Tag Archives: ATLAS experiment

News and events at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

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I believe this is an April (?) 2024 newsletter and it’s definitely from Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI). Received via email, I was able to find this online copy (Note: I’m not sure how long this copy will remain online) and am excerpting a few items for inclusion here,

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The current state of theoretical physics

Join the latest episode of Conversations at Perimeter as Neil Turok [director of the Perimeter Institute, 2008 – 2019] delves into the intriguing topic of the simplicity of nature.

Watch podcast here

Public Lecture – May 8 [2024]

Free tickets to attend the event in person will be available on Monday, April 22, at 9:00 AM EDT. Live-stream will also be available on the PI YouTube channel. 

Check details here

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Quantum Lectures playlist

Explore quantum physics with our YouTube Quantum Lectures playlist. Discover the universe’s secrets from basics to advanced topics

Start watching now!

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I found this poster for the free May 8, 2024 PI event,

[downloaded from https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/hydrogen-to-higgs-boson-particle-physics-at-the-large-hadron-collider-tickets-877493876807]

It (the May 8, 2024 PI hybrid [live or streaming] event) may be of more interest than usual as Peter Higgs of the Higgs Boson died on April 8, 2024, from the Hydrogen to Higgs Boson: Particle Physics at the Large Hadron Collider eventbrite webpage,

Hydrogen to Higgs Boson: Particle Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

Explore particle physics with Dr. Clara Nellist at the Perimeter Institute on May 8, as she discusses CERN’s groundbreaking research.

Date and time

Starts on Wednesday, May 8 [2024] · 6pm EDT

Location

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
31 Caroline Street North Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5
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Agenda

6:00 p.m.

Doors Open

Perimeter’s main floor will be open for ticket holders, with scientists available to answer science questions until the show begins.

7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Public Lecture

The public lecture will begin at 7:00pm, including a live stream for virtual attendees. This will include a full presentation as well as a Q&A session.

8:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Post-Event Discussion

Following the lecture, discussion will continue in the atrium, where you can ask questions to the presenter as well as other researchers in the crowd.

About this event

About the Speaker:

Dr Clara Nellist – Particle Physicist and Science Communicator, is currently working at CERN [European Organization for Nuclear Research] on the ATLAS experiment, with research focusing on top quarks and searching for dark matter with machine learning. Learn more about her work on her Instagram here.

About the Event:

Registration to attend the event in person will be available on Monday, April 22 at 9:00 AM EDT.

Tickets for this event are 100% free. [emphasis mine] As always, our public lectures are live-streamed in real-time on our YouTube channel – available here: https://www.youtube.com/@PIOutreach

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The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed (or as close to confirmed as scientists will get) in 2012 (see my July 4, 2012 posting “Tears of joy as physicists announce they’re pretty sure they found the Higgs Boson” for an account of the event. Peter Higgs and and François Englert were awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.

If you are planning to attend the lecture in person, free tickets will be made available on Monday, April 22, at 9:00 AM EDT. Go here and, remember, these tickets go quickly.

Help find some siblings for the Higgs boson

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This is the Higgs Hunters’ (or HiggsHunters) second call for volunteers; the first was described in my Dec. 2, 2014 posting. Some 18 months after the first call, over 20,000 volunteers have been viewing images from the Large Hadron Collider in a bid to assist physicists at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

These images show how particles appear in the ATLAS detector. The lines show the paths of charged particles travelling away from a collision at the centre. Volunteers are looking for tracks appearing 'out of thin air' away from the centre. (Image: CERN)

These images show how particles appear in the ATLAS detector. The lines show the paths of charged particles travelling away from a collision at the centre. Volunteers are looking for tracks appearing ‘out of thin air’ away from the centre. (Image: CERN)

A July 6, 2016 news item on phys.org announces the call for more volunteers (Note: Links have been removed),

A citizen science project, called HiggsHunters gives everyone the chance to help search for the Higgs boson’s relatives.

Volunteers are searching through thousands of images from the ATLAS experiment on the HiggsHunters.org website, which makes use of the Zooniverse  citizen science platform.

They are looking for ‘baby Higgs bosons’, which leave a characteristic trace in the ATLAS detector.

