Smashing Physics by Jon Butterworth

Author:Jon Butterworth [Butterworth, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science, Physics, General
ISBN: 9781472210326
Google: QTHlAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B017PNXN9O
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2014-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

At the time, all we really knew was that the results were overstated. The boson could have been at 115 GeV, but even if it was, the data at the time showed no significant sign of it. Apart from the embarrassment to the authors and the hopefully troubled conscience of the leaker, I think the whole episode was probably useful in educating the media and public about the difference between ‘official results’ and ‘rumours’. Either can be right or wrong, of course, but stamping something as an ‘official result’ doesn’t mean it has had policy approval, or commercial approval, or whatever else it might mean in the context of a political party or a company. What it means is that the collaboration of many physicists have done their absolute best to make sure it is correct, and correctly stated, and are all prepared to stand behind it. This is a real test for a complex result; it’s the application of scientific method. It’s not infallible, but it’s a hell of a lot more reliable than a rumour . . .

I think we also gained some further confidence in dealing with the media on this. Scientists are sometimes too harsh in their judgement of journalists. The thing is, CERN is an exciting place now, as it was then. New data are coming in all the time. There are lots of levels of collaboration and competition. Retaining a detached scientific approach is sometimes difficult. And if we ourselves can’t always keep clear heads, it’s not surprising that people outside get excited too. I suspect we should be more forgiving of some of the excitable headlines – without, of course, encouraging them when they are misleading.

Reviewing is an occupational hazard of life in a big collaboration. The path from the first idea through to final publication of a result is arduous and full of potholes, trapdoors and mind-sapping disputes about commas and hyphens, often conducted at volume by a group of tired, angry people, none of whom have English as their first language. Even so, and the comma-and-hyphen element notwithstanding, reviewing is vital.

Meanwhile, in May there was another ‘Boost’ meeting, this time in Princeton. All good, but the best thing was that we had lots of data by then. We’d made the first measurements of some of the new jet substructure variables. Adam Davison and Lily Asquith, a postdoc at Argonne National Lab, showed the first ATLAS results. Miguel Villaplana, a PhD student at Valencia, actually showed pictures of the first highly-boosted heavy-particle candidates – two top quarks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.