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Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science. Show all posts

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

                                                      WHITE HOLES 

Surely an entry must have an exit; there is no doubt about that. Black holes swallow huge amounts of matter as they travel through space, but where does all that material go?
One thing is for certain, it can't stay inside it f

or a indefinite amount of time, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here right now. Therefore, astrophysicists invented the concept of white hole.

A white hole, in general relativity, is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, but from which matter and light have the ability to escape. In this sense it is the reverse of a black hole, which can be entered from the outside, but from which nothing, including light, has the ability to escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past. However, this region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, nor are there any known physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.

According to the Theory of General Relativity, the acceleration force is invariant under time reversal conditions, thus both the black holes and the white holes have powerful gravitational fields which attract matter, and however they are differentiated by their behavior at the event horizon. While black holes swallow material, white holes eject it. World famous physicist Stephen Hawking, often called the successor of Albert Einstein, argue that if the quantum effects are taken into consideration these seemingly different objects are actually one and the same.Matter drawn towards the white hole can never cross its event horizon, as the previous recedes from it at local speed of light. Any infilling matter which previously crossed the event horizon is ejected towards infinity after it approached the point-like singularity at an infinitely small distance, as the white hole is being destroyed.

Black holes were first predicted only a few days after Einstein released the Theory of General Relativity by German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild as a solution to Einstein's field equations, while trying to calculate how massive a object must be before the gravitational acceleration on its surface exceeds the speed of light. Sadly after publishing his work, Schwartzschild died in the First World War while serving in the German Army. Schwartzschild's solution to Einstein's field equations also predicts the possibility of faster than light travel through Schwartzschild wormholes. Material drawn in by a black hole may travel through a wormhole structure and emerge in another part of the universe through a white hole. Nevertheless, such wormhole has been proven to be extremely unstable, disconnecting between the two massive objects as fast as it forms. Furthermore, the second law of thermodynamic strictly forbids such actions.

Some astronomers even suggested the white holes might be responsible for the Big Bang event, more that 13.7 billion years ago which created the universe. Such types of white holes fed from a higher parent universe would be completely different from the traditional view of a white hole through the fact that it cannot be localized in space and its event horizon would surround a volume equal to that of the visible universe.Like black holes, white holes have properties like mass, charge, and angular momentum. They attract matter like any other mass, but objects falling towards a white hole would never actually reach the white hole's event horizon (though in the case of the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution, discussed below, the white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future, so any object falling towards it will eventually reach the black hole horizon).

In quantum mechanics, the black hole emits Hawking radiation, and so can come to thermal equilibrium with a gas of radiation. Since a thermal equilibrium state is time reversal invariant, Stephen Hawking argued that the time reverse of a black hole in thermal equilibrium is again a black hole in thermal equilibrium. This implies that black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is then identified with the white hole emission. Hawking's semi-classical argument is reproduced in a quantum mechanical AdS/CFT treatment,where a black hole in anti-de Sitter space is described by a thermal gas in a gauge theory, whose time reversal is the same as itself.






[The concept of a white hole only appears as part of the vacuum solution to Einstein’s field equations that are used to describe a Schwarzschild wormhole. A wormhole is a black hole on one end, drawing in matter, and a white hole on the other to emit matter. Schwarzschild wormholes are unstable. They collapse as soon as they form. Also, wormholes are only a solution to the Einstein field equations in a vacuum where no matter interacts with the hole. Real black holes are formed by the collapse of stars, but white holes shrink from matter so they could not exist in connection with true black holes because the presence of matter would cause them to collapse.A white hole is only a concept for higher levels of thinking. No one has every observed one and no one probably ever will. A few scientist think that a white hole could be part and parcel of a concept called a Fecund universe.]





Science

What is a White Hole ???

Unknown  |  at  09:59

                                                      WHITE HOLES 

Surely an entry must have an exit; there is no doubt about that. Black holes swallow huge amounts of matter as they travel through space, but where does all that material go?
One thing is for certain, it can't stay inside it f

or a indefinite amount of time, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here right now. Therefore, astrophysicists invented the concept of white hole.

