Thu, Mar 19, 2009
In honor of the discovery of the single top quark Fermi lab commissioned a top quark plush toy that reverses into it's decay products. It's so cute.
Tue, Jul 5, 2016
The concept of a color charge resolves the conundrum of quarks apparently having the same state in baryons which is no permitted by the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Fri, Mar 10, 2017
In 1956 Ms. Chien Shiung Wu demonstrated that the weak nuclear force caused reactions of antimatter particles with quantum spin in only one direction and matter particles in the other direction. This was a tremendous shock to the physics community as the other forces don't care about quantum spin. Sadly the Nobel Prize for this discovery did not recognize Ms. Wu.
Thu, Mar 23, 2017
The weak nuclear force causes changes in the flavor of leptons; quarks, neutrinos and the electron family. But only the electrically charged W bosons, that are the forces carriers of the weak force, have been found to cause flavor changes. The Z bosons have not and physicists wonder why not.
Fri, Apr 14, 2017
In beta decay a neutron releases a W boson, the charge carrier of the weak nuclear force, to become a proton. But this only occurs if the W boson has a very low mass compared to it's 'normal' mass which is highly improbable. So the weak force appears weak. In contrast the Top quark has a mass larger than the W boson so it decays to a bottom quark almost instantly and the weak force appears strong relative to the other fundamental forces.
Wed, Aug 2, 2017
Mike Albrow shares his experience discovering the Top quark.
Tue, Jan 22, 2019
An introduction to Fermilab; its facilities, projects and some surprises.
Wed, Jan 8, 2020
Don notes that many of the comments he receives questioning the big bang often reflect a misunderstanding of the theory rather than a logical argument to refute it. So to give the skeptics a better foundation on which to mount their challenges he tries to dispel the misconceptions.
Tue, Mar 31, 2020
There are three general ideas about how the universe came to be. First, our universe existed in static form then began expanding. Second, static universes collided causing our universe to expand. Third, universes are created by splitting off from existing universes.
Wed, Oct 21, 2020
Scientists have no theory to identify what happened before the Big Bang, at the moment of the Big Bang or even before the Planck Time. There are plenty of ideas, and knowing quantum theory as we do, the reality could be terribly strange to us, but it's all informed speculation at this point.
Tue, Jun 22, 2021
Here's the story of the discovery of neutrino oscillation beginning with Ray Davis's phenomenon of the missing Solar neutrinos. Later, scientists at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory figured out how to measure all the neutrinos types produced by the sun and their results matched both theory and Ray Davis's results for electron neutrinos.
Tue, Jul 13, 2021
Here are the answers to some viewer questions about neutrinos. In addition to the composition of custard here are some of bigger revelations. The is a cosmic neutrino background from one second after the big bang that scientists would love to be able to detect. Neutrinos can be destroyed. Neutrinos may be their own antiparticle.
Thu, Sep 9, 2021
If the double slit experiment confused you take a minute to review it because It's about to get lots more complicated and we're going to mess with time. After the photons pass through the slits let's split them into two beams so we can use two set of detectors. And you can turn on or off one set of detectors to change the behavior of the light from a particle to a wave before the photon know which they're supposed to be.
Thu, Sep 16, 2021
Kristy and Anne explain Fermilab's Numi Off-Axis Neutrino (V) Appearance 'NOVA' experiment. It consists of a beam of electron neutrinos and a near detector which counts the neutrinos and a far detector that detects mostly muon neutrinos because it is placed at a distance where oscillations are expected to have occurred.
Fri, Apr 1, 2022
Photons have momentum because they have energy. But here'a a more formal explanation.
Wed, Oct 19, 2022
Neutrinos travel as close as we can measure to the speed of light. But as they travel they changes flavor which takes time. So they are thought to travel slower that light if only slightly.
Fri, Jun 2, 2023
Here is how relativity deals with photos, the only particle know to travel at the speed of light.
Wed, Jan 3, 2024
An overview of the next phase of neutrino research a Fermilab.
Tue, Jan 9, 2024
So far none of the particles that are their own antiparticle, like the photon, have mass. But that assumption has not been tested for the neutrino because it's really hard to determine. The extremely rare reaction of neutrinoless double beta decay could answer the question if enough of there reactions can be observed.