Day 13 The Future's Bright, the Future's Dark Matter....

Dear All,

We had our final lectures on 'Antimatter' and 'What the LHC Will Find'.

In the Antimatter lecture we were given a simplified explanation of how to trap antimatter particles and the experiments that were being done. The one i find interesting is trying to measure the effect of Gravity on Antimatter Hydrogen! I will need to read over the lecture presentation to remind myself of how these things work out.

I was very tired today as i stayed up late after Harry Potter to do a bit of work so my attention span has been very short:-) I don't mind as i'm more of a night person.... unfortunately the rest of the world isn't!!!!!

From the Antimatter lecture we did a quick calculation to show that unfortunately, as the current knowledge levels, Antimatter bombs and Warp drives are theoretically pointless - there is not enough energy released to make it worthwhile, assuming we had easy access to the stuff!

The second lecture has been interesting as it has really convinced me that CERN will find the Higgs particle within the next 3- 4 years! Firstly, the amount of work in terms of calculations and simulations done to find the Higgs particle is startling. If the Standard Model is correct then the calculations based upon the theory has given Particle Physicists a pretty good idea of what to look for to find the Higgs particle.

If the Higgs isn't found there are two possibilities. One could be that the products of a Higgs particle decaying could be a neutral particle, (i.e. a Neutrino) which means it doesn't interact with anything. Therefore they are very nearly undetectable. (These particles are detected indirectly through their decay products)

The second reason is that it doens't exist!!!! If this is the case then there is something fundamentally wrong with the Standard Model and all the work on fundamental particles of the last 50 years will have to be revised!!!!!! We would have to go back to Quantum Mechanics and Relativity to see if we missed something.

However, Michelangelo said that this is highly unlikely as historically, Science hasn't progressed through major collapses in Theory. (i.e. The advent of Relativity and Quantum Mechnics didn't necessarily mean that Netwonian Mechanics is wrong and should be thrown out. We still use Newtonian mechanics) So the signs are good and the next 10 - 20 years will be very exciting for Physics ...... we will hopefully be finding out more about Antimatter, Dark Matter and the Fundamental answers to Nature!