A white hole, in general relativity, is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, but from which matter and light have the ability to escape. In this sense it is the reverse of a black hole, which can be entered from the outside, but from which nothing, including light, has the ability to escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past. However, this region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, nor are there any known physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.

According to the Theory of General Relativity, the acceleration force is invariant under time reversal conditions, thus both the black holes and the white holes have powerful gravitational fields which attract matter, and however they are differentiated by their behavior at the event horizon. While black holes swallow material, white holes eject it. World famous physicist Stephen Hawking, often called the successor of Albert Einstein, argue that if the quantum effects are taken into consideration these seemingly different objects are actually one and the same.Matter drawn towards the white hole can never cross its event horizon, as the previous recedes from it at local speed of light. Any infilling matter which previously crossed the event horizon is ejected towards infinity after it approached the point-like singularity at an infinitely small distance, as the white hole is being destroyed.

Black holes were first predicted only a few days after Einstein released the Theory of General Relativity by German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild as a solution to Einstein's field equations, while trying to calculate how massive a object must be before the gravitational acceleration on its surface exceeds the speed of light. Sadly after publishing his work, Schwartzschild died in the First World War while serving in the German Army. Schwartzschild's solution to Einstein's field equations also predicts the possibility of faster than light travel through Schwartzschild wormholes. Material drawn in by a black hole may travel through a wormhole structure and emerge in another part of the universe through a white hole. Nevertheless, such wormhole has been proven to be extremely unstable, disconnecting between the two massive objects as fast as it forms. Furthermore, the second law of thermodynamic strictly forbids such actions.

Some astronomers even suggested the white holes might be responsible for the Big Bang event, more that 13.7 billion years ago which created the universe. Such types of white holes fed from a higher parent universe would be completely different from the traditional view of a white hole through the fact that it cannot be localized in space and its event horizon would surround a volume equal to that of the visible universe.Like black holes, white holes have properties like mass, charge, and angular momentum. They attract matter like any other mass, but objects falling towards a white hole would never actually reach the white hole's event horizon (though in the case of the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution, discussed below, the white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future, so any object falling towards it will eventually reach the black hole horizon).

In quantum mechanics, the black hole emits Hawking radiation, and so can come to thermal equilibrium with a gas of radiation. Since a thermal equilibrium state is time reversal invariant, Stephen Hawking argued that the time reverse of a black hole in thermal equilibrium is again a black hole in thermal equilibrium. This implies that black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is then identified with the white hole emission. Hawking's semi-classical argument is reproduced in a quantum mechanical AdS/CFT treatment,where a black hole in anti-de Sitter space is described by a thermal gas in a gauge theory, whose time reversal is the same as itself.






[The concept of a white hole only appears as part of the vacuum solution to Einstein’s field equations that are used to describe a Schwarzschild wormhole. A wormhole is a black hole on one end, drawing in matter, and a white hole on the other to emit matter. Schwarzschild wormholes are unstable. They collapse as soon as they form. Also, wormholes are only a solution to the Einstein field equations in a vacuum where no matter interacts with the hole. Real black holes are formed by the collapse of stars, but white holes shrink from matter so they could not exist in connection with true black holes because the presence of matter would cause them to collapse.A white hole is only a concept for higher levels of thinking. No one has every observed one and no one probably ever will. A few scientist think that a white hole could be part and parcel of a concept called a Fecund universe.]





Monday, 30 July 2012

Grand Unification Theory
For decades, physicists have been trying to make sense of the difference between Isaac Newton’s classical physics (you know, what you use to play pool) Einstein‘s relativistic physics, that involve very large or massive things at enormous velocities, and Heisenberg’s (and others’) quantum physics, which concerns things so small that you can’t even measure them without changing the result. These three sets of physical laws seem to play by their own rules, largely ignoring each other, and yet they all relate to the same universe. And so physicists have hunted for the Grand Unification Theory, which would substitute for all of these incomplete sets of laws and make sense of it all. Perhaps it doesn’t exist. Or perhaps it’s just too complex for human minds to grasp. One way or the other, it’s going to keep scientists arguing for some time to come.


