Robert Stanek September Ethics Corner Steven Weinberg 1933
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
CERN Courier–Digital Edition
CERNMarch/April 2021 cerncourier.com COURIERReporting on international high-energy physics WELCOME CERN Courier – digital edition Welcome to the digital edition of the March/April 2021 issue of CERN Courier. Hadron colliders have contributed to a golden era of discovery in high-energy physics, hosting experiments that have enabled physicists to unearth the cornerstones of the Standard Model. This success story began 50 years ago with CERN’s Intersecting Storage Rings (featured on the cover of this issue) and culminated in the Large Hadron Collider (p38) – which has spawned thousands of papers in its first 10 years of operations alone (p47). It also bodes well for a potential future circular collider at CERN operating at a centre-of-mass energy of at least 100 TeV, a feasibility study for which is now in full swing. Even hadron colliders have their limits, however. To explore possible new physics at the highest energy scales, physicists are mounting a series of experiments to search for very weakly interacting “slim” particles that arise from extensions in the Standard Model (p25). Also celebrating a golden anniversary this year is the Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow (p33), while, elsewhere in this issue: quantum sensors HADRON COLLIDERS target gravitational waves (p10); X-rays go behind the scenes of supernova 50 years of discovery 1987A (p12); a high-performance computing collaboration forms to handle the big-physics data onslaught (p22); Steven Weinberg talks about his latest work (p51); and much more. To sign up to the new-issue alert, please visit: http://comms.iop.org/k/iop/cerncourier To subscribe to the magazine, please visit: https://cerncourier.com/p/about-cern-courier EDITOR: MATTHEW CHALMERS, CERN DIGITAL EDITION CREATED BY IOP PUBLISHING ATLAS spots rare Higgs decay Weinberg on effective field theory Hunting for WISPs CCMarApr21_Cover_v1.indd 1 12/02/2021 09:24 CERNCOURIER www. -
2019/20 Perimeter Institute Annual Report English
2020 ANNUAL REPORT VISION To create the world’s foremost centre for research, graduate training, and educational outreach in theoretical physics, uniting public and private partners, and the world’s best scientific minds, in a shared enterprise to achieve breakthroughs that will transform our future. Estelle Inack, Jason Iaconis, and Roger Melko, October 2019 CONTENTS Message from the Board Chair .............................................2 Message from the Institute Director ......................................3 How Perimeter Measures Up ................................................4 Research ...............................................................................6 Training ................................................................................26 Outreach ..............................................................................32 Our Future is Bright .............................................................38 Advancement ......................................................................40 Governance and Finance ....................................................44 Appendices .........................................................................51 This report covers the activities and finances of Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics from August 1, 2019, to July 31, 2020. TODAY'S THEORETICAL PHYSICS IS TOMORROW'S TECHNOLOGY MESSAGE FROM THE BOARD CHAIR The coronavirus has made the past year very difficult. The loss transform epidemiology, finance and insurance, risk of loved ones and the economic, -
Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics Awarded to Terry Tao
156 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics awarded to Terry Tao Our congratulations to Australian Mathematician Terry Tao, one of five inaugu- ral winners of the Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics, announced on 23 June. Terry is based at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been awarded the prize for numerous breakthrough contributions to harmonic analysis, combi- natorics, partial differential equations and analytic number theory. The Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony in December 2013. The other winners are Simon Donaldson, Maxim Kontsevich, Jacob Lurie and Richard Tay- lor. All five recipients of the Prize have agreed to serve on the Selection Committee, responsible for choosing subsequent winners from a pool of candidates nominated in an online process which is open to the public. From 2015 onwards, one Break- through Prize in Mathematics will be awarded every year. The Breakthrough Prizes honor important, primarily recent, achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics. The prizes were founded by Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri and Julia Milner, and aim to celebrate scientists and generate excitement about the pursuit of science as a career. Laureates will receive their trophies and $3 million each in prize money at a televised award ceremony in November, designed to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next genera- tion of scientists. As part of the ceremony schedule, they also engage in a program of lectures and discussions. See https://breakthroughprize.org and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/us/ the-multimillion-dollar-minds-of-5-mathematical-masters.html? r=1 for further in- formation.. -
