higgs – Spooky Action at a Distance

Physicists Look Beyond the Large Hadron Collider, to the Very Large Hadron Collider

Now that the world’s premier particle smasher has reached its maximum energy, physicists are planning new machines to follow up its discoveries.

In 1954 the renowned physicist Enrico Fermi did a simple but depressing calculation about future particle accelerators. To create particles with an energy of 3 teraelectron-volts, he estimated, you’d have to build a ring 8,000 kilometers in radius at a cost of $170 billion. It was a rare instance of Fermi being wrong. The Large […]

What Is the Higgs Boson? [Video]

In 2 1/2 minutes, you, too, can break the symmetry of the electroweak interactions.

Quantum Horse Races and Crystals of Light

Start with a row of rubidium atoms, place your bets, let ’em go.

SINGAPORE—I’d heard of quantum dice, quantum poker, quantum roulette, and even quantum Russian roulette, but a quantum horse race? I learned about this surreal game of chance last December during a symposium at the Centre for Quantum Technologies in Singapore. Start with a row of rubidium atoms, place your bets, let ʼem go, and measure […]

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Now that the world’s premier particle smasher has reached its maximum energy, physicists are planning new machines to follow up its discoveries.

In 2 1/2 minutes, you, too, can break the symmetry of the electroweak interactions.

Start with a row of rubidium atoms, place your bets, let ’em go.