Higgs Discovery by Lisa Randall [eBook Review]

Physics 101 professors will be discussing the impact of this discovery at every major university in the coming weeks including Harvard’s Lisa Randall where it will cost that of a luxury car to learn in 16 weeks what you can learn all you will need to know (unless you work in Geneva) for two dollars and ninety-nine cents.

Higgs Discovery is not a ground breaking novel like her previous books, hell this isn’t really even her own work. What it is is a 70 page explanation of what the atmosphere in the physics community was experiencing primarily from December 2011 until the reveal of discovery on July 4, 2012. Dr. Randall also give her personal feelings and doings during the surrounding time period giving this short-work the same personal touch she has lent to her more comprehensive works.

Since July we have been hearing numerous explanations of what this all means and in the big picture of it all the discovery does not directly affect 99.9% of the population, but it is nice to have an elementary understanding of what the discovery of the Higgs mechanism means to science.

Nearly any publication with a relation to knowledge reported or at least reprinted the essence of this discovery in their words. What you get here is a more in-depth explanation and interpretation from one of the best minds in physics today. While some scientific explanations for the find have been like reading directions across state in a foreign language that you don’t understand, Dr. Randall on the other hand can explain the most difficult topic in a way that we feel proficient and confident enough to explain what we have learned to someone else.

Imagine that most people will just ask a mechanic what is wrong with the car’s engine and how much it will cost to fix it, but there are some who will ask why there is an issue and what process they will take to repair the problem. This book is for those people who want all the meat and substance in between the discovery and where it will take us now.

If you are asking why I would give such a great piece a 4/5 consider this, in a year or when she is feeling there is enough material and understanding of the Higgs to write a full novel-length piece we need to have room to grow and improve on the rating. But this is the best material you will find on the Higgs discovery.

Dr. Randall, thank you for continuing to make science cool for the younger generations.

Today the 4th of July Became Not Just a Day for Americans to Celebrate

What Today’s Higgs Boson Discovery Really Means

 Alasdair Wilkins

Earlier today, scientists from the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a subatomic particle that’s consistent with the Higgs Boson. So, have physicists finally found the elusive particle? Short answer?Yes. Longer answer? Well…

If you were to say July 4, 2012 was the day the Higgs boson was officially discovered, you wouldn’t really be wrong. As CERN Director General Rolf Heuer put it, “As a layman, I think we have it.” That’s about as unequivocal a statement as you’re likely to get from CERN, which is understandably conservative when it comes to announcing possible physics-shattering discoveries. But then, there’s a second half to Heuer’s quote, one that probably won’t get as much attention: “But as a scientist, I have to say, ‘What do we have?'” That’s a huge question, one that won’t be answered today, maybe not this year. Today’s announcement is just the beginning of the Higgs story, definitely not the end.

So what, exactly, did we discover?

A Reason to Celebrate 4th of July Worldwide… Maybe

Higgs boson revelation set for July 4: Fireworks, or dud?

Physicists in Europe are ready to offer up their latest findings on a mysterious subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson. And the universe may never be the same.

Fireworks. Hot dogs. Beach blankets. Particle physics.

In this graphic from 2011, the red lines show how the LHC’s Atlas experiment registered the arrival of four particles called muons. They could have been the byproducts of a short-lived Higgs boson — or they could have been more humdrum events.

July 4 this year won’t be just about Americans celebrating Independence Day and unofficially kicking off the the summer vacation season. It could also bring news of some significance from physicists in Europe who’ve been in hot pursuit of a mysterious subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson — and a better glimpse at the nature of the universe.

The big-brain folks at CERN on Wednesday will be holding a seminar at which they plan to provide an update on the Higgs search, divulging the preliminary results of their 2012 data analysis. As it turns out, they acquired more data just between April and June of this year than they did in all of 2011.

“We now have more than double the data we had last year,” CERN’s director for research and computing, Sergio Bertolucci, said in a statement announcing the upcoming seminar. “That should be enough to see whether the trends we were seeing in the 2011 data are still there, or whether they’ve gone away. It’s a very exciting time.”

Last December, researchers said they had found “intriguing hints” of the Higgs boson, the existence of which has been predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics but never — yet — confirmed.

Besides having a much larger volume of data to work with, CERN says the researchers have gotten better at sussing out the pieces they truly want, getting more efficient “in picking out Higgs-like events from the millions of collisions occurring every second.”

Those subatomic head-on encounters are the raison d’etre of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, a massive, $8 billion underground particle accelerator on — rather, under — the France-Switzerland border.

A press conference following the seminar will spring whatever news there is upon the rest of the world.

reblogged: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57464945-76/higgs-boson-revelation-set-for-july-4-fireworks-or-dud/