higgs_bosonhttp://www.wnyc.org/tags/higgs_boson2013-10-30T00:00:00-04:00What Keeps Physicists Awake at Night? 2013-10-30T00:00:00-04:00http://www.wnyc.org/story/what-keeps-physicists-awake-night/<p><a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Clara+Moskowitz">Clara Moskowitz</a>, an associate editor at <em>Scientific American</em>, talks about  the things that particle physicists most want answers to. Her article "<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/10/25/physics-biggest-unanswered-questions/" target="_blank">5 Unanswered Questions That Will Keep Physicists Awake at Night</a>” appears on <em>Scientific American</em>’s Observation blog.</p> Higgs and Englert Win Nobel Prize in Physics 2013-10-08T10:22:23-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/peter-higgs-francois-englert-wins-nobel-prize-physics/<p>The Nobel Prize Committee is announcing this year's winners all this week. Yesterday they announced the winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine and this morning the much anticipated physics prize was awarded.</p> <p>People have been speculating for weeks about whether the prize would go to someone connected with last year's identification of the Higgs boson particle or some other research.</p> <p>The Higgs boson particle is said to be what caused the "Big Bang" and is often dubbed the "God particle."</p> <p>Now the wait is over.</p> <p>The 2013 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider," a statement at NobelPrize.org says.</p> <p>Joining us to discuss what the award means and why the Higgs boson is so important to the field of quantum physics is <strong>Brian Greene</strong>, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University.</p> <p>Check out this video from Professor Greene below which explains the science behind the Higgs boson particle.</p> <p><iframe frameborder="0" height="329" src="http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/embedded/2548" width="528" class="wsftv-player"></iframe></p> <p> </p> The Hunt for the Higgs Boson 2012-11-28T00:00:00-05:00http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/nov/28/hunt-higgs-boson/<p>Caltech physicist <a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Sean+Carroll">Sean Carroll</a> explains the greatest scientific achievement of our time—finding the Higgs boson, the key to understanding why mass exists. In <span class="book"><a title="buy this book at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525953590/wnycorg-20/"><em>The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World</em></a></span>, he not only explains the importance of the Higgs boson but also the Large Hadron Collider project itself.</p> Physics: Illuminating the Universe 2012-08-08T00:00:00-04:00http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/aug/08/physics-illuminating-universe/<p><a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Lisa+Randall">Lisa Randall</a>, Professor of Physics at Harvard University, and author of <span class="book"><a title="buy this book at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006172372X/wnycorg-20/"><em>Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World</em></a></span> and <span class="book"><a title="buy this book at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060531096/wnycorg-20/"><em>Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions</em></a></span>, talks about the new discoveries in field of physics, including new evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson. She’ll explain what it is and why it matters. Her most recent book is the Kindle Single <span class="book"><a title="buy this book at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008LUYZFM/wnycorg-20/"><em>Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space</em></a></span>.</p> Please Explain: The Higgs Boson 2012-07-20T00:00:00-04:00http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/jul/20/please-explain-higgs-boson/<p>Early this month, researchers at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they found convincing evidence of a new particle called the Higgs boson. Sometimes called the “god particle,” the Higgs boson gives mass to the elementary particles that make up the universe. <a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Brian+Greene">Brian Greene</a>, Professor of Mathematics and Physics and author of <em>The Elegant Universe</em>, <em>The Fabric of the Cosmos</em>, and <em>The Hidden Reality</em>, and <a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Kyle+Cranmer">Kyle Cranmer</a>,<em> </em>Assistant Professor of Physics at New York University, help us decipher what the Higgs is and why it matters, and explain how the Large Hadron Collider works.</p> <p><div class="user-embedded-video"><div id="videoplayer_idp45024a471eb4a-6f48-4adb-bb58-53e7861e97d5"><iframe class="youtube_video" src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.vimeo.com%2Fvideo%2F41038445&amp;wmode=transparent&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F41038445&amp;image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F284014229_640.jpg&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;autohide=1&amp;rel=0&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=vimeo" width="280" height="368" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" id="a6618188359277001444" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" data-original-url="https://vimeo.com/41038445"></iframe></div></div></p> Pakistan Ignores Legacy of Physicist Linked to Higgs Boson Research 2012-07-10T08:48:42-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/10/pakistan-ignores-legacy-physicist-linked-higgs-boson-research/<p>The world of physics has been agog in recent weeks over something called the Higgs Boson particle, also known as the “God particle.” One of the scientists who laid the groundwork for these recent breakthroughs was physicist Abdus Salam, Pakistan’s only Nobel Laureate. His work on what’s called the Standard Model of particle physics provided the theoretical framework for today’s most exciting physics research.</p> <p>However, Salam's legacy remains <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistan-shuns-prize-winning-physicist-linked-to-god-particle-because-of-religious-beliefs/2012/07/08/gJQAbnSMWW_story.html" target="_blank">largely ignored in Pakistan</a>. In 1974 the Pakistani parliament amended the constitution to declare that members of the Ahamdi sect — including Salam — were not considered Muslims. Salam left the country and his name was stricken from Pakistani textbooks.</p> <p><strong>Pervez Hoodbhoy</strong>, a Pakistani physicist who worked with Salam, looks back on his country's fraught relationship with his colleague.</p> Follow Friday: Employment Report and the Higgs Boson Particle 2012-07-06T13:07:55-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/06/follow-friday-employment-report-anderson-cooper-and-higgs-boson-particle/<p>Here's a roundup of the week's stories. The release of this month's job report is the first big story of the day. It <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm" target="_blank">reports</a> that 80,000 jobs were added, while the unemployment rate remained steady at 8.2 percent. While 80,000 is certainly an improvement, it is a small one in terms of the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57466358/jobs-report-are-we-there-yet/" target="_blank">big picture</a>.