Cross Reference

Posted on 08/10/2020 by Jon Butterworth

I once saw a reference letter that a Senior Physicist had written for a colleague I had worked with closely. The letter compared my colleague to me, along the lines of “X is as good as Jon at Y, but in addition is excellent at Z”.

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Oceans, teeth and particles

Posted on 16/08/2020 by Jon Butterworth

The Cosmic Shambles network continues producing excellent content through the COVID crisis, and I was happy to feature on their Sunday Science Q&A last week with Robin and Helen, and Brenna Hassett as the other guest. The recording is below.

Today there is another edition featuring the astrophysicists Katie Mack and Jen Gupta, link to the live feed is below below…

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Vector-like Quarks

Posted on 15/06/2020 by Jon Butterworth

My colleagues and I have a new paper on the arXiv today on New sensitivity of current LHC measurements to vector-like quarks.

Vector-like quarks are hypothetical  particles that appear in some extensions of the Standard Model. Such extensions are continually being proposed to try to improve the Standard Model, to allow it to describe nature in a more complete or theoretically-pleasing way.

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Oriel and Rhodes

Posted on 10/06/2020 by Jon Butterworth

I spent six years at Oriel College, Oxford. I learned a lot of physics, from some exceptional tutors and an exceptional tutorial partner. I also had a lot of fun, made a lot of very good friends (one of whom I am married to) and was educated in life in ways I could not have anticipated before I went to University. What I didn’t learn was anything about Cecil Rhodes.

That’s despite the presence of the now famous statue, and the fact that some of said friends lived in the Rhodes Building. So much for the educational value of monuments.

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