The deconstructed Standard Model equation - symmetry magazine
WEBThe deconstructed Standard Model equation. 07/28/16. By Rashmi Shivni. The Standard Model is far more than elementary particles arranged in a table. The Standard Model of particle physics is often visualized as a table, similar to the periodic table of elements, and used to describe particle properties, such as mass, charge and spin.
What the Higgs boson tells us about the universe
WEB02/21/23. By R.M. Davis. The Higgs boson is the only fundamental particle known to be scalar, meaning it has no quantum spin. This fact answers questions about our universe, but it also raises new ones. When it was first discovered in 2012, the Higgs boson captured the popular imagination and became the subject of intense scientific scrutiny.
What is the electroweak force? - symmetry magazine
WEBNov 30, 2023 · One force, divisible. Physicists use equations of motion to describe how matter and force particles interact, painting a picture of their likely movements and behavior. The electromagnetic force, the weak force, and their corresponding particles can all be described by what are known as gauge theories, mathematical tools that physicists use to ...
What is a quantum network? - symmetry magazine
WEBJan 26, 2022 · Quantum networks are like the classical networks we use in everyday life to transmit and share digital information. However, quantum networks use quantum bits, or qubits, which encode information in a way that is utterly foreign to the classical way of thinking. Qubits use tricks from the weird world of quantum mechanics and are fundamentally ...
What is a photon? - symmetry magazine
WEBWhat physicists refer to as photons, other people might just call light. As quanta of light, photons are the smallest possible packets of electromagnetic energy. If you are reading this article on a screen or a page, streams of photons are carrying the images of the words to your eyes. In science, photons are used for more than just illumination.
Where does mass come from? - symmetry magazine
WEBThe Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles, but most of our mass comes from somewhere else. The story of particle mass starts right after the Big Bang. During the very first moments of the universe, almost all particles were massless, traveling at the speed of light in a very hot “primordial soup.”. At some point during this period ...
The Planck scale - symmetry magazine
WEBSep 24, 2024 · The Planck scale. 05/19/16. By Rashmi Shivni. The Planck scale sets the universe’s minimum limit, beyond which the laws of physics break. In the late 1890s, physicist Max Planck proposed a set of units to simplify the expression of physics laws. Using just five constants in nature (including the speed of …
The age of the universe - symmetry magazine
WEBUsing the WMAP data, scientists estimated the age of the universe to be 13.772 billion years, plus or minus 59 million years. In 2013, the European Space Agency’s Planck space telescope created an even more detailed map of the CMB temperature fluctuations and estimated the universe to be 13.82 billion years old, plus or minus 50 million years ...
From bits to qubits - symmetry magazine
WEBJan 13, 2022 · From bits to qubits. Quantum computers go beyond the binary. The first desktop computer was invented in the 1960s. But computing technology has been around for centuries, says Irfan Siddiqi, director of the Quantum Nanoelectronics Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. “An abacus is an ancient computer,” he says.
Eight things you might not know about light - symmetry magazine
WEBHere are eight enlightening facts about photons: 1. Photons can produce shock waves in water or air, similar to sonic booms. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. However, light slows down in air, water, glass and other materials as photons interact with atoms, which has some interesting consequences.