Multiple Universes
Current quantum physics raises the possibility that there are many universes besides our own, existing in the same space and time, but only interacting in certain limited ways. These universes may have their own separate histories and futures, and even their own laws of physics.


Antimatter
Matter and antimatter are, in theory, created at the same time by the same event. When a normal baryonic particle is created, an antiparticle of the same mass and opposite charge is also created. However, while we have created antimatter in laboratories on Earth, we don’t see it in the universe around us. No one seems to know what happened to all the antimatter that should be there…


End of the Universe
Following the question of the end of the universe is the question of the end of the universe. Opinions vary on whether we can expect the universe to ever expire. There are several possibilities. One is that the universe will continue to expand, and eventually become so spread out that all matter and energy is just a homogeneous cloud of thin, lukewarm dust. Another is that gravity will eventually catch up with all the matter, and the universe will slow down and fall back into a single point, which may spark another big bang. Yet another theory notes that baryons and protons, the building blocks of matter, don’t seem to be being created naturally anymore, and if they decay (as some other particles do), the universe will simply fade out as all the particles just cease to be. In general, nothing untoward is expected to happen to the universe for many billion years, which will probably be a relief to those with long-range investments.


Dark Matter / Dark Energy
Current models of the universe, and observations made by high-tech instruments, point to there being an enormous amount of matter in the universe beyond what we can actually see. In fact, we can only seem to perceive about 4% of the stuff in the universe directly. The rest is invisible, or “dark matter,” a term that just means that we have no idea what it is. Accompanying this dark matter is some type of energy that, like dark matter, we can’t perceive directly. We call this, in a moment of inspiration, “dark energy.” Apparently, there’s even more of this than there is dark matter.


The Beginning of the Universe
How did the universe begin? Did the universe ever begin? If the universe includes everything that we know, including time, could there possibly even be a “before” before the beginning of the universe. Current theories generally talk about a “Big Bang,” which is a massive expansion of all matter and energy from a single point, which is still continuing through the present day. What started the bang? Where did all the energy and matter come from? Are these questions even meaningful? What about creationism, if that is for you? If God created the universe and all the physical laws in it, what is he doing now that it is running itself?


Time
You think you know what time is? Okay, try defining it without using any terms that rely on time. Time is… well, it’s time. It’s what keeps every event from happening simultaneously, and it’s what distinguishes something that happened in the past from something that will happen in the future. Is it a dimension, like space? Is it a quality of matter? Is it merely an illusion , possibly created to boost sales of digital watches? The smartest guys in the world get headaches from this one.


Consciousness
What is the mind? Behaviorists say that it is just conditioned responses. But it’s hard to deny that our ability to reflect on our own thoughts is something distinct and interesting. Is it a mere side-effect of the way our brains work? If so, how long will it be before a computer becomes self-aware and asks for equal rights? How can you tell true consciousness from something designed to simulate it? Can consciousness survive  the death of the brain that carries it? There are a lot of questions, but until we can have an equal conversation with either a robot or a ghost, there really won’t be any answers.


Extraterrestrial Intelligence
This is really a simple mystery. Is there other intelligent life out there in the universe? Carl Sagan reminds us that if we exist, then, no matter how rare intelligence is in the universe, given how huge the universe is, we must have many neighbors out there somewhere. Frank Drake, an astrophysicist, created an equation that helps figure out how much intelligent life there is in the universe, and estimated that if only one in a billion planets has intelligent life, then there must still be over 6 billion planets with intelligence  on them. Enrico Fermi, however, pointed out that if life is that common, then it is virtually impossible that we haven’t yet detected any signs of other intelligent life in the universe. So, the real mystery is this: what is it about Earth that makes no one want to play with us?


