BLOG - CERN

Juan García-Bellido

The discovery of the Higgs occupies the minds of everyone in Lindau

Today, 4th of July 2012, has been a very long but exciting day. I was here in Lindau, writing my last blog at one o’clock in the morning, when I received an email from a colleague who warned me of a leak from CERN that appeared in the British newspaper The Telegraph, showing an unauthorized […]

Kelly Oakes

Tricking nature to give up its secrets

By their very nature, those discoveries that most change the way we think about nature cannot be anticipated This was Douglas Osheroff’s claim at the start of his lecture on Wednesday morning, where he promised to tell the young researchers at Lindau “how advances in science are made”. In his talk Osheroff offered five things […]

Juan García-Bellido

Particle physics Nobel laureates are prepared to receive the Higgs in Lindau

Five minutes before the morning session we see three Nobel laureates – Tini Veltman, Carlo Rubbia and David Gross – moving around eachother next to the stand, preparing their laptops for the presentations, later displayed on the huge screens of Lindau Auditorium. Rubbia seems angry with the others because they are using his Mac connector. […]

Beatrice Lugger

Pros and Cons of building particle accelerators – Werner Heisenberg

The world is looking at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will make an announcement about the Higgs boson, Wednesday July 4th. Speculations and rumors already run around the world. In such hectic times it often is helpful to take a look back. Therefore I recommend to watch a famous […]

Alexander Bastidas Fry

Prospects for the Higgs Boson Discovery

Tomorrow physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will make an announcement and while we don’t know exactly what the will announce there is good reason to speculate it will be the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a particle which mediates the interaction of all matter with the Higgs field […]

developer

Martinus Veltman, das Higgs-Boson und die Grenzen der Experimente

Was ich über das Standardmodell der Teilchenphysik weiß, verdanke ich vor allem einem Buch – dem sehr empfehlenswerten „Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics“ des Physik-Nobelpreisträgers Martinus Veltman. Nun, ein paar Jahre später, scheint mit dem Higgs-Boson der Schlussstein des Standardmodells zum greifen nahe, und für mich gibt es zu dieser Gelegenheit keinen besseren […]

Kelly Oakes

Researcher profile: Heather Gray on life at CERN

Heather Gray, originally from South Africa and currently working at CERN, is one of the attendees producing a video diary to document her time at the Lindau meeting this year. I caught up with her over email just before the start of the meeting to find out what a day’s work at CERN is really like – […]

Juan García-Bellido

Why are Nobel Prizes important?

There is no other prize in the intellectual realm with the prestige of the Nobel Prizes. They also have a visibility that can hardly be compared to any other. But why are they important? What do they contribute to society? In an age in which we are gradually losing whole sets of values​​, fundamentally humanistic […]

developer

Das Higgs-Boson… rechtzeitig für Lindau?

Wer sich für Physik interessiert dürfte ja inzwischen die Gerüchte mitbekommen haben, die über die neuesten LHC-Daten kursieren: Demnach sind die vorliegenden Daten signifikant genug, dass das Higgs-Boson als entdeckt gelten kann. Und wenn das stimmt, wird die Entdeckung parallel zur Lindauer Nobelpreisträgertagung verkündet. Aber von Anfang an: Kürzlich hat der Physik-Blogger Peter Woit von […]

Alexander Bastidas Fry

CERN, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter

When you throw together six distinguished physicists (David Gross, John Mather, Carlo Rubbia, George Smoot, Gerardus ’t Hooft, and Martinus Veltman) into debate on what CERN will teach us about the dark energy and dark matter you can’t guarantee the same kind harmony that these physicists strive for in their own theories. There was a majority agreement […]