Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Friday, July 25, 2008

Large Hadron Collider Seeks Higgs Boson [and Eman?]


Physicists will collide protons in October in a supercooled magnet tunnel tube that is 17 miles around and 350 feet below the borders of Switzerland and France. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)[don't ask why the acronym does not fit the organization name]. The facility cost about $6 billion to build. It is funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. Remember the USA cancelled its planned Superconducting Super Collider in Texas.

It is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches[4] are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles. (Wikipedia)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Golfing Environment Man Does 72 Holes in 2 Days


May. Massanutten Resort. I played 36 holes of golf each day for two days. Did not think I could do it but I managed. 18 holes in the morning. Lunch. And then 18 holes in the afternoon. Massanutten Resort is nestled in the Appalachian Mountains and is also a ski resort.

I played four unique courses:

1) Woodstone Meadows At Massanutten Resort

2) Mountain Greens At Massanutten Resort

3) Heritage Oaks Golf Course

4) Packsaddle Ridge Golf Club

Packsaddle Ridge Golf Club was a relatively new course and was clearly the most interesting. Some rich guy bought the area, designed and built the course. It has a cliff hole par 3 that is breathtaking.
Although I played horribly, it definitely helped me for the rest of the golfing season.