10 The Tunguska Explosion
On the 30th of June, 1908 (or the 17th, at the time; the calendar has been revamped since then), at 7:17 am (local time), something exploded over a region of forest in the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia, Russia. Locals many miles away saw something bright blue streak toward the area and explode with incredible force, sufficient to register on instruments in England. Later examination of the site showed that trees had been knocked down in a radial pattern from a central point, indicating an air burst of some kind. To this day, scientists aren’t sure what it was, and generally figure that it was a meteor or fragment of a comet  Why did it explode in the air? Why haven’t we found any pieces? The mystery has kept UFO aficionados up at nights since then.


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Top Tenz

Top 10 Mysteries of the Universe

Unknown  |  at  12:40

Grand Unification Theory
For decades, physicists have been trying to make sense of the difference between Isaac Newton’s classical physics (you know, what you use to play pool) Einstein‘s relativistic physics, that involve very large or massive things at enormous velocities, and Heisenberg’s (and others’) quantum physics, which concerns things so small that you can’t even measure them without changing the result. These three sets of physical laws seem to play by their own rules, largely ignoring each other, and yet they all relate to the same universe. And so physicists have hunted for the Grand Unification Theory, which would substitute for all of these incomplete sets of laws and make sense of it all. Perhaps it doesn’t exist. Or perhaps it’s just too complex for human minds to grasp. One way or the other, it’s going to keep scientists arguing for some time to come.


Multiple Universes
Current quantum physics raises the possibility that there are many universes besides our own, existing in the same space and time, but only interacting in certain limited ways. These universes may have their own separate histories and futures, and even their own laws of physics.


Antimatter
Matter and antimatter are, in theory, created at the same time by the same event. When a normal baryonic particle is created, an antiparticle of the same mass and opposite charge is also created. However, while we have created antimatter in laboratories on Earth, we don’t see it in the universe around us. No one seems to know what happened to all the antimatter that should be there…


End of the Universe
Following the question of the end of the universe is the question of the end of the universe. Opinions vary on whether we can expect the universe to ever expire. There are several possibilities. One is that the universe will continue to expand, and eventually become so spread out that all matter and energy is just a homogeneous cloud of thin, lukewarm dust. Another is that gravity will eventually catch up with all the matter, and the universe will slow down and fall back into a single point, which may spark another big bang. Yet another theory notes that baryons and protons, the building blocks of matter, don’t seem to be being created naturally anymore, and if they decay (as some other particles do), the universe will simply fade out as all the particles just cease to be. In general, nothing untoward is expected to happen to the universe for many billion years, which will probably be a relief to those with long-range investments.


Dark Matter / Dark Energy
Current models of the universe, and observations made by high-tech instruments, point to there being an enormous amount of matter in the universe beyond what we can actually see. In fact, we can only seem to perceive about 4% of the stuff in the universe directly. The rest is invisible, or “dark matter,” a term that just means that we have no idea what it is. Accompanying this dark matter is some type of energy that, like dark matter, we can’t perceive directly. We call this, in a moment of inspiration, “dark energy.” Apparently, there’s even more of this than there is dark matter.


The Beginning of the Universe
How did the universe begin? Did the universe ever begin? If the universe includes everything that we know, including time, could there possibly even be a “before” before the beginning of the universe. Current theories generally talk about a “Big Bang,” which is a massive expansion of all matter and energy from a single point, which is still continuing through the present day. What started the bang? Where did all the energy and matter come from? Are these questions even meaningful? What about creationism, if that is for you? If God created the universe and all the physical laws in it, what is he doing now that it is running itself?


Time
You think you know what time is? Okay, try defining it without using any terms that rely on time. Time is… well, it’s time. It’s what keeps every event from happening simultaneously, and it’s what distinguishes something that happened in the past from something that will happen in the future. Is it a dimension, like space? Is it a quality of matter? Is it merely an illusion , possibly created to boost sales of digital watches? The smartest guys in the world get headaches from this one.


