CERN

Happy Higgs Boson Day!

Happy Higgs Boson Day!

A tachyon walks into a bar. The bartender says “Hey buddy, not so fast.” Happy 4th of July, everybody!  I celebrated today along with the rest of America: by hanging out with friends, throwing some meat on the grill, and discussing the breaking (and long-awaited) discovery of a Higgs Boson particle. The discovery is touted […]

Lego Hadron Collider

Lego Hadron Collider

This model by Bohr Institute physicist Sascha Mehlhase does not, of course, represent the whole Large Hadron Collider, which is a huge circular underground accelerator. Even at minifig scale, such a model would be enormous. Rather, it represents what is probably the most iconic part of the LHC, the ATLAS detector (Wikipedia). Dr. Mehlhase reports 80 hours of work in the build, about evenly split between design (in software) and physical assembly of its almost 10,000 bricks. [Thanks, Rachel!]