Entries from TED Blog tagged with 'Brian Cox'
20 November 2009
LHC back in action
Tonight scientists at CERN are rebooting the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in an attempt to recreate conditions fractions of a second after the Big Bang by crashing opposing proton beams, traveling at nearly the speed of light, into one another. Shortly after the LHC’s debut last September, a manufacturing glitch in wiring led to a liquid helium explosion that left the surrounding equipment damaged and ice-coated. The LHC faced another (albeit more humorous) setback earlier this month when a bird dropped a piece of baguette into the machine, causing a short circuit.
Now that repairs are completed, scientists hope the LHC will offer insight into several puzzling theories such as dark matter and the Higgs boson, a particle which gives other particles mass. For the latest updates, follow @CERN on Twitter. To learn more about the LHC, check out Brian Cox’s talks on CERN’s supercollider and what went wrong at the LHC.
11 August 2009
Large Hadron Collider set to try again in November
Last week, CERN announced that the world's largest particle accelerator will power up again in November. However this time it will run on 3.5 trillion electron volts per beam, about half its expected energy level. Last year, the LHC shut down because of a fault between two superconducting bending magnets but recent tests have confirmed that no further repairs are necessary.
For more on this upcoming event, check out CERN's press release. And don't forget to watch Brian Cox's talk from TED U in 2009, where he explicitly details what went wrong last year:
01 August 2009
Supercomputer visualizations show the guts of exploding stars
Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory are using the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer to model supernovas, and New Scientist has published a gallery of snapshots from the fiery visualizations. The images uncover the beautiful symmetry -- and chaos -- flowing through these explosive events.
TEDTalks stars Carolyn Porco, Brian Cox and George Smoot also use powerful computers to model big bangs and other phenomena in astrophysics.
(Look for Henry Markram's talk from TEDGlobal 2009 on TED.com in the coming weeks. Markram uses the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture for a different purpose: modeling the intricate workings of the brain.)
03 May 2009
The week in comments
This was an especially lively week on the TED commenting front, as our community tackled debates on swine flu, race and politics, and globalization. These amazing discussions can get a little heated -- so we appreciate that there always seems to be a voice of reason that emerges from the group to soothe frazzled nerves and streamline the discussion with a nod to both sides.
This one's for the peace-makers:
On Alex Tabarrok's interview with the TEDBlog:
TED talks are supposed to create debate, not end them.. Seems this one was a success then? -- Oli
On Nathan Wolfe's interview with the TEDBlog:
Bird flu is essentially a veterinary problem. Swine Flu is essentially a human health problem, and so is alarmism and fear. But not information and prevention, those are on our side and also on our side is the augmentation of average temperatures in the coming months and...wash your hands! -- Manel via facebook
On Laurie Garrett's TEDTalk: What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic?:
I thought this was particularly insightful given the evolution of the H1n1 virus in Mexico this past week. I heard people are reusing masks even those found in the trash cans. They wash and re-sell them, this is one case where ignorance kills and spreads a flu -- Juan via facebook
On Nate Silver's interview with the TEDBlog:
But yes, he is not pinheaded nor racist. He _is_ a nerdy dude who is big on analyzing and finding relationships within information... public speaking is not his forte. -- Toby via facebook
And, sometimes, the community glue is the speaker themselves:
On Brian Cox's TEDTalk: What went wrong (and what's next) at the Large Hadron Collider:
If the Higgs bosun particle (God particle), when found, is as congenial as Brian Cox, I think we can all agree to presuppose why the elementary particles cohere. -- Adrian
Thanks for keeping the debate alive.
01 May 2009
What went wrong (and what's next) at the Large Hadron Collider: Brian Cox's update on TED.com
Yesterday, CERN announced that the Large Hadron Collider (which spectacularly failed last September) could be turned on again as soon as this August. In this short talk from TED U 2009, physicist Brian Cox shares what's new with CERN's supercollider. He covers the repairs now underway and what the future holds for the largest science experiment ever attempted. (Recorded at TED U 2009, February 2009, in Long Beach, California. Duration: 3:30.)