Consciousness
What is the mind? Behaviorists say that it is just conditioned responses. But it’s hard to deny that our ability to reflect on our own thoughts is something distinct and interesting. Is it a mere side-effect of the way our brains work? If so, how long will it be before a computer becomes self-aware and asks for equal rights? How can you tell true consciousness from something designed to simulate it? Can consciousness survive  the death of the brain that carries it? There are a lot of questions, but until we can have an equal conversation with either a robot or a ghost, there really won’t be any answers.


Extraterrestrial Intelligence
This is really a simple mystery. Is there other intelligent life out there in the universe? Carl Sagan reminds us that if we exist, then, no matter how rare intelligence is in the universe, given how huge the universe is, we must have many neighbors out there somewhere. Frank Drake, an astrophysicist, created an equation that helps figure out how much intelligent life there is in the universe, and estimated that if only one in a billion planets has intelligent life, then there must still be over 6 billion planets with intelligence  on them. Enrico Fermi, however, pointed out that if life is that common, then it is virtually impossible that we haven’t yet detected any signs of other intelligent life in the universe. So, the real mystery is this: what is it about Earth that makes no one want to play with us?


10 The Tunguska Explosion
On the 30th of June, 1908 (or the 17th, at the time; the calendar has been revamped since then), at 7:17 am (local time), something exploded over a region of forest in the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia, Russia. Locals many miles away saw something bright blue streak toward the area and explode with incredible force, sufficient to register on instruments in England. Later examination of the site showed that trees had been knocked down in a radial pattern from a central point, indicating an air burst of some kind. To this day, scientists aren’t sure what it was, and generally figure that it was a meteor or fragment of a comet  Why did it explode in the air? Why haven’t we found any pieces? The mystery has kept UFO aficionados up at nights since then.


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Wednesday, 25 July 2012

The 'God' particle is a name given by the media to the Higgs boson a sub-atomic particle theoretically predicted by The Standard Model of particle physics to give all matter mass.

Scientists at the CERN research centre near Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday unveiled their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle key to the formation of stars, planets and eventually life after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago
.

WHAT IS THE HIGGS BOSON?

The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe is put together.

Scientists believe that in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a gigantic soup of particles racing around at the speed of light without any mass to speak of. It was through their interaction with the Higgs field that they gained mass and eventually formed the universe.

The Higgs field is a theoretical and invisible energy field that pervades the whole cosmos. Some particles, like the photons that make up light, are not affected by it and therefore have no mass. Others find it drags on them as porridge drags on a spoon.


WHAT IS THE STANDARD MODEL? 

The Standard Model is to physics what the theory of evolution is to biology . It is the best explanation physicists have of how the building blocks of the universe are put together. It describes 12 fundamental particles, governed by four basic forces.

But the universe is a big place and the Standard Model only explains a small part of it. Scientists have spotted a gap between what we can see and what must be out there. That gap must be filled by something we don't fully understand, which they have dubbed 'dark matter'. Galaxies are also hurtling away from each other faster than the forces we know about suggest they should. This gap is filled by 'dark energy'. This poorly understood pair are believed to make up a whopping 96 percent of the mass and energy of the cosmos.

Confirming the Standard Model, or perhaps modifying it, would be a step towards the holy grail of physics - a 'theory of everything ' that encompasses dark matter, dark energy and the force of gravity ,  which the Standard Model also does not explain. It could also shed light on even more esoteric ideas, such as the possibility of parallel universes .

CERN spokesman James Gillies has said that just as Albert Einstein's theories enveloped and built on the work of Isaac Newton, the work being done by the thousands of physicists at CERN has the potential to do the same to Einstein's work.

WHAT IS THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER? 

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, a 27-km (17-mile) looped pipe that sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground on the Swiss/French border. It cost 3 billion euros to build.
Two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions around it before smashing into each other to create many millions of particle collisions every second in a recreation of the conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when the Higgs field is believed to have 'switched on'.

