Why Study Nature? Power (Control over it) “When will the Nile flood?” (time/astronomy) “What...
-
Upload
john-thomas-gordon -
Category
Documents
-
view
214 -
download
0
Transcript of Why Study Nature? Power (Control over it) “When will the Nile flood?” (time/astronomy) “What...
Why Study Nature?
Power (Control over it)
“When will the Nile flood?” (time/astronomy)
“What will make my sick baby better?” (medicine)
“How can I make my spear fly faster and farther?” (physics)
Celebrity StatusA-List partiesRed carpet treatmentMTV interviews
Because we must.
Mankind has always been driven to understand the world.
The world is inherently simple and beautiful. It can be understood.
And always: Babes…never forget the babes…
As a single, unified thing thereexists in us both life and death,waking and sleeping, youth andold age, because the former things having changed are nowthe latter, and when those latter
things change, they become the former.
- Heraclitus (quoted in
pseudo-Plutarch, Consolation to
Apollo )
Being is ungenerated and indestructible, whole, of one kind and unwavering, and complete. Nor was it, nor will it be, since now it is, all together, one, continuous...That it came from what is not I shall not allow you to say or think — for it is not
sayable or thinkable
that it is not...How might what is then perish? How might it come into being? For if it came into being it is not, nor is it if it is ever going to be. Thus generation is
quenched and perishing unheard of.
- Parmenides circa 480 BC
Science Is About Simplification
PHILOSOPHIÆ NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA AUCTORE ISAACO NEWTONO
Editio tertia MDCCXXVI Axiomata sive Leges Motus
Lex I Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiscendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum,
nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare. Lex II
Mutationem motus proportionalem esse vi motrici impress", et fieri secundum lineam rectam qua vis illa imprimitur.
Lex III Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem: sive corporum duorum actiones
in se mutuo semper esse æquales et in partes contrarias dirigi.
PHILOSOPHIÆ NATURALIS PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA Author Isaac Newton Third edition (1726) Three Laws of MotionLaw I Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Law II The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Law III For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
221
r
mmGF
Everything pertaining from astronomical motion to falling here on Earth can befully described by Newton’sLaw of Gravity plus his laws of motion.
Science Is About Simplification
oc
J
Electricity
Magnetism
ElectroMagnetism
Light
ThreeBecome
one
t
t
DJH
BE
0B
D
James Clerk Maxwell (~1864)
Modern Nomenclature
Then may we not fairly plead in reply that our true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things ?
- Plato Republic
• Science addresses many things:– What is the ultimate nature of reality?– What is the simplest expression of nature?– Amongst all of the undeniable change, is there
anything that is permanent and enduring?
– How did the universe come into existence and what is its ultimate fate?
– What is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question?
42What is the root of it all?From where comes meaning?ا لله
Moslems
PUNS
Mensans
DOG
DyslexicChristians
GOD
Christians
Beauty in the Universe
Innermost SpaceHigh Energy Particle Physics is a study of the smallest pieces of matter.
It investigates the deepest and most fundamental aspects of nature.
It investigates (among other things) the nature of the universe immediately after the Big Bang.
It also explores physics at temperatures not common for the past 15 billion years (or so).
Periodic Table
u
du u
d d
Proton NeutronElectron
Gluons hold quarks togetherPhotons hold atoms together
Helium Neon
All atoms are madeof protons, neutronsand electrons
tb
cs
ud
While quarks have similar electric charge, they have vastly different masses (but zero size!)
=e2/ħc
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory(a.k.a. Fermilab)
• Begun in 1968
• First beam 1972 (200, then 400 GeV)
• Upgrade 1983 (900 GeV)
• Upgrade 2001 (980 GeV)
Jargon alert: 1 Giga Electron Volt (GeV) is 100,000 times more energy than the particle beam in your TV.
If you made a beam the hard way,it would take 1,000,000,000 batteries
Increasing ‘Violence’ of Collision
ExpectedNumber
ofEvents
Run II
Run I
Increased reach for discovery physicsat highest masses
Huge statistics for precision physicsat low mass scales
Formerly rare processesbecome high statisticsprocesses
1
10
100
1000
The Main Injector upgrade was completed in 1999.
The new accelerator increases the number of possible collisions per second by 10-20.
