Particle physics

Analysis and Comment (7)

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The Large Hadron Collider has temporarily shut down, but will return stronger than ever. CERN

Goodbye, for a while, to the Large Hadron Collider

By Nitesh Soni

The lord of the particle accelerator, CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), went out of particle collision business for almost two years as of late last week. For particle physicists, Valentine’s Day 2013…
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The Large Hadron Collider has been used to find out what matter is fundamentally made of, and how the universe was created. EPA/Martial Triezzini

Explainer: quarks

By Takashi Kubota, University of Melbourne

One of humanity’s eternal questions surrounds what we are fundamentally made of. Many ancient philosophies believed in a set of classical elements: from water, air, fire and earth of ancient Greeks; to…
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We thought we knew the radius of the proton to within 0.8%. Perhaps not. Ludie Cochrane/Flickr

Updating the textbook: is the radius of a proton wrong?

By Jonathan Carroll

Striving for agreement between theory and experiment and pushing the boundaries of precision are important parts of the scientific process. With each step in this process we move closer to enlightenment…
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When you shine a torch into a dusty room, not all the photons reach their destination. Simon Greig (xrrr)

‘Louder’ light could power a brighter quantum future

By Geoff Pryde, Griffith University

All of the light we see around us comes in chunks of energy known as photons. As well as making up light, photons can be used to carry and process information and their quantum properties make possible…
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There’s an ongoing push to open the world of academic knowledge to the wider population … for free. Jackman Chiu

Open-access journals: a perspective from within

By Jonathan Carroll

There’s an ongoing debate in the world of academic publishing about whether the public should be allowed open access to research publications we all pay for in the first place. “If we are paying for this…
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“Most people just get used to the concept and get on with their lives.” Roger McLassus

Explainer: what is wave-particle duality

By Tim Davis, CSIRO

Our notion of reality is built on everyday experiences. But wave-particle duality is so strange that we are forced to re-examine our common conceptions. Wave-particle duality refers to the fundamental…

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