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DENVER — The discovery of the Higgs boson is real. But physicists are cagey about whether the new particle they've found will fit their predictions or not. So far, the data suggest that the Higgs, the particle thought to explain how other particles get their mass, is not presenting any surprises, physicists said here Saturday at the April meeting of the American Physical Society. But that doesn't mean that it won't in the future — or that there might not be other Higgs bosons lurking out there. "There's a large number of theoretical models that predict, actually, that this Higgs...

Scots scientist Professor Peter Higgs has urged the public to stop calling the Higgs boson the “God particle”—because he is an atheist. The scientist came up with the theory of a sub-atomic particle, since dubbed the Higgs boson, which would explain the mystery of how things have mass. But he wants people to stop referring to it as the “God particle” because he does not believe the particle holding the physical fabric of the universe together is the work of an almighty creator. …

As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative theories of quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity has never been experimentally tested. Now in a new study, scientists have found that, when black holes evaporate, the radiation they emit could potentially reveal “footprints” of loop quantum gravity, distinct from the usual Hawking radiation that black holes are expected to emit. In this way, evaporating black holes could enable the first ever experimental test for any theory of quantum gravity. However, the...

An Indian teen has recently proposed a solution to an unsolved problem in mathematics. The 17-year-old young achiever, Rutvik Oza, a student of The H. B. Kapadia New High School, from Ahmedabad, Gujarat has now put a full stop to another open problem in the field of maths by providing a closed formula for the problem called Reve's Puzzle (also popularly known as the 4-peg Tower of Hanoi Problem). When asked about how was he feeling, "Thrilled! I really didn't realize at first that the problem that I had solved was an open problem in mathematics. It was only later...

‘Young’ black hole is nearby, NASA says; doorway to a new universe? Feb. 13, 2013 | 2:30 p.m. A supernova remnant may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy, according to NASA. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/L.Lopez et al; Infrared: Palomar; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA ) A supernova remnant may contain the most recent black hole formed in the Milky Way galaxy, according to NASA. (X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/L.Lopez et al; Infrared: Palomar; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA )Asteroid 2012 DA14 is bearing down on Earth, rattling nerves and making sci-fi fans’ eyes light up. But the cool science news doesn’t stop there. Researchers believe...

The co-author of a book on partisan science recently examined by Pacific Standard argues that our reviewer was a little too partisan himself. Any book that touches upon politics almost automatically angers half of the American public, regardless of what is written inside of it. It takes a special person—an objective, open-minded and self-critical one—to read and learn from a science book that criticizes people with whom the reader likes and agrees with politically.Recently, Pacific Standard published a review (“Red Science, Blue Science,” January/February 2013) by Wray Herbert, a pop psychology writer,of political writer Chris Mooney’s book The Republican Brain...

n March 2012, Joseph Polchinski began to contemplate suicide — at least in mathematical form. A string theorist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, Polchinski was pondering what would happen to an astronaut who dived into a black hole. Obviously, he would die. But how? According to the then-accepted account, he wouldn’t feel anything special at first, even when his fall took him through the black hole’s event horizon: the invisible boundary beyond which nothing can escape. But eventually — after hours, days or even weeks if the black hole was big enough — he...

Potential Dark Matter Discovery a Win for Space Station Science April 04, 2013; 7:56 AM If nature is kind, the first detection of dark matter might be credited to the International Space Station soon. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment hangs on the side of the International Space Station, July 12, 2011. CREDIT: NASAToday (April 3), researchers announced the first science results from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a $2 billion cosmic-ray particle detector mounted on the exterior of the football-field-size International Space Station. The instrument has observed a striking pattern of antimatter particles called positrons that may turn out to...

U.S. astrophysicists report computer simulations that seem to resolve long-standing questions about the origin and life history of spiral arms in disk galaxies. The origin and fate of the spiral arms in disk galaxies have been debated by astrophysicists for decades, with two theories predominating. One holds that the arms come and go over time. A second and widely held theory is that the material that makes up the arms – stars, gas and dust – is affected by differences in gravity and jams up, like cars at rush hour, sustaining the arms for long periods. The new findings, accepted...

Engineers have begun a major upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Their work should double the energy of what's already the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. This will enable researchers here to move on to their ultimate goal: to find evidence of "new physics", which they believe will lead to a new, more compete theory of sub-atomic physics. The discovery of the Higgs last year was the end of a successful chapter of late 20th Century physics. This was the development of the current theory in the 1960s and 70s called the "Standard Model". This theory says...