B Meson Physics with Jon
B Meson Physics with Jon Michael Gronau , Technion Jonathan Rosner Symposium Chicago, April 1, 2011 – p. 1 Jon’s Academic Ancestors Jon’s academic ancestors were excellent teachers combined theoretical and experimental work PhD with Sam Treiman, Princeton 1965 PhD with John Simpson &⇓ Enrico Fermi, Chicago 1952 – p. 2 A Brief History of Collaboration 1967 1969: PhD at Tel-Aviv Univ, JLR visiting lecturer − Duality diagrams ⇒ Veneziano formula ⇒ String theory 1984 : 2papersonheavyneutrinos 1988 2011: 4paperson D decays, D0-D¯ 0 mixing − (s) US-Israel BSF 60 papers on B physics 18 with Jon’s PhD students & postdoc Jon’s PhD students working on B physics: David London Isard Dunietz Alex Kagan James Amundson Aaron Grant Mihir Worah AmolDighe ZuminLuo DenisSuprun Jon’s Postdoc: Cheng-Wei Chiang – p. 3 History & Future of Exp. B Physics 1980’s & 1990’s: CLEO at CESR, ARGUS at DESY 1990’s & 2000’s: CDF and D0 at Tevatron 2000’s : BaBar at SLAC, Belle at KEK 1964-2000:small CPV in K, 2000-2011:largeCPVin B Theoretical progress in applying flavor symmetries & QCD to hadronic B decays, and lattice QCD to K & B parameters Culminating in Nobel prize for Kobayashi & Maskawa CPV in B & K decays is dominatedby onephase Future : LHCb, ATLAS, CMS at the LHC Super-KEKB 2014? SuperB-Frascati 2016? Will look for small (< 10%) deviations from CKM framework – p. 4 Unitarity Triangle Up & down quark couplings to W are given by d s b λ = sin θc = 0.225 λ2 3 u 1 2 λ Aλ (¯ρ iη¯) − λ2 −2 VCKM =c λ 1 Aλ − − 2 t Aλ3(1 ρ¯ iη¯) Aλ2 1 − − − Wolfenstein 1983 ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ 3 VubVud + VcbVcd + VtbVtd = 0 normalize by VcbVcd = Aλ | | ∗ ∗ |VubVud| A=(ρ,η) |VtbVtd| V∗ V V∗ V | cb cd| α | cb cd| ρ+iη 1−ρ−iη γ β C=(0,0) B=(1,0) – p. -
Astronomers Win Big in Science Mega-Awards US$36 Million in Breakthrough Prizes Awarded to Researchers in Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics
NATURE | NEWS Astronomers win big in science mega-awards US$36 million in Breakthrough prizes awarded to researchers in physics, life sciences and mathematics. Mark Zastrow 10 November 2014 Steve Jennings/Getty Astrophysicists Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess and Saul Perlmutter accept their US$3-million Breakthrough Prizes in Physics on 9 November. The astronomers who discovered dark energy and the developers of the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR have won Breakthrough prizes. At US$3 million per winner, the awards are science’s most lucrative prize. Winners were announced on 9 November at a gala in the iconic Hangar One at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The first Breakthrough prizes were given in 2012 as a series of physics awards given by Russian Internet entrepreneur Yuri Milner. He soon recruited other online magnates, including Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sergey Brin of Google and Jack Ma of Alibaba Group, to fund awards in life sciences and mathematics. The prizes, which attempt to elevate scientists to pop-culture heroes, have drawn both praise and criticism from the research community. This year’s Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was given to two teams of astrophysicists who raced to find exploding white dwarfs in distant galaxies. One group was led by Saul Perlmutter of the University of California (UC) in Berkeley, and the other by Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University in Weston Creek. Their work led to the discovery, in 1998, that the expansion of the Universe was speeding up, leaving cosmologists struggling to explain the apparent ‘dark energy’ that is driving the phenomenon. -
Systems Engineering and Near Term Commercial Space Infrastructure
Systems Engineering and Near Term Commercial Space Infrastructure Keith A. Taggart, PhD, SPEC Innovations [email protected] Fusion Fest 2014, Rutgers University www.fusionfest2014.com October 11, 2014 My Connection to Paul Kantor • Keith Taggart: PhD-Physics (1970) • Case-Western Reserve University • Description – Paul’s only Physics PhD student – Not an Academic: Couldn’t deal with the politics – Learned a Trade: Problem Solving with a Supercomputer – Enduring interest in National Defense problems – Now Retired and trying to solve my own problems – Joke / Puzzle Systems Engineering Requirements Analysis Key Usability Requirements • 35 m radius at 3 rpm gives .35 g – Result of trade between gravity, coriolis force, and size/cost/construction time • Total volume under gravity 3300 m3 or 117,000 cubic feet • Total floor space under gravity about 7200 square feet – One Module is about 300 square feet – A nice hotel room or office or lab • These stations could support: .Closed Environment Research .Low Gravity Research (not micro gravity) .Space Tourism Control of Spinning Habitats Long Term Effects on Humans .Space Based Manufacturing Long Term Effects on animals and plants .Space Based Power .Lunar/Asteroid/Martian Assembly Exploration Testing Resource Exploitation .Research for Radiation Mitigation .Debris Collection .Research for Impact Mitigation .Satellite Repair Two Space Station Concepts Coriolis Force Fc=-2mW x V Conceptual Module Construction Module Structure Mass M=(3.1+5.9+4.2+2.0) metric tons – M=15.2 metric -
Steven Weinberg
