Comments on: CERN movie trailer

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:45:45 +0000

It was actually a pretty good show, if understandably simplified. It was all Cox, so to speak, rather than having an anonymous narrator and interviews with him and other scientists. In that respect it was closer to the excellent Atom series presented by Jim Al-Khalili than a typical Horizon. I can’t say I learned much new from it, but it was cool to see LIGO and the double galaxy image from Kitt Peak.

Horizon would be much better if it stuck with this style, using scientists’ natural enthusiasm for their subject to convey its interest rather than trying to sensationalise everything while minimising the science.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:22:06 +0000

Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed the Horizon program is on BBC 2 at 9pm tonight, Tuesday the 29th of Jan 2008. All the family will be gathered round.

By: Nigel Depledge

Nigel Depledge — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:18:52 +0000

Paul Anderson and Mena, here’s another for the list:

ITER.

Ten. million. Celsius.*

Wow.

* note: figures not checked for accuracy.

By: arensb

arensb — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:48:03 +0000

Is there a law that all movie trailers have to begin with “In a world…”?

By: Labreporter

Labreporter — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:47:04 +0000

There’s an excellent films explaining, with the aid of a strong visual analogy, what the Higgs is at http://www.labreporter.com (made by the same people who made the Brian Cox film).

By: Labreporter

Labreporter — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:46:24 +0000

There’s an excellent films explaning, with a visual demonstration, what the Higgs is at http://www.labreporter.com (made by the same people who made the Brian Cox film).

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:41:11 +0000

Awesome vid, I have to pass it along to my friend who works at DESY. And I just love Brian Cox’ accent, which makes the science even more sexy

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:36:37 +0000

Mark Martin says: “Here is an excellent explanation of the Higgs mechanism, in accurate but familiar terms”

Thank you. That is exactly the level of explanation I was looking for. You just prevented me from making an embarrassing mistake in print! I mean real print, as in ink-on-paper.

- Jack

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 08:01:42 +0000

The graviton would be a boson, but not the Higgs. A graviton would be massless, whereas the Higgs would be extremely massive (as particles go). The key here is that mass = inertia, and a particle’s coupling with the Higgs (or, as it turns out, any other kind of particle) exerts a kind of drag which yields behavior identical to what we identify with inertia (mass).

Here is an excellent explanation of the Higgs mechanism, in accurate but familiar terms: http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html

By: Jack Hagerty

Jack Hagerty — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:02:13 +0000

Max Fagin says: “Does anyone know a good semi-technical explanation of just what the Higgs is, and what just how it is supposed to do what it does?”

Excellent question, and just the one I was about to ask.

Doing a quick wiki-search, it appears to be the boson that gives mass to matter. Does that mean it’s the graviton? Any particle physicists care to enlighten?

- Jack

By: Max Fagin

Max Fagin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 06:49:14 +0000

Does anyone know a good semi-technical explanation of just what the Higgs is, and what just how it is supposed to do what it does?

By: Framing not Necessary | Tangled Up in Blue Guy

Framing not Necessary | Tangled Up in Blue Guy — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:01:38 +0000

[...] a h/t to Phil Plait. fun science controversyPopularity: unranked [?] SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title: “Framing not [...]

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:27:48 +0000

Mark,

You could say that. The SSC was going to be significantly larger, and attain much greater collision energies & luminosities. But part of the reason why Congress was in a position to cancel the SSC is that the LHC was also under development at that time. Since that Fermilab was already doing the same sort of research, and the LHC was getting funding of its own, it was expedient to just cancel the project.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:58:54 +0000

Is the LHC CERN’s version of what the SSC was supposed to be?

By: it’s about time» Blog Archive » The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious …

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:16:10 +0000

[...] the lovely Phil at BadAstronomy.com, comes this wonderful CERN video tour of the Large Hadron [...]

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:29:08 +0000

“In my opinion, the best part of the video is the scientists being excited about the opportunity to be proven wrong, and thereby forced into unknown trerritory.”

I liked that part too.

To me, that’s what makes science superior. It’s not afraid to admit an idea is wrong (with the right evidence of course), and is not afraid to try a new and totally different path.

By: Mena

Mena — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:04:39 +0000

Paul Anderson, I agree with you and I have one to add to your list. Super-Kamiokande. The Japanese have yet again made something both functional and beautiful.

By: Hot for Brian

Hot for Brian — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:02:27 +0000

His “fab wife”? Darn.

By: MandyDax

MandyDax — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:56:15 +0000

>Some (stuffy) folks think this kind of thing is a bad idea,
>sexifying science.

Um, science =is= sexy! Just ask Kinsey! ~_^

Seriously, this is a huge jump in the study of particle physics. I’m excited about it!

By: Paul Anderson

Paul Anderson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:16:27 +0000

You mean science isn’t sexy? Take LHC, CERN, Fermilab, TRIUMF in canada, and the neutrino observatory in sudbury – this is some of the biggest modern construction being undertaken. The egyptians built pyramids, we build instruments.

By: Mark Martin

Mark Martin — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:42:04 +0000

I’ve been asked by several people about the chance of the LHC generating black holes which will devour Earth. Is there a Dr. Krone employed at CERN?

By: Chip

Chip — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:22:14 +0000

Brian Cox and his colleagues are proving my theory correct – the early universe is British and has been accelerating toward being French for at least 13 billion years. (Kiddng!) But seriously – this is very exciting.

By: has

has — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:50:19 +0000

Vince Noir, Brian Cox. Are they related? I think we should be told…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzoRl092U0

On a sightly more depressing note: Horizon – urgh. I grew up on a hearty diet of Doctor Who, Horizon and Tomorrow’s World, back in the day when it was still obvious which was fiction. It’s criminal, the state of science reporting over here, and especially galling when it’s the publicly funded BBC. Lord Reith must be powering Alexandria Palace at his current RPM.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:16:34 +0000

Brian Cox is possibly my favourite scientist in the world (sorry Phil), but last time he was on Horizon it was a disaster. It wasn’t his fault, but Horizon has been so dumbed down and so sensationalised that it’s painful to watch.
The show was ostensibly about the LHC and the search for the Higgs boson, but in an hour long programme it never even used the word boson and the Higgs particle+field wasn’t mentioned until the last ten minutes. The bulk of the show was taken up with a completely superfluous history of the universe, and it started (of course, being Horizon) with a dramatic and fact free section on how the hoped for mini black holes might destroy the Earth. Worst of all, Cox was presented wearing a black polo neck against a black background, so he looked like a lame mime artist.

By: autumn

autumn — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:56:29 +0000

In my opinion, the best part of the video is the scientists being excited about the opportunity to be proven wrong, and thereby forced into unknown trerritory.