With the announcement this summer that scientists at CERN believe they’ve found the long-sought-after subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, the question arises: What’s next for the Large Hadron Collider? In this new animated discussion from Jorge Cham at PhD Comics, physicists Daniel Whiteson and Jonathan Feng of the University of California, Irvine, explain how the work at the LHC isn’t even remotely finished yet. Some of the most interesting experiments will involve the search for evidence of extra dimensions, a concept that may hold the key to a number of mysteries. As Whiteson and Feng explain, a particle moving in another dimension would have a greater mass than otherwise expected, as a consequence of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The LHC might be used to find evidence of these heavier versions of particles. “So what we’re looking for,” says Whiteson, “is normal matter, but heavier versions of it.” For more animated physics from PhD Comics you can see our earlier posts on the Higgs boson and dark matter. And to learn more about physics, see our long list of Free Physics Courses in our collection of over 500 Free Courses Online.
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Lawrence Krauss on the Mysterious Allure of Extra Dimensions
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