Watch Brian Cox's 2008 TEDTalk, "An inside tour of the world's biggest supercollider" >>
Watch Brian Cox's talk from TED U 2009 on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 400+ TEDTalks.
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13 March 2009
Another bonus of inventing the World Wide Web ...
Today, CERN's been throwing a party to celebrate the 20th birthday of the web -- which they date to the now-famous memo that Tim Berners-Lee wrote to his boss, sketching out a framework for a document-sharing system. As they tell it:
Twenty years ago this month, something happened at CERN that would change the world forever: Tim Berners-Lee handed a document to his supervisor Mike Sendall entitled "Information Management : a Proposal". "Vague, but exciting" is how Mike described it, and he gave Tim the nod to take his proposal forward. The following year, the World Wide Web was born.
A panel of speakers and dignitaries marked the event with a short symposium, after which Sir Tim and a few others took a private tour of the ATLAS cavern, part of the Large Hadron Collider. Sir Tim is at left, dwarfed by the massive project. (Learn more about what happens at ATLAS by watching Brian Cox's TEDTalk.)
CERN has built out a helpful website celebrating the web's birthday -- including a look at the very first web site and web server, at info.cern.ch. The site now contains a pocket history of the web, including a photo of the very first web surfer, Robert Cailliau.
Berners-Lee spoke at the celebration today, sharing his vision for the next rev of the Web -- one in which data is as open and exchangeable as words and images are on the current Web. Watch his TEDTalk to get the inspiring details >>
Photo: CERN
02 November 2008
Delightful, unused promo for Brian Cox's next BBC2 series
This one-minute promo video for Brian Cox's upcoming BBC2 show about time made us smile:
The show, "Horizon: What Time Is It?" airs in the UK on Dec. 2.
09 September 2008
Hawking makes $100 bet that the LHC won't find Higgs
Dr. Stephen Hawking has made a $100 bet that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which throws its first beam tomorrow, will not find the elusive particle knows as the Higgs boson.
What makes the Higgs the most highly sought-after particle in physics? In his TEDTalk, Brian Cox describes the Higgs particle "in language a politician can understand":
What the Higgs does is, it gives mass to the fundamental particles. The whole universe is full of something called the Higgs field, Higgs particles if you will. [Referring to the sketch above] The analogy is that these people in a room are the Higgs particles. Now, when a particle moves through the universe, it can interact with these particles. But imagine someone who's not very popular moves through the room, and everyone ignores them. They just pass through the room very quickly, essentially at the speed of light. They're massless.
Now imagine someone incredibly important, and popular, and intelligent ... walks into the room, they're surrounded by people, and their passage is impeded. It's almost like they get heavy, they get massive. And that's exactly the way the Higgs mechanism works. The ... electrons and the quarks in your body, and in the universe that we see around us, are heavy, they're massive, because they're surrounded by Higgs particles. They're interacting with the Higgs field.
The physicists at the LHC are looking to the Higgs particle to finally explain some mysteries of the universe. And that's why Dr. Hawking doesn't really want it to be found, he says:
I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won't find the Higgs.
07 September 2008
Getting ready for Big Bang Day
If all goes according to plan this week, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva will circulate its first beam on Sept. 10 -- a step that's been compared to "switching on" the machine, but that is, as you'd expect, much more complicated than that. Once the first beam is established, the next steps, taking place later in 2008, will be to accelerate and then collide two beams, producing for an eager physics community whatever new particles they can find.
You can watch the first attempt to circulate a beam in the LHC via CERN's live webcast on the day. Many universities around the world will be hosting "first beam" lectures, watch parties and even a couple of pajama parties; here's a list of first beam events in the United States, and if you know of more, drop a comment below or email contact@ted.com.