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) today expressed deep concern about the U.S. government’s new restrictions on travel and conference attendance for federally funded scientists. Enacted in response to the budget sequestration that went into effect on March 1st, the policies severely limit the ability of many researchers to meet with collaborators and to present their latest results at professional meetings. The leadership of the AAS is especially worried about the restrictions’ deleterious effects on scientific productivity and on scientists’ and students’ careers.The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo on February 27th offering guidance to federal agencies on...

Astronomers discover new kind of supernova March 26, 2013 EnlargeThis artist's conception shows the suspected progenitor of a new kind of supernova called Type Iax. Material from a hot, blue helium star at right is funneling toward a carbon/oxygen white dwarf star at left, which is embedded in an accretion disk. In many cases the white dwarf survives the subsequent explosion. Credit: Christine Pulliam (CfA) (Phys.org) —Supernovae were always thought to occur in two main varieties. But a team of astronomers including Carnegie's Wendy Freedman, Mark Phillips and Eric Persson is reporting the discovery of a new type of supernova...

Two new studies to be published in the European Physical Journal D demonstrate that the speed of light is variable in real space. Textbook explanations of the speed of light assume that light travels in a vacuum, but space is not a vacuum. … It is not expected that the small variation in the speed of light which has been found will affect the universally accepted theories of particle physics and quantum mechanics to a large extent. However, the studies are proof that the speed of light may be variable, and shows that the mathematical treatments that have long been...

Enlarge Image No big surprise. Planck has mapped the cosmic microwave background to great precision, but found nothing clearly incompatible with the standard cosmology. Credit: ESA If the universe were ice cream, it would be vanilla. That's the take-home message from researchers working with the European Space Agency's orbiting Planck observatory, who today released the most precise measurements yet of the afterglow of the big bang—the so-called cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. The new data from Planck confirm cosmologists' standard model of how the universe sprang into existence and what it's made of. That may disappoint scientists who were...

Researchers from the University of Rochester have helped measure the elusive top quark with unparalleled precision, and the surprising results affect everything from the Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle,” to the makeup of the dark matter that comprises 90 percent of the universe. The scientists developed a new method to analyze data from particle accelerator collisions at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory, which is far more accurate than previous methods and has the potential to change the dynamics of the Standard Model of particle physics. Details of the research are in today’s issue of the journal Nature. “This is a...

Scientists’ hopes that last summer’s triumphant trapping of the particle that shaped the post-Big Bang universe would quickly open the way into exotic new realms of physics like string theory and new dimensions have faded this past week. Five days of presentations on the particle, the Higgs boson, at a scientific conference high in the Italian Alps point to it being the last missing piece in a 30-year-old cosmic blueprint and nothing more, physicists following the event say. “The chances are getting slimmer and slimmer that we are going to see something else exciting anytime soon,” said physicist Pauline Gagnon...

WASHINGTON – Thirty-five years after its launch, Voyager 1 appears to have travelled beyond the influence of the Sun and exited the heliosphere, according to a new study appearing online today. The heliosphere is a region of space dominated by the Sun and its wind of energetic particles, and which is thought to be enclosed, bubble-like, in the surrounding interstellar medium of gas and dust that pervades the Milky Way galaxy. On August 25, 2012, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft measured drastic changes in radiation levels, more than 11 billion miles from the Sun. Anomalous cosmic rays, which are cosmic rays...

Physicist Walks Out of Gender-Segregated Debate At London University A renowned American physicist created a row at University College London last weekend when he stormed out of a debate hosted by an Islamic group because men, women and couples in the audience were segregated. The physicist, Lawrence Krauss, is a professor at Arizona State University. Krauss is a noted atheist who served on President Barack Obama’s science policy committee during the 2008 presidential campaign. The debate, sponsored by the Islamic Education and Research Academy, was entitled: “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” A YouTube clip posted by Stand for...

It's the sort of abstract puzzle that keeps a scientist awake at night: Can you predict how three objects will orbit each other in a repeating pattern? In the 300 years since this "three-body problem" was first recognized, just three families of solutions have been found. Now, two physicists have discovered 13 new families. It's quite a feat in mathematical physics, and it could conceivably help astrophysicists understand new planetary systems. The trove of new solutions has researchers jazzed. "I love these things," says Robert Vanderbei a mathematician at Princeton University who was not involved in the work. He says...

Astronomers using ESA's Herschel space observatory have detected emission from the base of black-hole jets for the first time. While studying the black-hole binary system GX 339-4 in a multi-wavelength observation campaign, they noticed changes in the source's X-ray and radio emissions signalling the onset of powerful jets being released from the black hole's vicinity. This prompted the astronomers to observe the source at far-infrared wavelengths with Herschel. As the first observation of emission from jets in a black-hole binary system at these wavelengths, the data have allowed the astronomers to probe the jets down to their base, where the...