Speaker Name(s): Natalia Toro, Ph.D.
Description: 100 metres under the French-Swiss border lies the world's most ambitious scientific experiment. A billion times a minute, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) slams together protons, while four giant detectors watch closely. Though distant from everyday experience, the world of subatomic particles has led to many new technologies and dramatically expanded the range of questions that science can answer. This talk will introduce the state of the art of particle physics today, and the puzzles that we hope will guide us toward new discoveries. How does the Large Hadron Collider work, and what can it teach us? How does the cutting edge of particle physics relate to the world around us, from the patterns of stars in the sky to the fact that they shine at all? What mysteries are physicists trying to solve with data from the LHC?