The vast amount of data produced is examined by banks of computers. Of all the trillions of collisions, very few are just right for revealing the Higgs particle. That makes the hunt for the Higgs slow, and progress incremental.

WHAT IS THE THRESHOLD FOR PROOF? To claim a discovery, scientists have set themselves a target for certainty that they call "5 sigma". This means that there is a probability of less than one in a million that their conclusions from the data harvested from the particle accelerator are the result of a statistical fluke.

The two teams hunting for the Higgs at CERN, called Atlas and CMS, now have twice the amount of data that allowed them to claim 'tantalising glimpses' of the Higgs at the end of last year and this could push their results beyond that threshold.

Why is it important?

Essentially because it proves that our understanding of the basic workings of the universe is correct. If the Higgs boson didn't exist , the Standard Model would be proved incorrect. Its importance led to the “God Particle” nickname. Physicist-cum-startup entrepreneur at PeerReach, Nico Schoonderwoerd says that it’s “A major milestone for the standard model,” as it validates all the work done, and all the money poured into its discovery.

Krassnigg elaborates: ”Picture the Standard Model as a car. Then you could imagine the Higgs boson to be, or provide, the wheels of that car. It had to be decided experimentally whether or not the car (our view of particle physics) actually is as we expected it to be, i.e., whether it actually does have wheels or not.

“For our car this is a question of central importance, since it determines what the car can do and how. While not having wheels would not have been a bad  thing automatically – there are other fancier ways to move a car around -, it has now turned out that the wheels seem to be there and that this is the way the car moves .”

Where do we go from here?

So, if it is the Higgs boson that has been discovered, what does that mean for the future? CERN’s own announcement noted: ”Positive identification of the new particle’s characteristics will take considerable time and data. But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of matter is about to take a major step forward.”
Krassnigg continues his comparison of the Higgs boson with a car to explain what’s next: “Measurements and data analysis will continue, since physicists still need to find out in the months and years to come what the wheels are like: everything standard (i.e. as expected) or extra-large rims or something even more unexpected (perhaps on fire?).”
Just because the Standard Model appears to be validated, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot more to discover in the field of particle physics, too, as Schoonderwoerd explains: “The standard model doesn’t explain gravitation at all. So physicists have been trying to unify the gravitation theory with the Standard Model in advance models with names like Supersymmetry.” He says that many of the people investigating these theories hope that accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider will continue to run at increasing energy levels, uncovering new particles that may explain how gravity works in a way that fits into the Standard Model.


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Technology

The Almighty Behind Our Universe - "God Particle"

Unknown  |  at  10:59

The 'God' particle is a name given by the media to the Higgs boson a sub-atomic particle theoretically predicted by The Standard Model of particle physics to give all matter mass.

Scientists at the CERN research centre near Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday unveiled their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle key to the formation of stars, planets and eventually life after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago
.

WHAT IS THE HIGGS BOSON?

The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe is put together.

Scientists believe that in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a gigantic soup of particles racing around at the speed of light without any mass to speak of. It was through their interaction with the Higgs field that they gained mass and eventually formed the universe.

The Higgs field is a theoretical and invisible energy field that pervades the whole cosmos. Some particles, like the photons that make up light, are not affected by it and therefore have no mass. Others find it drags on them as porridge drags on a spoon.


WHAT IS THE STANDARD MODEL? 

The Standard Model is to physics what the theory of evolution is to biology . It is the best explanation physicists have of how the building blocks of the universe are put together. It describes 12 fundamental particles, governed by four basic forces.

But the universe is a big place and the Standard Model only explains a small part of it. Scientists have spotted a gap between what we can see and what must be out there. That gap must be filled by something we don't fully understand, which they have dubbed 'dark matter'. Galaxies are also hurtling away from each other faster than the forces we know about suggest they should. This gap is filled by 'dark energy'. This poorly understood pair are believed to make up a whopping 96 percent of the mass and energy of the cosmos.

Confirming the Standard Model, or perhaps modifying it, would be a step towards the holy grail of physics - a 'theory of everything ' that encompasses dark matter, dark energy and the force of gravity ,  which the Standard Model also does not explain. It could also shed light on even more esoteric ideas, such as the possibility of parallel universes .

CERN spokesman James Gillies has said that just as Albert Einstein's theories enveloped and built on the work of Isaac Newton, the work being done by the thousands of physicists at CERN has the potential to do the same to Einstein's work.

WHAT IS THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER? 

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, a 27-km (17-mile) looped pipe that sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground on the Swiss/French border. It cost 3 billion euros to build.
Two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions around it before smashing into each other to create many millions of particle collisions every second in a recreation of the conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when the Higgs field is believed to have 'switched on'.

The vast amount of data produced is examined by banks of computers. Of all the trillions of collisions, very few are just right for revealing the Higgs particle. That makes the hunt for the Higgs slow, and progress incremental.

WHAT IS THE THRESHOLD FOR PROOF? To claim a discovery, scientists have set themselves a target for certainty that they call "5 sigma". This means that there is a probability of less than one in a million that their conclusions from the data harvested from the particle accelerator are the result of a statistical fluke.

The two teams hunting for the Higgs at CERN, called Atlas and CMS, now have twice the amount of data that allowed them to claim 'tantalising glimpses' of the Higgs at the end of last year and this could push their results beyond that threshold.

Why is it important?

Essentially because it proves that our understanding of the basic workings of the universe is correct. If the Higgs boson didn't exist , the Standard Model would be proved incorrect. Its importance led to the “God Particle” nickname. Physicist-cum-startup entrepreneur at PeerReach, Nico Schoonderwoerd says that it’s “A major milestone for the standard model,” as it validates all the work done, and all the money poured into its discovery.

Krassnigg elaborates: ”Picture the Standard Model as a car. Then you could imagine the Higgs boson to be, or provide, the wheels of that car. It had to be decided experimentally whether or not the car (our view of particle physics) actually is as we expected it to be, i.e., whether it actually does have wheels or not.

“For our car this is a question of central importance, since it determines what the car can do and how. While not having wheels would not have been a bad  thing automatically – there are other fancier ways to move a car around -, it has now turned out that the wheels seem to be there and that this is the way the car moves .”

Where do we go from here?

So, if it is the Higgs boson that has been discovered, what does that mean for the future? CERN’s own announcement noted: ”Positive identification of the new particle’s characteristics will take considerable time and data. But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of matter is about to take a major step forward.”
Krassnigg continues his comparison of the Higgs boson with a car to explain what’s next: “Measurements and data analysis will continue, since physicists still need to find out in the months and years to come what the wheels are like: everything standard (i.e. as expected) or extra-large rims or something even more unexpected (perhaps on fire?).”
Just because the Standard Model appears to be validated, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot more to discover in the field of particle physics, too, as Schoonderwoerd explains: “The standard model doesn’t explain gravitation at all. So physicists have been trying to unify the gravitation theory with the Standard Model in advance models with names like Supersymmetry.” He says that many of the people investigating these theories hope that accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider will continue to run at increasing energy levels, uncovering new particles that may explain how gravity works in a way that fits into the Standard Model.


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Tuesday, 24 July 2012


Early life and education

               Einstein at the age of 3 & 14 respectively
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.Later , He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey


Einstein as a Professor


During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.


Albert's Scientific Career


Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works includeSpecial Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War?(1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.



How World Honoured Him ?


Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Albert Einstein therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.


Some Rare Photos of Einstein

























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Albert Einstein - A man of Photon

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Early life and education

               Einstein at the age of 3 & 14 respectively
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.Later , He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey


Einstein as a Professor


During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.


Albert's Scientific Career


Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works includeSpecial Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War?(1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.



How World Honoured Him ?


Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Albert Einstein therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.


Some Rare Photos of Einstein

























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