Taking pictures of particles and other stories from a high energy physicist
There's a video going around social media of a box of nails getting sorted by shaking. I was sceptical about whether this was a real video, or reversed, so as a good scientist, I decided to recreate the experiment for myself! Here are the results: https://youtu.be/HEwGeqR4duQ What do you think? Do you believe it? Have… Continue reading Recreating the nails in the box video
As I mentioned in my last post, this week I'm at a workshop discussing the development of semiconductor devices that can survive in the very heart of experiments on the LHC (and beyond!). This collaboration is call RD50 and is, unimaginatively, the 50th research and development group at CERN. This workshop meets twice a year; once at… Continue reading RD50 Workshop
The last ten days or so I've spent at CERN testing new designs of pixel detectors for the ATLAS experiment. Since it was the IOP's #iamaphysicist event on the same day we were setting up, I tweeted out the following picture. https://twitter.com/claranellist/status/735752393724284930 To measure our pixel detectors, we need a beam of particles from a… Continue reading Test Beams
I have a new flatmate now who has a keen interest in science. The other day when I came home he asked (in French) "What did you do today?". It's a simple question. Although it doesn't always have a short answer as I also knew that he also wanted to understand, what do I do on… Continue reading An average day
Last Wednesday, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN started colliding protons with stable beams at the highest energy we've ever achieved! I had a very early start (alarm went off at 5.30am) to be in the ATLAS Control Room and tell everyone all about it on social media through the ATLAS Twitter accounts. There was… Continue reading First 13 TeV Collisions with stable beams at CERN
Last Saturday was the Séminaire Poincaré at l'Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris. There was a whole day of talks on 'Le Boson H' which translates to 'the H[iggs] boson', although for reasons that may soon become apparent, it was only referred to as the H boson in the talks. Unfortunately because of a flight that evening, I could only… Continue reading Séminaire Poincaré
Last week I was the curator of the Real Scientists Twitter account (@RealScientists). It coincided with a trip to CERN for a test beam experiment so I took full advantage of being on site to show as much of CERN as possible. I ended up having a lot of fun being a tourist in my own… Continue reading Real Scientists
This week I've been at the Higgs Hunting workshop in Orsay near Paris, France. This also happens to be my home institute, so there was no travel involved. The conference is three days long and brings together theorists and experimentalists from around the world to discuss current Higgs results, and also to explore what we can… Continue reading Hunting the Higgs
Today is the Higgs boson's second birthday! It was on this day, the fourth of July, in 2012 that the Higgs was unveiled to the world with the now immortal words of CERN Director General, Rolf Heuer, "I think we have it". Before the announcement was made, the atmosphere at CERN was like a rock concert.… Continue reading Happy Higgs Day!
The ATLAS Blog is currently focusing on the work that takes place when the LHC is not colliding protons for the experiments. The series is called "Notes from Underground". This week's post is from me and focuses on the work of developing new pixel detectors for upgrading ATLAS, specifically the IBL. You can read it here: I obviously recommend… Continue reading ATLAS Blog – Notes from Underground: Pixel Prototypes
