times

October 1, 2012, 2:34 pm

(Jets owner Woody) Johnson, in a statement likely to irk Jets fans unhappy with the team’s 2-2 start, said: “Well, I think so you always have to put country first, so I think it’s very, very important, not only for us but for particularly our kids and grandkids, that this election come off with Mitt Romney and Ryan as president and vice president.”

…

In that statement, Johnson stepped back from throwing more fuel on a debate he has played a role in fanning in the past. While at the Republican National Convention, Johnson said in an interview with CNBC that, “I think you can never have too much Tebow,” despite Sanchez being acknowledged as the starter and the team trying to keep a quarterback controversy from breaking out with every Sanchez incompletion.

Colin Kaepernick of 49ers beats Jets’ Tim Tebow at his own game

By Matt Wilhalme, Los Angeles Times

October 1, 2012, 1:02 p.m.

Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback, had the best game of his career in the team’s 34-0 blowout of the Jets, and looked more like how New York Jets fans might have envisioned Tim Tebow would be after their team traded with the Denver Broncos for him.

On five carries he rushed for 50 yards and scored on a 7-yard touchdown run from the wildcat in what would be the game-winning score in the second quarter.

Kaepernick’s only pass attempt of the day was an incompletion.

…

Tebow, on the other hand, connected with Dedrick Epps for a 9-yard pass — his first completion of the season — who subsequently fumbled the ball to the 49ers.

Tebow’s two rushing attempts of the day went for a combined total of 0 yards.

Heh.

I’m going to Luke’s for some hangover pancakes and I don’t care how much he knows about Chris and the tequila.

Babylon Sisters

When you do the type of DJing I used to do, dinner and a dance, there’s always a question of what to play during dinner.  You want it quiet and mellow so people can talk and long format so you can eat.  We would solve this problem by popping on some Steely Dan and hitting the shuffle button.

Here’s another great song in the Techno genre that’s too fast to dance to.  Kind of odd that Depeche Mode is still around and Ultravox isn’t.  It’s like Maddona and Cindy Lauper, I always liked Cindy better.

Sleepwalk

Sleepwalk kind of peters out into Side B Waiting at 3:10, but this is the studio version with the soprano organ part clearly audible.

I think it’s the tempo and not the lyrics.  This one is just as morbid and dark, but was and is a great hit with the techno crowd (not that there are many of them).

Fly on the Windscreen