DØ and CDF have undertaken massive upgrades to utilize the increased collision rate.
Run II began March 2001
How Do You Detect Collisions?
• Use one of two large multi-purpose particle detectors at Fermilab (DØ and CDF).
• They’re designed to record collisions of protons colliding with antiprotons at nearly the speed of light.
• They’re basically cameras.
• They let us look back in time.
Typical Detector (Now)
30’
30’
50’
• Weighs 5,000 tons• Can inspect
10,000,000 collisions/second
• Will record 50 collisions/second
• Records approximately 10,000,000 bytes/second
• Will record 1015 (1,000,000,000,000,000) bytes in the next run (1 PetaByte).
Spooky?
Remarkable Photos
This collision is the most violentever recorded (and fully understood). It required thatparticles hit within 10-19 m or 1/10,000 the size of a proton
In this collision, a top and anti-top quark were created,helping establish their existence
Modern Cosmology• Approximately 15 billion
years ago, all of the matter in the universe was concentrated at a single point
• A cataclysmic explosion (of biblical proportions perhaps?) called the Big Bang caused the matter to fly apart.
• In the intervening years, the universe has been expanding, cooling as it goes.
Big Bang Theory
White Sox Version
Black Body Radiator
Universe
• A black body radiator is one which absorbs all light which is incident on it.
• Such a body can also emit light, if sufficiently hot.
• Since the universe is the remnant of a hot explosion, it should thus have a temperature and an ‘afterglow’.
?
?
??
Afterglow From the Big Bang
Afterglow From the Big Bang
• In 1964, while working at Bell Labs, Penzias and Wilson discovered a radio hiss that they couldn’t make go away.
• They had (by accident!) discovered the remnant ‘echo’ of the Big Bang
• The universe was shown to have a temperature of 2.726K (-450 °F)
How Does the Afterglow Work?
+
+
++
+
+
+
+
+
+
Proton
Electron
Photon
+
+
Proton
Electron
PhotonH+ =
Proton Electron Hydrogen
HH
HH
HH
H
HH
H
H H
H
H
How Does the Afterglow Work?
Mysteries of the Afterglow
The temperature of the universe is uniform everywhere to parts per million.
Why?
The temperature of the universe has slight non-uniformities, at the parts per million.
Why?
Answers to both of these questions exist but are beyond the scope of this talk. Get Peter to bring in a cosmologist soon.
History of the Universe (Readers Digest Version)
the universe was all concentrated at a single spot
You are here
Then God (or whoever, I’m not getting into that tonight) said “Let there be light,”
and instead there was a vast explosion that created the universe and spread all of the matter that has ever been
observed (and more) throughout the Cosmos.
Hmmmmmmmmmm…..Large explosions hot temperatures very high energies Ice melts water evaporates steam ionizes atomic nuclei break apart quarks escape the nuclei….
Now (13.7 billion years)
Stars form(1 billion years)
Atoms form (380,000 years)
Nuclei form (180 seconds)
??? (Before that)
4x10-12 seconds
Nucleons form (10-10 seconds)
Quarks differentiate (10-34 seconds?)
The Universe’s Recipe
Mysteries
How do we know about the universe before 10-12 seconds?
Just what is the simplest and most fundamental thing in the universe?
Does the unification/simplification stuff discussed earlier continue to hold?
The Early Universe• The forces have been unified. What about the particles?
Possibly the true nature of particles is that they are actually minute vibrating 11-dimensional strings.
Freebie: This theory is the only candidate way to unify gravity with the quantum forces.
Standard Model Summary
The Standard Model (quarks, leptons, three generations and four currently-distinct forces)
Can explain all known experimental data, from:The birth of the universe (10-12 seconds) to now.Motionless objects, to those traveling at the speed of light.Temperatures from absolute zero to the Big Bang.Lotsa stuff…..
Cannot explainThe very early universe (before 10-12 seconds).Do the forces unify?Are there many particles or just strings?Lotsa stuff…..
Data-Model Comparison
Data-Model Comparison
It is not possible to be ignorant of the end of things if we know their beginning.
-Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica
www-d0.fnal.gov/~lucifer/PowerPoint/PopTalk_Jan2005.ppt
Available at Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com + local book stores