Search This Blog

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Higgs During Eights Week

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/article?name=CERNBulletin&issue=24/2008&number=1&category=News%20Articles&ln=en Knocking on the LHC’s door On 24 May, a proton beam knocked on the door of the LHC. This is only the second time since 2004 that the beam has crossed from the SPS into the TI8 transfer line. Thanks to a huge collaborative effort the final commissioning of the transfer line TI8 has been successful. There was both excitement and relief as, after some unforeseen delays, the beam burst onto the monitors in the Control Room on Saturday 24th May. Although the beam is less intense (at around 5 thousand million protons per bunch) than will eventually be used in the LHC, this test represents an important milestone in the run-up to the switch-on of the accelerator... The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is almost on line. It may discover the existence of the Higg's Boson, sometimes popularly referred to as the God particle.

Now the point of the title was young Higgs at Oxford crewing on a boat during the races of Eights Week: Higgs could have been a "coxswain" on one of the boats. And if he could have been a "cox'sun", he could have somewhere and sometime been a "boatswain" or "bo'sun". Hence, Higgs Bo'sun, or Higgs Boson, and everything in the universe sort of wedgies into a proverbial tight spot from which we might only be extricated by our innate charm and breeding, not to mention "spin"...which in my case is truly measured by my "spingularity" function. There. That is Science. And it is not a bit obscure.

No comments: