Forums

Posted: 22-10-2012 17:10 Post subject:

She may have been right after all.

CERN webcams

Laughing

Posted: 22-10-2012 21:52 Post subject:

Posted: 03-02-2013 08:50 Post subject:

Prof Peter Higgs: Prize honours Large Hadron Collider scientist

The scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson "god particle" hopes a prize named in his honour will inspire a new generation of physics geniuses.
First Minister Alex Salmond has announced an annual prize, named after Prof Peter Higgs, for school students.
Prof Higgs said: "I hope that this will inspire young students of today.
"Rewarding those who have excelled in physics in this way and supporting the next generation of scientists is to be warmly welcomed."

The Higgs Prize, open to Scottish school students who excel in physics, will be formally launched by the First Minister and the scientist on Tuesday.
It is part of a week designed to showcase Scotland's scientific expertise, with Mr Salmond also expected to make a significant announcement about life sciences and mark a landmark in space science.

Prof Higgs hit upon his defining concept during a walk in the Cairngorms in 1964, when he started to consider the existence of a particle that gives matter its mass.
He wrote two scientific papers on his theory and was eventually published in the Physical Review Letters journal, sparking a 40-year hunt for the Higgs boson.
In July, a team from the European nuclear research facility at Cern, Geneva, announced the detection of a particle that fitted the description of the elusive Higgs.

The Higgs Prize will give young physics students the chance to win a trip to Cern, where work researching the Higgs particle continues.
"I know very well how exciting and amazing visits to Cern can be," said the professor, who has retired from Edinburgh University.

Mr Salmond hopes Prof Higgs' achievements would "inspire future generations of Scots".
"His work is celebrated internationally and Scotland is very proud of him," he said.
"The Higgs Prize will be an opportunity for some of Scotland's brightest young school physicists to see for themselves the cutting-edge of international physics at Cern."

Prof Sir Peter Knight, president of the Institute of Physics, said his organisation "will be working with them to establish the best way to identify Scotland's most promising young physicists".
"With £8.5bn of the Scottish economy created by physics-based businesses, this prize is recognition of the vital importance of the subject," he said.

During the week-long exhibition at the Scottish Parliament to celebrate the Scottish contribution to the creation and operation of the Large Hadron Collider visitors are able to walk through a full-size replica of a section of the LHC tunnel.
They will also have the chance to meet Scottish physicists involved in last year's Higgs boson discovery.

As well as the Higgs Prize and a number of other initiatives, this week the government will be announcing the appointment of 33 new health fellows to conduct research into medical challenges such as treating motor neurone disease, how to use technology to help people with diabetes and how to control internal bleeding.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21305723

Posted: 08-10-2013 17:34 Post subject:

And now, the big one!

Higgs boson scientists win Nobel prize in physics
By James Morgan, Science reporter, BBC News

Two scientists have won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on the theory of the Higgs boson.
Peter Higgs, from the UK, and Francois Englert from Belgium, shared the prize.
In the 1960s they were among several physicists who proposed a mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe have mass.
The mechanism predicts a particle - the Higgs boson - which was finally discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, in Switzerland.

"This year's prize is about something small that makes all the difference," said Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Professor Higgs is renowned for shying away from the limelight, and he could not be located for interview in the immediate aftermath of the announcement.
"He's gone on holiday without a phone," his Edinburgh University physics colleague Alan Walker told the BBC, adding that Higgs had also been unwell.
"He is taking a break from all of this, taking some time to relax, because he knows when he comes back he'll have to face up to a media storm."

But the university released a prepared statement from Higgs, 84, who is an emeritus professor of theoretical physics:
"I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy," he said.
"I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle and to thank my family, friends and colleagues for their support.
"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research."

Francois Englert, 80, said he was "very happy" to win the award, speaking at the ceremony via phone link.
"At first I thought I didn't have it [the prize] because I didn't see the announcement," he told the committee, after their news conference was delayed by more than an hour.

Higgs was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, but it was in Edinburgh in 1964 that he had his big idea - an explanation of why the matter in the Universe has substance, or mass.
His theory involved a missing particle in the Standard Model of physics, which has come to be known as the Higgs boson.

Within weeks, Francois Englert independently published his own, similar theory, alongside his now deceased colleague Robert Brout.

Three other physicists - Gerald Guralnik, Tom Kibble and Carl Hagen - also made key contributions to the theory, and spoke at the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.

Hagen has long argued for the name of the particle to be changed, protesting at the "rock star" status in which Higgs is held.
And Higgs, too, has expressed his discomfort with the attention he has received, preferring to call the particle "the scalar boson".

In a statement on Tuesday, Kibble, of Imperial College London, said he was "glad" the Nobel Prize had gone to the work of Higgs and Englert.
"My two collaborators, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Hagen, and I contributed to that discovery, but our paper was unquestionably the last of the three to be published.

"It is therefore no surprise that the Swedish Academy felt unable to include us, constrained as they are by a self-imposed rule that the prize cannot be shared by more than three people.
"My sincere congratulations go to the two Prize winners, Francois Englert and Peter Higgs."

Proving their theory correct took almost half a century and involved creating the biggest and most sophisticated machine humankind has ever built.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern lies in a circular tunnel almost 17 miles round. It's so big it's partly in Switzerland, partly in France. It took 10 years and thousands of scientists and engineers to build it.

Cern director general Rolf Heuer said he was "thrilled" that this year's prize had gone to particle physics.
"The discovery of the Higgs boson at Cern... marks the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world," he said.

The Nobel Prizes - which also cover chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economics - are valued at 8m Swedish kronor (£750,000; $1.2m). Laureates also receive a medal and a diploma.

The official citation for Englert and Higgs read: "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".

David Willetts, UK minister for universities and science, said the award was "an incredible endorsement of the quality of UK science".

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "This brilliant achievement is richly deserved recognition of Peter Higgs' lifetime of dedicated research and his passion for science.
"It is also a credit to the world-leading British universities in which this research was carried out.
"It took nearly 50 years and thousands of great minds to discover the Higgs boson after Professor Higgs proposed it, and he and all those people should be extremely proud."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24436781

Posted: 08-10-2013 17:45 Post subject:

"He's gone on holiday without a phone . . . "

I plan to use this phrase shamelessly as an indicator of Nobel worth!

In fact I think there should be a Nobel prize for it. It would not need to be shared between very many of us. Monster

Posted: 09-10-2013 16:37 Post subject:

Oh, me.

what a guy...and what a shock.