Well, not really. That wouldn’t be legal. But the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 is scheduled to be announced next Tuesday, and this clearly calls for some irresponsible speculation. Who do you think will win? How about a guess as to what field of physics will be honored this year? If you think it’ll […]
Month: September 2006
Classic Edition: Making Quarks Out of Nothing at All
This is the second of a set of old posts, dating back to 2003, discussing the business of experimental particle physics. In this installment, I talk about how you get exotic particles by slamming ordinary ones together at high speed.
Classic Edition: Subatomic Botany
Since I found myself talking about particle physics yesterday, and since I find myself in the middle of a seasonal allergy flare-up that’s sapping my bloggy motivation, I thought I would dust off and re-post some old articles about particle physics. These date back to 2003, but I think they still stand up reasonably well. […]
Amazing Laser Party!
While checking out the official Nobel Prize web site to see when the prizes will be announced, I was surprised to discover that the Nobel Foundation offers little Flash games on their web site. In particular, I had to check out the Laser Challenge site. Oh. My. God. Maybe it’s just the cold talking, but […]
That, My Liege, Is How We Know the Earth to Be Banana Shaped
The AIP news feed features a story about a paper suggesting that the universe is ellipsoidal. Or at least, that it was, back in the early days. The work is based on the famous WMAP picture of the microwave background (and no, it’s not because the picture is oblong): As you know, Bob, the picture […]
Paranoia, the Destroyer
I’m in the middle of what is either a fall cold or a seasonal allergy flare-up– I lean toward the latter, for various reasons that don’t really matter. The important thing is, my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls and vacuum pump oil. This isn’t the real gripe of the moment, though. The […]
I’m Wound Tighter Than a Magnet’s Coil
(Apologies to Lou Barlow…) Earlier, I explained why it is that I bought parchment paper for the lab, as part of the process of making magnetic field coils for an atom trap. What’s the actual coil-making process like? Details and pictures below the fold:
Precision Machining and Baking Supplies
I end up buying a lot of weird things for my lab– really expensive sand, for example– but the latest purchase was a little strange even by my usual standards: The other day, on my way into work, I stopped by the store and bought a roll of parchment paper, for use in the lab. […]
Counting Leptons
Quantum Diaries survivor Tommaso Dorigo offers an inside look at experimental particle physics, describing new results from combing through CDF data to look for rare events producing two leptons with the same charge: Indeed, 44 events were found when 33.7 were expected, plus or minus 3.5. That corresponds to a roughly 2-sigma fluctuation of expected […]
It’s a Technical Term
Dave Bacon explains heating-induced decoherence: One problem with ion traps qubits has been the heating of the motional degrees of the trapped ions, due mostly to fluctuating potentials on the trap electrodes. The electrode potential goes yee-yaw and the ion goes wee-wah, heating up and thus ruining the motional degree of freedom of the ion. […]