The Higgs Boson E-Book

Nazzareno Lugi Todarello

• Herausgeber: latorre editore
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The book "The Higgs Boson: Told by a Curious Mind" by Nazzareno Luigi Todarello, published by Latorre Editore in 2024, is part of the "Physics for the Curious" series. It explores complex physics concepts such as the standard model, quantum mechanics, and the nature of matter and energy in an accessible way. The author provides a detailed and engaging narrative on the history and discovery of subatomic particles, including the Higgs boson, and delves into the fundamental questions about the nature of the universe. The book aims to inspire curiosity and a deeper understanding of the infinitely small and large, making it a valuable read for anyone interested in the mysteries of the physical world.
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Leseprobe

OPERAMONDOlibri

FISICA PER CURIOSI

PHYSICS FOR THE CURIOUS

3

Nazzareno Luigi Todarello

THE HIGGS BOSON

Told by a curious mind

LATORRE

THE HIGGS BOSON

Told by a curious mind

NAZZARENO LUIGI TODARELLO

FISICA PER CURIOSI 03

LATORRE EDITORE 2024

ENGLISH

Sommario

I. THE INFINITELY LARGE AND THE INFINITELY SMALL

II. THE INDIVISIBLE

III. WHY DO THINGS WEIGH?

IV. THE STANDARD MODEL

V. QUARKS, QUARKS, QUARKS

VI. LEPTONS

VII. RUTHERFORD'S GOLD

VIII. THE BOHR ATOM

IX. THE DUKE

X. LIGHT

XI. MASS AND ENERGY

XII. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENT

XIII. THE ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD

XIV. THE PHOTON

XV. SYMMETRY

XVI. LIFE AND WORKS OF A TORMENTED GENIUS

XVII. THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRINO

XVIII. INTERLUDE

XIX. THE BREAKING OF SYMMETRY

XX. THE MASS OF PARTICLES.

XXI. THE FORCES

XXII. THE GOD PARTICLE

XXIII. QUARKS AND THE UNIVERSE

XXIV. NOW IT NEEDS TO BE FOUND

XXV. JULY 4, 2012

XXVI. THE “HIGGS”

As a teenager, I would spend hours by the sea, captivated by its immense expanse. I felt a profound mystery in its depths, one that seemed intertwined with the mysteries of my own life. It was a romantic time. I sensed a deep connection between myself and the ocean, as if the waves were reaching out to me. Little did I know about quantum mechanics and the complexities of matter. Yet, even now, with a deeper understanding of the world, my wonder at the sea remains. The vastness of the universe continues to amaze me, but on a much deeper level. Knowing that all matter is essentially solidified energy, calmed into the forms we perceive, has only deepened my sense of wonder. It's a more grounded, conscious, and even more overwhelming experience.

