Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
In 2013, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for their work on what is now commonly known as the Higgs field and the Higgs boson. The existence of this fundamental particle, responsible for the creation of mass, was confirmed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in 2012.
By Frank Close
I want to say something about Nothing. Specifically, not just the book but the part that no one, or very few, read carefully: the dedication. Nothing originally appeared in hardback in 2007 titled The Void, and was dedicated thus: “For Lizzie and John”.
As you may know, our author Frank Close spoke with Peter Higgs on Monday. We put out a call for questions earlier on the blog, but didn’t anticipate the warm enthusiasm of the crowd over Twitter (follow Frank Close on Twitter at @CloseFrank). Thank you for all your updates, pictures, encouraging comments. Here’s a quick recap.
By Frank Close
When I interviewed Peter Higgs at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose in June, he had been waiting 48 years to see if his eponymous boson exists. On July 4 CERN announced the discovery of what looks very much like the real thing. On August 13 I am sharing the stage with Peter again, this time in Edinburgh. We shall be discussing his boson and my book The Infinity Puzzle, which relates the marathon quest to find it. How has his life changed?
By Frank Close
Now that the boson has been found (yes, I know we physicists have to use science-speak to be cautious, but it’s real), I can stop hedging and answer the question that many have been asking me for months: how do six people who had an idea share a Nobel Prize that is limited to three? The answer is: they don’t. To paraphrase George Orwell: All may appear equal, but some are more equal than others.
In these videos, Frank Close, author of Neutrino, talks about the successes and controversies of neutrino research.
Neutrinos: what are they and why does nature need them? In a recent lecture Professor Frank Close gave an overview of the discovery of neutrinos, discussing how we are becoming increasingly aware of their significance and speculating over ways in which we may utilise them.
By Frank Close
To readers of Neutrino, rest assured: there is no need yet for a rewrite based on news that neutrinos might travel faster than light. I have already advertised my caution in The Observer, and a month later nothing has changed. If anything, concerns about the result have increased.
By Frank Close
Ray Davis was the first person to look into the heart of a star. He did so by capturing neutrinos, ghostly particles that are produced in the centre of the Sun and stream out across space. As you read this, billions of them are hurtling through your eyeballs at almost the speed of light, unseen.
Oxford University Professor of Physics, Frank Close, explains the antimatter errors in ‘Angels and Demons’.
An excerpt from Frank Close’s book Antimatter.
Frank Close explains the importance of the Large Hadron Collider to us.