This is the first time that images from the Large Hadron Collider have been examined on such a scale – 60,000 of the most interesting events were selected from collisions recorded throughout 2012 – the year of the Higgs boson discovery. About 20,000 of those collisions have been scanned so far, revealing interesting features.

A July 4, 2016 posting by Harriet Kim Jarlett on Will Kalderon’s CERN blog, which originated the news item, provides more details,

“There are tasks – even in this high-tech world – where the human eye and the human brain simply win out,” says Professor Alan Barr of the University of Oxford, who is leading the project.

Over the past two years, more than twenty thousand amateur scientists, from 179 countries, have been scouring images of LHC collisions,  looking for as-yet unobserved particles.

Dr Will Kalderon, who has been working on the project says “We’ve been astounded both by the number of responses and ability of people to do this so well, I’m really excited to see what we might find”.

July 4, 2016 was the fourth anniversary of the  confirmation that the Higgs Boson almost certainly exists (from the CERN blog),

Today, July 4 2016, is the fourth birthday of the Higgs boson discovery. Here, a toy Higgs is sat on top of a birthday cake decorated with a HiggsHunter event display. On the blackboard behind is the process people are looking for - Higgs-strahlung. (Image: Will Kalderon/CERN)

Today, July 4 2016, is the fourth birthday of the Higgs boson discovery. Here, a toy Higgs is sat on top of a birthday cake decorated with a HiggsHunter event display. On the blackboard behind is the process people are looking for – Higgs-strahlung. (Image: Will Kalderon/CERN)

You can find the Higgs Hunters website here. Should you be interested in other citizen science projects, you can find the Zooniverse website here.

Science cakery

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I have to thank Dean Burnett for his science cake extravagance on the Guardian science blogs. Here’s a few pictures of cake to tantalize you from Burnett’s Aug. 12, 2015 posting,

An evolution-of-life cake from @OxUniEarthSci Palaeontology Group. Bizarre how this life-sciences cake seems to defy physics with its structure. Photograph: @JackJMatthews

An evolution-of-life cake from @OxUniEarthSci Palaeontology Group. Bizarre how this life-sciences cake seems to defy physics with its structure.
Photograph: @JackJMatthews

A cake shaped like a subject entering an MRI scanner for @ImanovaImaging’s 1st birthday party. Because why not? Photograph: @M_Wall

A cake shaped like a subject entering an MRI scanner for @ImanovaImaging’s 1st birthday party. Because why not?
Photograph: @M_Wall

Katie Watkins created TMS coils on talking brains. For the record, it is not necessary or even helpful for the brain to be exposed during TMS. Photograph: Kate Watkins

Katie Watkins created TMS coils on talking brains. For the record, it is not necessary or even helpful for the brain to be exposed during TMS. Photograph: Kate Watkins

Katie Grifiths, posing with a DNA cake made by her sister Emma. What’s with these biology-themed cakes and their ability to overrule gravity? Do NASA know about this? Photograph: Katie Griffiths

Katie Grifiths, posing with a DNA cake made by her sister Emma. What’s with these biology-themed cakes and their ability to overrule gravity? Do NASA know about this?
Photograph: Katie Griffiths

Marilyn Audlsey produced this particles-in-a-cloud-chamber ginger cake. I’m not even going to pretend to know what that is, but it makes for a nice looking cake. Photograph: Marilyn Audsley

Marilyn Audlsey produced this particles-in-a-cloud-chamber ginger cake. I’m not even going to pretend to know what that is, but it makes for a nice looking cake. Photograph: Marilyn Audsley

And this is the last one I’m including,

Sara Barnes did this @ATLASexperiment. At last, the money spent on the Lare Hadron Collider starts to show useful results. Photograph: Sarah Barnes

Sara Barnes did this @ATLASexperiment. At last, the money spent on the Lare Hadron Collider starts to show useful results.
Photograph: Sarah Barnes

Burnett has many more areas of science memorialized in cake in his Aug. 12, 2015 posting.

I last featured science and cakes in a March 31, 2012 posting about the periodic table of elements and cupcakes. On a closely related note, I wrote about mathematics and baking in a June 28, 2013 posting.