Father Christmas is beyond the Standard Model

Posted on 23/12/2020 by Jon Butterworth

Clearly a true statement, on which I slightly expanded on the Today Programme this morning.

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LHC Physics at Ten

Posted on 22/12/2020 by Jon Butterworth

It is just over ten years since the Large Hadron Collider first bust the energy records and gave us a higher resolution glimpse into the structure of matter than had ever been possible before.

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Nine Lessons 24

Posted on 17/12/2020 by Jon Butterworth

I was privileged to be part of this, and the wrap-up/running order is now up at the Cosmic Shambles Network. Top quote “If this whole thing reads like a weird fever dream. It was.”

Some highlights will be up there soon too. I doubt I’ll make them, there was so much good stuff, but I might post my section up here later anyway if not, for all those Fourier analysis / uncertainty principle fans out there.

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Posted in Arts, Science, Silly | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

It could be me and it could be thee…

Posted on 13/12/2020 by Jon Butterworth

Our house is being refurbished (nearly done, in fact), so since September we have been living in temporary accommodation. My daughter is on her way home from swimming club right now, and I’ve been sitting in this by-now-familiar kitchen looking through the saved drafts of posts I never posted. I found a rather nostalgic one which has now made me nostalgic about nostalgia. That seems suitably meta, so I am going to post it now (with some of the more in-the-news-at-that-moment stuff excised) in case it strikes any chords with anyone else.

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During the lockdown we’ve been using the the little study space in our loft a lot. There’s only about two squares metres of space you can stand up in, but there’s plenty of room to recline and drink cocktails, and the skylights are nice.

My old tape collection is up here and for the first time in — literally — decades, I have started listening to some of them again. As I type, HQ by Roy Harper is playing. That’s not particularly representative of the archive, but it’s good.

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Posted in Rambling | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment