Other Accelerator Physics is Available
The alternative title for this post was going to be “Closing in on Unobtanium”, but I realized that it might be better to explicitly remind you that the Large Hadron Collider, understandably featuring in the news a lot these days, is not the only particle accelerator in operation. Such machines are routinely at work all over the world (for example, supplying hospitals with radioactive materials used in medical diagnosis), and doing various kinds of key research (recall as another example the RHIC physics I’ve told you a bit about in relation to certain applications of string theory). One such set of investigations involves finding new heavy elements, extending the periodic table of elements. Yes, just like happened with Pluto’s demotion and its resulting effect on your internalized list of planets in the solar […] Click to continue reading this post