</p> <p>This sluggish improvement could prove detrimental to President Obama's reelection campaign efforts in <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/06/look-2012-swing-states/" target="_blank">swing states</a> such as Ohio. "If there's anything that Obama wants to do, it's more or less to not get stuck in the mire of talking about nothing but the economy," <strong>Jeff Yang, </strong>writer of the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/tag/tao-jones/" target="_blank">Tao Jones column</a> for the Wall Street Journal and <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=0CFMQFjAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wnyc.org%2Fpeople%2Fjeff-yang%2F&amp;ei=9vz2T-mKMMju0gHVh5DuBg&amp;usg=AFQjCNFJnFhW_LNXnmsVPV9S7e14MNL1-g" target="_blank">blogger</a> for WNYC’s <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/section/itsafreecountry/">It’s A Free Country</a>. Yang says, "That's the one thing that I think Romney actually has a strong counter-argument to make against keeping Obama in office." <strong><br></strong></p> <p><strong>Charlie Herman</strong>, business and economics editor for WNYC, says that there are some positive aspects to the report. Temporary jobs, hourly wages, and hours worked all increased, which Herman says are indicators that economists look for. "All three of those were up, so those are positive signs of job growth in the future," he says. "But as we've seen for the last three years, we've been here before where the year starts out really well, it gets really bad in the summer, and then it kind of just is flat for the rest of the year. I'm optimistic, but I want to hedge my bets there." <br></p> <p><strong>Lisa Randall</strong>, a professor of science at Harvard University, discusses the discovery of a "Higgs-like" particle. "It really is an <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/netapp/2012/07/05/discovery-of-the-higgs-boson-particle-is-victory-for-international-scientific-cooperation/" target="_blank">international effort</a> in this case," Randall says. "The goal is to really understand what's going on at that scale, and hopefully this is just the start of what we're going to find." The discovery has led to many explanation attempts for the non-scientists among us, one of which being Garance Franke-Ruta's <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/still-confused-about-the-higgs-boson-read-this/259472/a" target="_blank">article</a> in The Atlantic. </p> <p>Also in the news is Ann Curry's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/arts/television/ann-currys-tearful-goodbye-from-today.html" target="_blank">tearful departure</a> from NBC's Today, as well as New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin's <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/rockets/story/2012-07-05/Jeremy-Lin-agrees-to-Houstons-offer-sheet/56048152/1" target="_blank">potential move</a> to the Houston Rockets. </p> The Higgs Boson Is Found 2012-07-05T10:43:37-04:00http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2012/jul/05/latest-higgs-boson/<p><a class="guestlink" href="/people/r/?n=Lisa+Randall">Lisa Randall</a> is a professor of physics at Harvard University and the author of <span class="book"><a title="buy this book at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452634394/wnycorg-20/"><em>Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World.</em></a></span> Randall will discuss the latest news about the recently discovered particle that is consistent with the Higgs boson, the final major component of the Standard Model.</p> The Higgs Boson: Closer Than Ever Before 2012-07-04T10:54:22-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/04/god-particle/<p>The Higgs Boson has eluded scientists for centuries. Modern physicists believe that the discovery of the Higgs Boson could possibly be the most important molecular discovery of our time, and we may have found it.</p> <p>The director of the world's biggest atom smasher in Geneva said this morning that they've discovered a new subatomic particle, and perhaps finally filled in the missing piece from the long-standing Standard Theory with a particle that scientists have searched for for decades.</p> <p>Researchers stopped just shy of saying that it's in fact the Higgs Boson, the key to understanding why matter has mass. <strong>John Matson</strong> is an associate editor at Scientific American.</p> CERN Announcement: Continuing Coverage 2012-07-04T10:29:33-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/04/cern-announcement-continuing-coverage/<p>Scientists reporting from the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland say they have discovered a new particle consistent with the Higgs Boson. The particle has been the subject of a 45 year hunt to explain how matter attains its mass. Both of the Higgs Boson-hunting experiments at the Large Hadron Collider see a level of certainty in their data worthy of a "discovery."</p> <p>Although more work will be needed to be certain that what they see is a Higgs, one commentator has described what's been going on this morning in Geneva as "this generation's moon landing moment." <strong>Jason Palmer</strong> is a science reporter for our partner the BBC.</p> CERN to Unveil New Evidence for "God Particle" 2012-07-03T10:11:48-04:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/03/new-insights-god-particle/<p>In December, scientists from the CERN lab in Switzerland announced that they had found "hints" about the existence of Higgs Boson particle, otherwise known as the "God particle." On Wednesday, CERN will announce the latest evidence.</p> <p>The God particle is key to explaining why matter has mass, an understanding that would explain how subatomic particles, and thus our universe, formed in the first place. In December, scientists from CERN announced that they had found "hints" of the particle's existence. This week, we'll likely gain new insight into the creation of humans, and the world we inhabit. Dr. <strong>Michio Kaku</strong> is a theoretical physicist and author of the New York Times bestseller "Physics of the Future."</p> Physicists Await Glimpse of 'God Particle' 2011-12-13T08:40:51-05:00http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/dec/13/physics/<p>Near Geneva, Switzerland scientists from the European Center for Nuclear Research are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16074411" target="_blank">scheduled to present</a> preliminary evidence in their search to find the Higgs boson particle, commonly known as the "<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1212/Higgs-boson-Has-the-God-particle-been-found" target="_blank">God particle</a>." Proving its existence would validate the leading theory of particle physics.</p> <p>Harvard physics professor and particle theory expert <strong>Dr. Lisa Randall</strong> is the author of the new book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Knocking-Heavens-Door-Scientific-Illuminate/dp/006172372X" target="_blank">Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World</a>.” She talks about why the Higgs boson particle matters so much to scientists.</p>