Particle Fever – How many views would it get on YouTube?

Posted on August 24, 2014 by tkflor

Particle Fever is a documentary film about physicists’ search for the Higgs boson.
Official site, Trailer on YouTube:



The movie trails milestones in the launching of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, shows some nerve-wrecking moments, and celebrates the triumph at the end. Along the story of the largest machine ever built by humankind, the film also brings personal stories of theorists (all of them men) and of experimentalists working at CERN (I was surprised to see and hear some women).

Critics generally loved the documentary. Out of about 500 hours of footage came 99 minutes of a fast-moving movie (as described on PBS), with awe-inspiring shoots inside the gigantic machine and without dwelling on technical aspects or being pedagogical about theoretical problems. When the camera does a close up on Peter Higgs, as he watches the announcement that confirms the discovery of a Higgs-like particle, one cannot remain untouched.

I enjoyed watching this movie, and I want to recommend it. The question is to whom?
Physicists, their significant others, their parents, children, best friends, the readers of quantum diaries, and… (you get the gist) have already heard about the movie. Others might remember hearing about the discovery of the Higgs boson or “the God’s particle” in the news, but that was over two years ago.

So, what shall I say to entice prospective watchers?
The quest after the Higgs boson could be seen as a modern take on the King Arthur’s knights questing after the Holy Grail. The modern quest is uplifting, for those interested in what the quest aimed to accomplish. Otherwise, it’s a story without an adversary, a movie without conflict, a documentary about physicists wasting billions of dollars to check outlandish theories. Since so much has been said and written about the discovery of the Higgs boson, there is little point in adding my two cents. Instead, let me cite from the Nobel prize in Physics 2013 award:

François Englert and Peter W. Higgs are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 for the theory of how particles acquire mass. In 1964, they proposed the theory independently of each other (Englert together with his now deceased colleague Robert Brout). In 2012, their ideas were confirmed by the discovery of a so called Higgs particle at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva in Switzerland.

The awarded mechanism is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed. According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles. These particles are governed by forces mediated by force particles that make sure everything works as it should.

The entire Standard Model also rests on the existence of a special kind of particle: the Higgs particle. It is connected to an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when our universe seems empty, this field is there. Had it not been there, electrons and quarks would be mass-less just like photons, the light particles. And like photons they would, just as Einstein’s theory predicts, rush through space at the speed of light, without any possibility to get caught in atoms or molecules. Nothing of what we know, not even we, would exist.


PS The movie trailer has been watched on YouTube about half a million times (as of Aug.24, 2014).

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Literature vs. Disruptive technology

Posted on August 16, 2014 by tkflor

The epic verbal battle of the summer belongs to the much publicized negotiations between Hachette and Amazon. Megastars like Stephen King and Nora Roberts, battalions of indie authors, publishers of every size, and even the New York Times chimed in with their take on which corporation is the “bad guy”. Among the many words tossed into the fray, the words “literature” and “disruptive technology” seem to sum up what each side ‘stands for’ (see this blog for more on the ongoing dispute). The supporters of the big publisher are fighting under the banner of championing literature, and of protecting it from the soulless efficiency of technology. The fans of the giant tech retailer point to the fate of newspapers, records, scrolls, etc., as the writing on the wall. Stagnated industries, they argue, are bound to give way to cheaper and faster technological innovations.

Is there anything else to say about the dichotomy between “literature” and “disruptive technology”?

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Phineas Welch, “I can bring back the spirits of the illustrious dead.”

He was a little drunk, or maybe he wouldn’t have said it. Of course, it was perfectly all right to get a little drunk at the annual Christmas party.

Scott Robertson, the school’s young English instructor, adjusted his glasses and looked to right and left to see if they were overheard. “Really, Dr. Welch.”

“I mean it. And not just the spirits. I bring back the bodies too.”

To anyone who cannot recall how the conversation between the young English literature instructor (Scott Robertson) and the physics professor (Dr. Welch) ended, I suggest to read, or reread, The Immortal Bard by Isaac Asimov. (For those interested in only the facts and willing to forgo the fun, here is the plot summary).