Obituary Steven Weinberg (1933–2021) Theoretical physicist whose electroweak theory won the Nobel prize. teven Weinberg brought the funda- on to positions at Columbia University, New mental understanding of nature to York; the University of Berkeley, California; new levels of power and completeness. the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in He played a central part in formulating Cambridge; and, in 1973, to Harvard University and establishing theoretical physics’ in Cambridge, where he was Higgins Professor Stwo standard models — the standard model of Physics. In 1982, he moved to the University of fundamental interactions and the standard of Texas at Austin, where he remained, teach- model of cosmology. His greatest achievement ing until earlier this year. was to propose the unified theory of electro- Scientists, no less than composers, have magnetism and weak interactions, which is still styles. Einstein and Richard Feynman were in use. This won him the Nobel Prize in Phys- rebellious, most comfortable when they were ics in 1979, shared with his school classmate ‘thinking different’. Weinberg was not like that. Sheldon Lee Glashow, and with Abdus Salam. His approach was scholarly. Most obviously, he His 1967 Physical Review Letters paper, ‘A was keenly interested in the history of physics in Model of Leptons’, combined disparate ideas the West, about which he wrote several deeply about gauge symmetry, symmetry breaking researched and unashamedly ‘Whiggish’ books, and the classification of particles into an ele- most recently To Explain the World (2015). gant whole. Given the state of knowledge at He paid close attention to other people’s CERN/SPL the time, the breakthrough still calls to mind work. -
Economics 2880- 1: Introduction Study of Economics of Science Has Developed Rapidly in Past Decade Or So Bcs
Economics 2880- 1: Introduction Study of economics of science has developed rapidly in past decade or so bcs: FACTOR 1)Sci-tech Illuminate major economic problems and Behavior a) Macro/economic growth accounting leaves residual labeled TC that we need to shrink to do more than “observe”/measure growth. First efforts to fill it in were with Human Capital … changing the quality of labot but this analysis treats, say, an engineering degree was the same over time. Then an effort using R&D and patents to get some non-residual measure of technology – disruptive or otherwise – into aggregate production function. STOCK OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE as key input in long term. b) Micro-analysis labor and industrial organization/valuation of firms also forced to examine role of science and engineering. Labor has problem of explaining why despite large increase in education/skills the wage distribution widened from 1970s-80s to present. First effort was “residual” skill-biased TC. But then wage distribution changed in a different way – polarization, Don't want too many epicycles/unobserved TC. Industrial org/valuation of firms has problem explaining firm value, which is nowadays 80% intangible capital – ideas, ability to monetize ideas, etc. c)The sluggish productivity problem Despite the huge increase in number of Scientists &Engineers and in RD spending and in output– papers, patents, productivity growth had STAGNATED in advanced countries and declined in China, Korea, etc. Are there diminishing returns to S&E? is it ideas? Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? Nicholas Bloom, Charles I. Jones, John Van Reenen, Michael Webb NBER Working Paper No. -
May 2016 LIGO and Virgo Receive Special Breakthrough Prize
The latest astroparticle physics news. Trouble viewing this newsletter? Click here. May 2016 LIGO and Virgo receive Special Breakthrough Prize More than 1000 scientists and engineers involved in the detection of gravitational waves have been awarded a special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award of $3 million will be shared between LIGO founders Ronald WP Drever, Kip S Thorne, and Rainer Weiss, and 1005 others in the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration as well as seven additional scientists recognised for their contributions to the success of LIGO. Edward Witten, the chair of the Selection Committee said: “This amazing achievement lets us observe for the first time some of the remarkable workings of Einstein’s theory. Theoretical ideas about black holes which were close to being science fiction when I was a student are now reality.” Yuri Milner, one of the founders of the Breakthrough Prize, described the group’s achievement as “a perfect science story.” The prizes can be shared by any number of scientists. All of the authors of the paper announcing the direct detection of the GW150914 event are included. The seven scientists in addition are Luc Blanchet, CNRS; Thibault Damour, IHES; Lawrence Kidder, Cornell University; Frans Pretorius, Princeton University; Mark Scheel, Caltech; Saul A. Teukolsky, Cornell University; Rochus E. Vogt, Caltech. APPEC chair Frank Linde said: “The first direct detection of gravitational waves was extremely exciting, and has sparked more and more interest in the field. I am very pleased that this international group of pioneers has been honoured with a Breakthrough Prize, and it is a good reminder of the cooperation and collaboration needed to make great strides in science. -
Sam Treiman Was Born in Chicago to a First-Generation Immigrant Family