N.L.T

I. THE INFINITELY LARGE AND THE INFINITELY SMALL

It’s incredibly difficult to grasp the scale of things that are extremely large or extremely small. Our imagination, our capacity to envision, is tied to our experiences—the experiences of our lives. What we don't see directly eludes us. Or rather, we can imagine what we don't see, certainly, but only if its characteristics aren't too far removed from the things we know from direct experience. Our imagination, in reality, has short legs. Who can imagine, in a single glance, the route of their car if it exceeds a few dozen kilometers? We can only do so by zooming out on the navigation screen. This is a first point: there are technological tools today that fuel our imagination and help it move into unknown territories. Up to a certain point, however. If we learn, for example, that in a glass of water, say eighteen grams, there are about six hundred thousand billion billion water molecules—a six followed by twenty-three zeros—it is absolutely impossible for us to form an idea of the size of a water molecule. We cannot imagine something so small. We are irremediably conditioned by our own dimensions and the dimensions of the things that make up our world. And yet, the water molecule is not the smallest object that exists. It is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. And in turn, each atom is made up of much smaller particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. And the electrons are very far from the nucleus formed by protons and neutrons. So much so that one must imagine the atom as almost completely empty, with the nucleus and electrons very far apart. And each proton is made up of quarks, which are also smaller than our imagination can comprehend. And here, for now, we stop. For now, because it is not excluded that in the future new technological means will allow us to find even smaller particles. For now, quarks are the extreme horizon of the enormously small. In the sense that this is where certainties end. Then there are only hypotheses. Hypotheses that wait to be proven to become scientific truth. String theory, for example, conceived from an intuition of the Italian physicist Gabriele Veneziano, hypothesizes that everything is in reality, in its ultimate essence, a set of tiny vibrating rings and that the particles we know are each a manifestation of a particular set of vibrations. It must be said that the Italian translation of "strings theory" should more properly be "theory of strings," violin strings, or of another stringed instrument. If we were to actually identify a string, to see it and measure it, the entire universe would appear to us as an immense concert, an almost endless orchestra in perpetual vibration. Then the ancient proposition proclaiming "the harmony of the spheres" would find an unexpected confirmation. We'll see. Physics is not a world of fantastic things. Imagination plays a big part in the intuition of new theories, but then every new theory must be confirmed to become "true," that is, "measurable." There is no doubt that imagination played a decisive role in Einstein's mind when, while he was a clerk at the patent office in Bern, he imagined the theory of relativity. He then formalized his intuition in mathematical formulas, but his theory became reality when experiments confirmed it with certain, incontrovertible measurements. Here: physics deals with measurable things. (And in fact, I must say, the title of this chapter, with that adverb "infinitely" repeated twice, is not very "physical"). And over time, it has learned to measure incredibly small things. Just as it has learned to measure incredibly large things. This is the other aspect of modern physics that leaves our imagination astonished and powerless. Can we imagine something that travels at three hundred thousand kilometers per second? And can we imagine the distance that thing covers in an hour, in a year? Far beyond the route of our car on the navigation screen! And yet our home, the Earth, is twenty-six thousand light-years away from the black hole at the center of the galaxy of which it is a part. Light travels. For us, it travels in an astonishing way. But in the immensities of space, it seems to move like a snail. Even staying within our galaxy to go from one place to another takes years, thousands of years.

Figure 1

A 2.7-centimeter ice cube weighs about 18 grams. It consists of a lattice structure containing a little over six hundred thousand billion billion water molecules, H2O. Each oxygen atom contains eight protons and eight neutrons, while each hydrogen atom contains only one proton. The ice cube therefore contains approximately 10.8 million billion billion protons and neutrons. (from Jim Baggott, The Higgs Boson, 2013).

Here we are now, between the immensely small and the immensely large. It almost makes you think that we are in the right place. Maybe so. Or maybe not. We don't know yet. But we do know that the immensely small and the immensely large are related. Not only because, obviously, the immensely large is made up of an immense number of immensely small things. But also, and above all, because by studying the immensely small, we can understand phenomena of the immensely large. With the particle accelerator at CERN, in fact, we investigate the origins of the universe. In a twenty-seven-kilometer tunnel, protons are accelerated to a speed close to that of light. From one side and the other so that at a certain point they collide, generating something very similar to the Big Bang. The protons, colliding, break into pieces. A small inferno of heat is unleashed. Particles are born. The newborns are photographed and studied at length. There are confirmations and, often, surprises.

Figure 2

CERN (Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire), is the world's largest laboratory for particle physics. It is located at the border between Switzerland and France, on the western outskirts of Geneva. The convention establishing CERN was signed on September 29, 1954, by 12 member states. Today, it has 2400 employees, hosts visiting scientists, and collaborates with 608 universities and 113 countries worldwide. The aerial photograph shows the ring of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). In reality, the tunnel is a hundred meters underground.

Figure 3

The LHC tunnel. When it's turned on, protons race through the tube at a speed close to that of light. Enormous magnets cooled with liquid helium guide the protons inside the tube. These magnets are the coldest place in the universe because they are at a temperature below 3 Kelvin, colder than the temperature of outer space. Hadron is any particle composed of three quarks.

Figure 4

When hadrons collide, an enormous amount of energy is released, giving birth to countless particles with extremely short lifetimes. Particle detectors photograph them at a rate of millions of frames per second.