There is no alternative!

Posted on 04/05/2013 by Jon Butterworth

By Michael Krämer at the Guardian.

Posted in Philosophy, Science | Comments Off on There is no alternative!

Should we change the Higgs boson’s name?

Posted on 28/04/2013 by Jon Butterworth

I wrote this piece on the blog about Higgs boson naming, and was then asked to write something for g2. This appeared on the web here (not in the usual Life & Physics slot, hence this post so I can find the link in future). I’m not used to being sub-edited. Can you spot Talking Heads reference they garbled?

In fact, the boson part of “Higgs boson” is arguably more important the “Higgs” part, and is named after Satyendra Nath Bose, the Indian physicist, who worked out that bit of quantum mechanics. There have even been complaints that “boson” should be capitalised. The laws that govern bosons are called Bose-Einstein statistics, but no one knows who the other guy was.

A few days later Tom Kibble responded to the initial Sunday Times story here (which also appeared as a letter in the Times).

Posted in Particle Physics, Physics, Physics Stories, Rambling | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Should we change the Higgs boson’s name?

Ask a grown-up: is there anything smaller than an atom?

Posted on 25/04/2013 by Jon Butterworth

And another non-“Life & Physics” article posted here so I can find it. One of the Guardian Weekend “Ask a grown-up” series. Most common response: “You did better than Sir Ranulph Fiennes”…

Posted in Particle Physics, Physics, Science | Tagged , | Comments Off on Ask a grown-up: is there anything smaller than an atom?

Why I use twitter

Posted on 24/04/2013 by Jon Butterworth

Here’s a quick talk I did on why (in 2013) I use twitter. Opinions subject to change.

Posted in Technology, Writing | Tagged , | Comments Off on Why I use twitter