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CERN has begun webcasting a public seminar in which there may or may not be some announcement regarding the significance or otherwise of recent observations regarding the possible existence of something that might be the Higgs boson. I am not a nuclear physicist, so I will try and keep up but will mainly be trying to catch the significance of the observations they have collected so far. In case these are talked about in terms of sigmas (there's scuttlebutt going around that this is a 3.5 sigma event), here's a table of sigma and probability. [more inside]
posted by carter on Dec 13, 2011 - 85 comments

Neutrino experiment repeat at Cern finds same result "The team which found that neutrinos may travel faster than light has carried out an improved version of their experiment - and confirmed the result." [more inside]
posted by marienbad on Nov 18, 2011 - 107 comments

Francis Gurry, the Director of the UN's WIPO, claims the web would have been better if Tim Berners-Lee had patented HTML and licensed it. He does so on camera and in front of shocked members of the Internet Society and CERN. Ironically, exactly this thought experiment came up for the web's 20th birthday on this August 6th.

For a more rigorous perspective, three Boston University School of Law faculty have shown that lawsuits by non-practicing entities, aka patent trolls, have cost technology companies half a trillion dollars of lost wealth over the past two decades, with little benefit to small inventors, instead reducing the incentive to innovate. [more inside]
posted by jeffburdges on Oct 9, 2011 - 80 comments

Neutrinos discovered to be faster than light at CERN. If confirmed, these results will overturn a century of one of the most basic assumptions in modern physics. 'Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure' the speed of light 'ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit. But Antonio Ereditato of the Orion collaboration and his colleagues have been carrying out an experiment for the last three years that seems to suggest neutrinos have done just that.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword on Sep 22, 2011 - 265 comments

The chief of the world's leading physics lab at CERN in Geneva has prohibited scientists from drawing conclusions from a major experiment. The CLOUD ("Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets") experiment examines the role that energetic particles from deep space play in cloud formation. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN, said in an interview: "I have asked the colleagues to present the results clearly, but not to interpret them. That would go immediately into the highly political arena of the climate change debate. One has to make clear that cosmic radiation is only one of many parameters." [more inside]
posted by thescientificmethhead on Jul 20, 2011 - 40 comments

We've observed antimatter being created in thunderstorms(previously) and we've created antimatter at CERN.(previously) and (previously) The first experiments, announced last November, were able to trap antimatter for about 1/10th of a second; not long enough to study and analyze it properly. Now the Alpha experiment at CERN has announced that they have successfully trapped anti-hydrogen for 1000 seconds. Nature article preprint from arxive.org
posted by AElfwine Evenstar on Jun 5, 2011 - 57 comments

Something has happened to the world. Everything has been flattened into 2D - except you. Now the world needs you to put things back to normal. Antimatiere is a small puzzle game where you move 2D objects around on walls and floors to solve problems. It also has a slight resemblence to Portal in that placing doors and windows punches holes through the mentioned walls, allowing you to pass between different rooms. Warning: Requires the Unity Web Player plugin to run. [more inside]
posted by ymgve on Mar 9, 2011 - 35 comments

The CERN Choir sings about the Higgs Boson in the Particle Physics Song (slyt).
posted by Lutoslawski on Aug 31, 2010 - 11 comments

Apparently Neutrinos have mass.
posted by Confess, Fletch on Jun 1, 2010 - 83 comments

The Large Hadron Collider is attempting to collide protons at 14 TeV today, and they're livestreaming and tweeting about it. They've had some delays, and mostly you hear people milling about, (press conference from Japan right now) but it's ramping up as we speak, so go check it out! If it's not a dud, it could be historical.
posted by monocultured on Mar 30, 2010 - 113 comments

CERN has successfully circulated beams in the Large Hadron Collider. This news was announced via Twitter, where they will be accepting questions for an upcoming press conference; in the meantime, check out explanatory videos on their YouTube channel, some lively podcasts, or an overview of particle physics on their website. The home of the Web has done a pretty good job keeping up with technology. (previously)
posted by shii on Nov 20, 2009 - 70 comments

Is The Large Hadron Collider Being Sabotaged from the Future? A couple of distinguished physicists posit that this indeed might be the case! [NYT Article]
posted by sk381 on Oct 14, 2009 - 128 comments

Episode 4 - Problems "Okay, sometimes I almost want to give up everything." A fascinating insight into the Large Hadron Collider (loving the soundtracks too). YTL
posted by tellurian on Apr 25, 2009 - 22 comments

CERN Podcast - Lighthearted chats at the CERN laboratory with "a bit of particle physics thrown in". Featuring visits from British satirists and comedians, including Chris Morris and Kevin Eldon.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Jan 30, 2009 - 5 comments

BBC: Hadron Collider forced to halt. An underground tunnel fault released one ton of liquid helium, which had been acting as coolant, into the tunnels of the Large Hadron Collider, causing 100 supercooled magnets to heat up by an extra 100°C and then fail. Vacuum was lost as well.
posted by WCityMike on Sep 19, 2008 - 50 comments

The ALICE Collaboration is building a dedicated heavy-ion detector to exploit the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus interactions at LHC energies. The aim is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where the formation of a new phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma, is expected. This website aims both at introducing non-initiates to the field of physics covered by ALICE and at providing regular information on the evolution of the experiment, with detailed reports of its results and analysis.
posted by netbros on Sep 18, 2008 - 18 comments

Hackers attack Large Hadron Collider Hackers have mounted an attack on the Large Hadron Collider, raising concerns about the security of the biggest experiment in the world as it passes an important new milestone.
posted by fixedgear on Sep 13, 2008 - 41 comments

In a scant few hours, scientists will make the first attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider. Terrified of nothing, a few deeply misguided morons have sent death threats to the CERN team, probably because of Faith-Based Science. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Sep 9, 2008 - 213 comments

CERN has published the full technical details of the design and construction of the LHC and it's six detectors (1589 pages, 115MB). [via]
posted by alby on Aug 25, 2008 - 41 comments

Remember CERN from The Da Vinci Code? And their mega-project the Large Hadron Collider(previously mentioned here?) This BBC Horizons show, The Six Billion Dollar Experiment, does a good job illustrating why such an experiment is so cool, important and fascinating. Apparently, the universe is finite. (Includes Google Video-last link)
posted by snsranch on Aug 2, 2007 - 75 comments

Not happy with the level of scientific discourse on The Discovery Channel Fed up with missing out all those keynote addresses by top scientists at various conferences around the globe? Fear not! The Cable Science Network is gearing up for launch. Billing itself as 'a C-Span for science' they hope to use television to counter some of the crap and misinformation that usually rides the airwaves.
posted by PenDevil on Nov 7, 2003 - 25 comments

Science may be left totally unable to explain mass. "The most saught after oject particle in physics, the Higgs boson, may not even exist." As devistating as it sounds to science, I just couldn't help but laugh.
posted by joshua on Dec 11, 2001 - 47 comments