Why did I bring up the story?

To me it illustrates how firmly our perceptions are rooted in our environment’s common wisdom. The young English professor “knows” that time-traveling is impossible. And of course, his position entails him to know what Shakespeare meant in his plays. For him, everything is conveniently pigeonholed.

The physics professor comes across as a superior being, the one who possesses a groundbreaking technology. Yet, the arrogant and know-it-all physicist repeatedly uses the technology to disrupt other people’s life. Moreover, he misses a great opportunity, simply by not consulting with the English professor.

A morale from the story? My take is that “literature” guys would better open up to what the rest of the world is doing. “Tech” guys, on the other hand, may take a break from their endless pursuit of innovation, and use the time to contemplate the actual cost of their actions. Corporations are often portrayed as incapable of taking into account anything but monetary gains. If they don’t want to follow the two blockheads in Asimov’s story, they would seize the opportunity to look for an innovative, viable solution.

PS.
On a second thought, Asimov’s The Immortal Bard is also highly recommended for middle- and high-school students in the throes of Language Arts summer assignments. Its shortness and irreverent humor might cheer them up.

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Fiction, Physics, and BBC

Posted on August 13, 2014 by tkflor

“You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big space is,” said the author Douglas Adams. This citation from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy opens the BBC’s animated guide to “Big Bang: How the Universe was created” . The tone of presentation is lighthearted, the animation is eye-catching and witty. The idea of filling the Royal Albert Hall with frozen peas is undeniably cute. A text-book example of a brilliant combination of fiction and physics? Maybe.

The narrator mentions Hubble’s discovery of the expansion of the Universe, the theoretical prediction that the universe is filled with free-streaming background radiation (made by Alpher, Gamow and Herman), and the accidental discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. Then the narrator continues with the following statement:

“Around 13.8 billion years ago, all the matter in the Universe emerged from a single, minute point, or singularity, in a violent burst.”

Is this statement right? Or maybe, “It is not even wrong”?

For a comprehensive, but pretty long answer see e.g.:http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/. In a nutshell, modern cosmology (a science based on a plethora of observations interpreted within the framework of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity) favors the notion that the Universe is infinite. In such a case, the universe has emerged infinite and was not born from a single point. The violent burst at the beginning was way more mind-boggling than the narrator suggests – it happened not at one point but everywhere in the universe!

Here is how the Big Bang primer at NASA cautions against a simplistic interpretation:

Please keep in mind the following important points to avoid misconceptions about the Big Bang and expansion:

  • The Big Bang did not occur at a single point in space as an “explosion.” It is better thought of as the simultaneous appearance of space everywhere in the universe. That region of space that is within our present horizon was indeed no bigger than a point in the past. Nevertheless, if all of space both inside and outside our horizon is infinite now, it was born infinite. …
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Welcome

Posted on August 12, 2014 by tkflor

Hi and welcome to my blog!

I was asked today what does the illustration on the banner of the blog mean.

The short answer – it’s a brief history of our universe.

The “Timeline of the Universe Image” by NASA/WAMP Science Team shows pivotal events in universe’s history, from the Big Bang (the glaring light at the left) to nowadays (the spacecraft at the right). The thimble-like shape illustrates the expansion of universe for over 13 billion years. The closed side depicts the universe’s mind-boggling growth at its very beginning. The area dotted with specs of light in the middle illustrates the formation of stars, galaxies, and so on, during a period when the universe went through its “middle age”. After a long stretch of slowing expansion, the “thimble” started to open-up – the universe has reached the modern-era of accelerated expansion. Coincidentally or not, the time span of the latest epoch coincides more or less with the age of our Earth.

You can see the image with explanations at: http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/ . NASA also offers a 3D rotating image of WAMP spacecraft at: http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/resources/wmapsc.html.

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What is The Hungry Boson?

Posted on August 11, 2014 by tkflor

Write your guesses!

Update: See answer on The Hungry Boson

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