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Now, as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the monster proton smasher at the European particle laboratory, Cern – gears up to start its third period of data collection on Tuesday, experts are hoping to unpick further secrets of the fundamental building blocks of the universe.

Bortoletto, now head of particle physics at the University of Oxford and part of the team that discovered the Higgs boson, said her main memory of the events a decade ago was the moment two weeks before the announcement when the researchers unblinded their analysis of the data and saw unambiguous signs of the boson.

“I still, thinking [about] that moment, get the butterflies in my stomach,” she said. “It was unbelievable. It’s really a unique moment in the life of the scientist.”

Continue reading “Cern gears up for more discoveries 10 years after ‘God particle’ find” »

Finding the Higgs boson is the compelling story behind Elusive: How Peter Higgs solved the mystery of mass. But Frank Close’s book lives up to its title as both the man and his particle ultimately slip through the net.

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We continue our discussion of the Boltzmann Brain — a hypothetical randomly assembled mind rather than an evolved one — by looking at the Anthropic Principle and the Fine-Tuned Universe Theory, alternative ways of viewing the probability of our existence than the classic Copernican Principle.
Make sure to catch Part 1 of the discussion at Up an Atom:

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Continue reading “Boltzmann Brains & the Anthropic Principle” »

A mere day after the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs boson celebrations at CERN, the LHC will make the promise of a bright future for particle physics a reality, breaking a new energy world record of 13.6 trillion electron volts (13.6 TeV) in its first stable-beam collisions. These collisions will mark the start of data taking for the new physics season, called Run 3.

The launch of the LHC Run 3 will be streamed live on CERN’s social media channels and by high-quality Eurovision satellite link on 5 July starting at 4 p.m. Live commentary in five languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) from the CERN Control Centre will walk you through the operation stages that take proton beams from their injection into the LHC to collision points. A live Q&A session with experts from the accelerators and experiments will conclude the live stream.

For those on site at CERN, the live will be broadcast on the screens in the three CERN restaurants with English subtitles. If you need to take an afternoon coffee break, think 4 p.m!

Continue reading “Watch the live stream of the launch of Run 3 on CERN’s internal screens or on social media!” »

Do supermassive black holes have friends? The nature of galaxy formation suggests that the answer is yes, and in fact, pairs of supermassive black holes should be common in the universe.

I am an astrophysicist and am interested in a wide range of theoretical problems in astrophysics, from the formation of the very first galaxies to the gravitational interactions of black holes, stars and even planets. Black holes are intriguing systems, and supermassive black holes and the dense stellar environments that surround them represent one of the most extreme places in our universe.

The supermassive black hole that lurks at the center of our galaxy, called Sgr A*, has a mass of about 4 million times that of our Sun. A black hole is a place in space where gravity is so strong that neither particles or light can escape from it. Surrounding Sgr A* is a dense cluster of stars. Precise measurements of the orbits of these stars allowed astronomers to confirm the existence of this supermassive black hole and to measure its mass. For more than 20 years, scientists have been monitoring the orbits of these stars around the supermassive black hole. Based on what we’ve seen, my colleagues and I show that if there is a friend there, it might be a second black hole nearby that is at least 100,000 times the mass of the Sun.

A new study from the University of Cambridge reveals that electrons can simultaneously possess different energy levels.

Electrons, one of the most fundamental components of our universe, still hold a few secrets that puzzle modern scientists. Since the 1920s, physicists have worked to try and unravel the workings of these negatively charged particles, and how they behave in different situations. Now, research conducted at the University of Cambridge has shed new light on a pair of key factors–the spins and charges of electrons–revealing even more about their unique behavior.

Background: Spin and Charge

Continue reading “Mind-Bending Physics Reveals Electrons Travel in ‘Lanes’ While Moving Along Quantum Wires” »

If objective reality doesn’t exist, where does that leave us? Does reality emerge into physicality directly from nothing, or could it be that conceptual reality is just as real as the physical universe? If that is the case, then physical matter is just a product of conception, and consciousness is its backdrop.

Does reality exist, or does it take shape when an observer measures it? Akin to the age-old conundrum of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, the above question remains one of the most tantalizing in the field of quantum mechanics, the branch of science dealing with the behavior of subatomic particles on the microscopic level.

In a field where intriguing, almost mysterious phenomena like “quantum superposition” prevail—a situation where one particle can be in two or even “all” possible places at the same time—some experts say reality exists outside of your own awareness, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. Others insist “quantum reality” might be some form of Play-Doh you mold into different shapes with your own actions. Now, scientists from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) in the São Paulo metropolitan area in Brazil are adding fuel to the suggestion that reality might be “in the eye of the observer.”

Continue reading “Objective Reality May Not Exist at All, Quantum Physicists Say” »

What if we built a Matrioshka Brain? In this video, Unveiled asks what would happen if we built a computer AROUND A STAR? This is one of the most incredible megastructures we’ve ever even contemplated… but what would the universe be like if it was home to these things? And how would we possibly keep control?

This is Unveiled, giving you incredible answers to extraordinary questions!

Continue reading “What If We Built a Star-Sized Computer? | Unveiled” »

A lab in Tennesee that does research in neutron, nuclear and clean energy had to debunk the myth that they were somehow attempting to open portals to other dimensions. Though if I ever learned anything from popular science fiction, if a research lab says they aren’t opening portals to parallel universes, my instinct tells me that they are totally opening portals to other dimensions. So you can imagine why folks would be skeptical.

Research scientist Leah Broussard explains in the video above that the experiments they are doing at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (which is managed by the US Department of Energy) aren’t exactly about building portals to other dimensions. Instead, they involved “looking for new ways that matter we know and understand, that makes up our universe, might interact with the dark matter that makes up the majority of our universe, which we don’t understand.”

Broussard also explains when a particle physicist says portal, they mean it in a figurative sense. All this talk of parallel universes came when her research was released and people started making connections to the Netflix show, Stranger Things. A show that, coincidentally, features kids stumbling across a shady government agency opening portals to other dimensions full of monsters, in the ’80s.

Continue reading “Lab denies opening portals into parallel universes despite everyone thinking so” »