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SAM BARD TREIMAN 1925–1999 A Biographical Memoir by STEPHEN L. ADLER Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Biographical Memoirs, VOLUME 80 PUBLISHED 2001 BY THE NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. Courtesy of Robert P. Matthews SAM BARD TREIMAN May 27, 1925–November 30, 1999 BY STEPHEN L. ADLER AM BARD TREIMAN WAS a major force in particle physics S during the formative period of the current Standard Model, both through his own research and through the training of graduate students. Starting initially in cosmic ray physics, Treiman soon shifted his interests to the new particles being discovered in cosmic ray experiments. He evolved a research style of working closely with experimen- talists, and many of his papers are exemplars of particle phenomenology. By the mid-1950s Treiman had acquired a lifelong interest in the weak interactions. He would preach to his students that “the place to learn about the strong interactions is through the weak and electromagnetic inter- actions; the problem is half as complicated.’’ The history of the subsequent development of the Standard Model showed this philosophy to be prophetic. After the discovery of parity violation in weak interactions, Treiman in collaboration with J. David Jackson and Henry Wyld (1957) worked out the definitive formula for allowed beta decays, taking into account the possible violation of time reversal symmetry, as well as parity. Shortly afterwards Treiman embarked with Marvin Goldberger on a dispersion relations analysis (1958) of pion and nucleon beta decay, a 3 4 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS major outcome of which was the famed Goldberger-Treiman relation for the charged pion decay amplitude. -
2017 Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics and Fundamental
COMMUNICATION 2017 Breakthrough Prizes Awarded Jean Bourgain Joseph Polchinski Andrew Strominger Cumrun Vafa Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics be obtained from the results of Weil and Deligne on the Jean Bourgain of the Institute for Advanced Study, Riemann hypothesis over finite fields), as well as the de- Princeton, New Jersey, has been selected as the recipient velopment (with Gamburd and Sarnak) of the affine sieve of the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics by the that has proven to be a powerful tool for analyzing thin Breakthrough Prize Foundation. Bourgain was honored for groups. Most recently, with Demeter and Guth, Bourgain “major contributions across an incredibly diverse range of has established several important decoupling theorems areas, including harmonic analysis, functional analysis, er- in Fourier analysis that have had applications to partial godic theory, partial differential equations, mathematical differential equations, combinatorial incidence geometry, physics, combinatorics, and theoretical computer science.” and analytic number theory, in particular solving the Main The prize carries a cash award of US$3 million. Conjecture of Vinogradov, as well as obtaining new bounds The Notices asked Terence Tao of the University of Cal- on the Riemann zeta function.” ifornia Los Angeles to comment on the work of Bourgain (Tao was on the Breakthrough Prize committee and was Biographical Sketch: Jean Bourgain also one of the nominators of Bourgain). Tao responded: Jean Bourgain was born in 1954 in Oostende, Belgium. He “Jean Bourgain is an unparalleled problem-solver in anal- received his PhD (1977) and his habilitation (1979) from ysis who has revolutionized many areas of the subject by the Free University of Brussels. -
CERN Courier Sep/Oct 2019
CERNSeptember/October 2019 cerncourier.com COURIERReporting on international high-energy physics WELCOME CERN Courier – digital edition Welcome to the digital edition of the September/October 2019 issue of CERN Courier. During the final decade of the 20th century, the Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) took a scalpel to the subatomic world. Its four experiments – ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL – turned high-energy particle physics into a precision science, firmly establishing the existence of electroweak radiative corrections and constraining key Standard Model parameters. One of LEP’s most important legacies is more mundane: the 26.7 km-circumference tunnel that it bequeathed to the LHC. Today at CERN, 30 years after LEP’s first results, heavy machinery is once again carving out rock in the name of fundamental research. This month’s cover image captures major civil-engineering works that have been taking place at points 1 and 5 (ATLAS and CMS) of the LHC for the past year to create the additional tunnels, shafts and service halls required for the high-luminosity LHC. Particle physics doesn’t need new tunnels very often, and proposals for a 100 km circular collider to follow the LHC have attracted the interest of civil engineers around the world. The geological, environmental and civil-engineering studies undertaken during the past five years as part of CERN’s Future Circular Collider study, in addition to similar studies for a possible Compact Linear Collider up to 50 km long, demonstrate the state of the art in tunnel design and construction methods. Also in this issue: a record field for an advanced niobium-tin accelerator dipole magnet; tensions in the Hubble constant; reports on EPS-HEP and other conferences; the ProtonMail success story; strengthening theoretical physics in DIGGING southeastern Europe; and much more.