To get even more psyched up for the fire-up, check out the site for the recent BBC Radio 4 program Big Bang Day, with short (funny!) videos, including a great one from TEDTalks star Brian Cox, and a look at the LHC in science fiction, from Dr. Who to Dan Brown. CERN's LHC First Beam site has even more background video and articles.
And our own Bruno Giussani, TED's European Director, who lives near Geneva, has visited the LHC's tunnel during the construction and wrote a field trip report complete with pictures.
Illustration of physicist Brian Cox at CERN, courtesy of Kate St. Claire, via her Flickr set
01 August 2008
Dropping mad science at the Large Hadron Collider
Brian Cox is not the only rock star at CERN:
CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.
Read more about it here >>
PLUS: The LHC just keeps on inspiring art. Check out this new collection of astonishing photos of the LHC >>
24 June 2008
Brian Cox on the world's biggest experiment
Sometime towards the end of August or possibly early September, the world's biggest and most ambitious scientific experiment will go live: the LHC, or Large Hadron Collider will be started up at CERN in Geneva.
Particle physicist and TED favorite Brian Cox (watch his TED talk) has written a must-read essay explaining the science of the LHC, the questions surrounding mass, gravity and dark matter that the experiment is supposed to answer, and the hope that it will lead to "a deeper and more profound knowledge of how our world works". He also debunks claims circulating on the Internet that turning on the LHC may create black holes that could destroy the planet.
My favorite quote from Brian's essay, in a paragraph where he describes the human body: "The particles have been around for the entire life of the universe. They are spending the blink of a cosmic eye in the pattern known as 'you'".
And if you want to see how the LHC and its gigantic detectors and other machinery look like, here is my own report with pictures from a visit last year to the 27-km underground circular tunnel near Geneva.
28 May 2008
The World Science Festival starts tomorrow
Tomorrow, Thursday, May 29, begins the World Science Festival: a four-day celebration of scientific exploration and discovery in New York City created by TEDster Brian Greene. Members of the TED team will be liveblogging the event right here on the TED Blog, keeping you updated on the latest from many TEDTalks favorites who will be presenting there. A few events we plan to cover:
Illuminating Genius: Unlocking Creativity: Is creativity innate or learned? Does the innovative brain have distinct structural or chemical features? Can we enhance our creativity? Vilayanur Ramachandran will contribute to this session, along with Nancy Andreasen and David Eagleman.
Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives: Brian Cox will moderate a panel of physicists including Michio Kaku and Max Tegmark as they discuss the possibility of parallel worlds. The panel is to follow a screening of Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, a film about Hugh Everett, father of the "many-worlds interpretation" of quantum physics and the film's director, Mark Everett.
Science of Morality: Patricia Churchland, Antonio Damasio and Marc Houser join philosopher Dan Dennett in a discussion of the science of right and wrong: Why do we cooperate? Is altruism innate? How does morality arise from interactions among biological and social systems?
Looking for the Laws of Life: The forms that life could take seem endless -- at least in theory. Some scientists are on the verge of creating it in a lab. But are there universal laws of life, much like the fundamental laws of physics? This event features a vibrant discussion with leading astrobiologists Paul Davies, Steven Benner and Maggie Turnbull.
Faith & Science: Many scientists have found a way to accommodate both scientific inquiry and religious teaching in their belief systems. Other scientists are bringing science to bear on religion and spiritual belief. Actress Julia Sweeney contributes to this intimate look at what scientists have to say about their spirituality.
For more information about event schedules and to purchase tickets, visit the World Science Festival's website.
29 April 2008
What really goes on at the Large Hadron Collider: Brian Cox on TED.com
"Rock star physicist" Brian Cox talks about his work on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Discussing the biggest of big science in an engaging, accessible way, Cox brings us along on a tour of the massive complex -- and describes the vital role it's going to play in understanding our universe. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 14:59.)
Watch Brian Cox's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
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