The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physis: The Theory

October this year brought rain and a Nobel prize to Belgium, as Francois Englert of the Free University of Brussels won the 2013 physics prize along with Peter Higgs of the University of Edinburgh.  They were recognized for  “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”[1].  I think my field is witnessing the end of an era.

The first subatomic particle discovered as such was the electron in 1895, and in the following decades many, many more particles were discovered, including protons, neutrons, muons, pions, and neutrinos.  Different ways by which particles interact were also identified.  As the list of particles got larger, patterns in their properties and behavior began to emerge.  Theorists began to look for theories that explained these patterns.  Quark theory was the answer to describing all the hadrons, while the description of how particles interacted was built by Sheldon Glashow in 1960.

Happy Birthday, Einstein

I find March a very interesting month. It is the tail end of winter, so it is still cold and frosty. But spring is also coming, so there is more sunlight and flowers start to pop up and the birds get very, very noisy arguing about whatever it is birds argue about in the wee hours of the morning. It doesn't really have any official holidays unless perhaps Easter falls during the month, so for the duration of my college career the entire month of March is a marathon of projects and tests that doesn't let up until you crash into finals in April.

This year is not exception, though tests aren't to blame this time around. Now it's shifts and a paper for my professor.

It's too bad, because I would like to celebrate the first flowers and actually make myself a cake for once. Besides, March 14 is Pi day (March 14 = 3/14 = 3.14 . . .) and Einstein's birthday, so every physicist should have a chance to celebrate.

FAQ: Aren't there a lot of guys in physics?

While I could be literal and start quoting statistics on the tiny fraction of the world's population that studies physics, normally when people address this question to me it means "aren't there a lot more guys than girls in physics"? So to answer the typically implied question: yes, like mathematics, computer science, chemistry, and most engineering colleges, ladies in the field of physics tend to be rather drastically out-numbered by their male colleagues.

How drastically out-numbered depends. In most of my time studying physics, my programs ran between 20% and 25% female. That puts the fraction of women higher in physics than in many computer science and mechanical engineering departments, but lower than that of many civil engineering ones. It can also vary depending on which disciplines are included in the physics department. Astronomy tends to have a higher percentage of women than the rest of the physics disciplines, so a department that combines physics and astronomy will have higher numbers than a department that doesn't. In my experience, particle physics and CERN seem to follow the average; I spend my work days in an office space with two girls and five guys.

No, it doesn't bother me. As a fourth-year grad student, I have been working in this sort of environment for well over seven years now. It's normal. Yes, the guys are typically geeks, but I played Magic: The Gathering in high school and used WarCraftIII to celebrate making through each finals week, so the geekiness doesn't bother me. I have always found the guys I work with to be very gentlemanly, if in a shy, slightly oblivious sort of way. I've had them spend hours helping me get code debugged or derivations finished when I was stuck on various problems. They care, even if they would never say so.

That being said, please realize the corollary of the numbers I cited earlier. If only 20% of my group is female, the other 80% is male, and those would be who I've associated with for the past seven years. I talk with guys, work with guys, and befriend guys. Therefore, it probably isn't a safe assumption that any time a guy's name pops out of my mouth, said guy is being evaluated as potential boyfriend material, and I'd rather not be questioned like he is.

Please. I'm a geek, too, capable of throwing together python scripts, opening cans sans can-opener and other geek-powers, and that sort of talk kind of weirds me out.

Computing picture from ladygeek.org.uk; the can of pumpkin is my own.

You know you work with geeks . . .

. . . when after having walked into a glass door on your vacation and garlanding your nose with a most interesting set of cuts and bruises, none of your colleagues mention it. All week. Not one.


The guy at the bus-stop, but not the people sharing your office space.

My nose is much better now, thanks.

Physicist-isms

It is a truth that should be universally acknowledged that scientist and engineer types talk funny. Particle physics is no exception. Not only does this apply to us discussing physics, but it carries into normal conversation as well. My friends and I used to make a game to see who could throw the geekiest physics reference into a discussion; the more advanced the topic referenced the more bragging rights. I mean, anyone can throw a reference to momentum or velocity into a conversation, but it takes creativity to get quantum field theory worked in there.

Anyway, a few of my favorite phrases and buzz-words that have been adapted to other uses.

Critical mass: This isn't exactly a particle physics term, but particle physics once was nuclear physics so it work. In order for a nuclear chain reaction to take place, the decay products of one reaction must be able to set off a second reaction. The decay products of the second set off a third, and the reaction perpetuates itself. For this to happen, however, the decay products need to be able to reach fresh material; if the stuff is too spread out or there isn't enough of it, the reaction will fizzle and die out. The critical mass is the amount of stuff necessary to get a self-sustaining chain reaction started.

We use it to mean the amount of something that must accumulate before something begins. The party is just waiting to reach critical mass before starting the games.

Collaboration: An Example

Set-up: I spent much of July working on a particular project in the hopes it would included in the results sent to a conference at the end of August by one of the groups at CERN. Several other students from different universities did the same. We were all given the outline of the analysis, and then wrote our own code, adding in our particular methods to calculate the results. When the editor began pulling things together for this note, my project had insufficient statistics for the results to be included, but I was asked to make some of the plots used to describe the part of the analysis we all had in common. I made very nice versions of the plots and submitted them to the editor on a Friday, thinking that beyond cosmetic changes I was more or less done with the note.

Monday evening, 6 p.m.: editor calls a meeting with me and two other students to say that our results don't match. Namely, student X who made the table has selected a different number of events than I did for the plots that are supposed to go with the table. We are told to figure out the difference and resolve it as soon as possible.

So much for French class that night. Instead I park myself at my computer to start figuring out exactly which events are in which plots and comparing this to similar lists produced by X for his tables. This is made more difficult that my work computer has started randomly freezing and crashing, and managed to corrupt a chunk of the datasets I had set up in the process. So I am trying to compare numbers piecemeal with X using the uncorrupted datasets while reproducing those that got messed up. My computer continues to freeze throughout this process. We eventually reach the point where no further comparisons can be made without a more methodical comparison, and sign off Skype chat. I set up my computer to clean-up the last five corrupted files, submit all the analysis jobs to the cluster, and catch the last bus home at 12:40.

Long-distance with your adviser

I knew when I moved across the Atlantic Ocean that some adjustments would have to be made. I would need to adjust to a new language, to new foods, to new lay-outs of stores, to new working hours, to new customs. However, nobody warned me about the difficulties of having my adviser four thousand miles and six time-zones away.

I like working with my adviser. He has always been willing to answer my clueless questions, give me advice on the best way to get involved in things, and made sure he checked up on my progress regularly. When my office was down the hall from his, I would weekly receive either an unexpected visit or an email requesting that we have a talk. Actually, it is kind of refreshing to not have to worry about him suddenly commenting on something in my ear when I didn't realize he was behind me or getting an email saying that he wants me to come by his office as he wants to have a talk with me. I guess he has never figured out how ominous that sounds.

While here, I don't have to worry about these things. Also, since it's summer, my number of institute meetings has been cut back, so I don't have to make as many presentations to the professors from my university.