Knocking on Heaven's Door (66 page)

Milton, John, 64–65

model building, 260, 270–75, 332–33

and string theory, 334, 339–42

model vs. theory, 272

molecular gastronomy, 51–52

molecules, 19,
19
, 52

momentum, 245–46, 252–53, 422
n

Montgomery, Hugh, xxi

Moon, the, 35,
38
, 349

moral hazards, 190–91

Motl, Luboš, 197

Mont Blanc, 348

Mount Everest, 348

M-theory, 92, 337

see also
string theory

multiverse, 326, 338, 351

muon detector,
216
, 224–25, 225, 231–32,
232

muon, 104, 114, 243

Murasaki Shikibu, 3

music, 32, 41–42, 52, 53

Musk, Elon, 128

NASA, 182–83

Natcher, William, 146

National Science Foundation, 167

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 413

Nelson, Harry, 384–85

Neptune, 368

neutrino, 244–46, 392–93, 425
n

neutron, 15, 82–86

neutron star, 174

New Atheists, 63–64

Newton, Isaac (Newton’s Laws), 8, 15, 51, 80–81

and gravity, 30–31, 38, 51, 350, 406

and inverse square law, 406, 409

and laws of motion, 15, 71–72

and light, 23–24

New York Times
, 113, 196, 206–7, 300, 400

nine-dots problem,
406
, 407,
407

Noah, Joakim, 71

noble liquid detector, 384, 385, 387–88

No Canary in the Quanta
(Lehmann), 167–68

nongravitational forces, 88–89,
89

Nowak, Martin, 20

nuclear physics, 81–87

nuclear proliferation, 189

nucleon, 82–86

nucleotide, 76

nucleus,
78
, 78–79, 97–98

Obama, Barack, 57

objectivity, 43, 44–45

observation, 346, 402

and Galileo, 31–38, 39, 60–61

Oddone, Pier, xxi

Odyssey
(Homer), 3

Oliver, John, 181

Omphalos
(Gosse), 47

Oort, Jan, 369

open string, 316,
316

optical illusion, 32,
33

Opticks
(Newton), 21

optics, 21–25,
24

orbital angular momentum, 80–81

Origin of Species
(Darwin), 406

osella, 27

Outliers
(Gladwell), 400

Overbye, Dennis, 300

Pacific Ocean, 349

Padua, 26–28, 33–34, 36–37

Page, Larry, 400

PAMELA (Payload for Antimatter

Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics), 391–92,
392

Paradise Lost
(Milton), 64–65

parity violation, 263–64, 280

particle colliders, 101–13

comparison of different, 109,
110
, 111–12

types of, 103–6

vs. fixed-target experiments,
101
, 101–3

see also
LEP; LHC; SLAC; Tevatron

particle ID, 386–87

particle physics, 72–81

accuracy in, 208–10

and cosmology, 360–61, 377, 379

effective theories, 20–21, 25

and materialist view, 50–56

modeling, 270–75

Standard Model of,
see
Standard Model

particles, 107–12, 116–19, 241–54,
242
,
254–55

and detection, 214–54

see also
Standard Model

Pasteur, Louis, 404

Pauli, Wolfgang, 244–45, 304

Pauli exclusion principle, 304

Peebles, Jim, 357

Penzias, Arno, 356–58

Perez, Gilad, 215–16,
216

perturbations, 359, 366

Petit, Philippe, 398–99

phonon, 385, 387

photino, 305

photon,
84
, 84–86

and electromagnetic calorimeter, 229, 243, 293–94

and Higgs mechanism, 281–82, 284–85

and light,
24
, 24–25

physical units, 70–71

physiology, 74–78

Picasso, Pablo, 400

Pierini, Maurizio, 161

Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory, 175

PIM, 155–56

Ping-Pong ball, 156

pion, 243–44, 246–47

pixels, 81, 226–27

Planck, Max, 197, 264

Planck brane,
323
, 324

Planck length, 90–92

Planck mass, 296–99,
297
, 317–18, 335–36

Planck satellite, xiv, 365–66

Planck scale, 91–92, 318, 335–36

planetary orbits, 349–50, 368

Plato, 269

Pleiades, 34

Polchinski, Joe, 315

Politzer, David, 263

Pollock, Jackson, 267

positron, 244

Power, Clement, 41–42

Powers of Ten
, 346, 348

practice, 400–401

precise measurements, 202–4

precision, use of term, 203

precision electroweak measurement, 106, 288

predictions, 181–82, 192, 193–94, 198–99

pressure, 19,
19

Princeton University, 357

probability (probabilistic thinking), 181, 200–201, 203

Protestantism, 61–62, 64

proton 15, 82–86,
83
,
86
, 97–101, 104–12

decay, 89–90

proton colliders, 104–12, 132

see also
LHC

proton sea, 85, 87, 110

proton synchrotron (PS), 133–36,
134

proton synchrotron booster (PSB), 133–36,
134

Ptolemaic system, 37–38,
38

public policy, 190–91, 206–7

Pushkin, Alexander, 398

pyramid scheme, 184

QCD
see
quantum chromodynamics

QED
see
quantum electrodynamics

quadrupole magnets, 141–42, 154, 158, 159, 221

quantization, 80

quantum chromodynamics (QCD), 261–63

quantum contributions,
297
, 305, 318

quantum electrodynamics (QED), 25

quantum field theory, 210–11, 263, 285, 298, 362

quantum gravity,
73
, 91–92, 335–36

quantum mechanics, 10–11, 24–25, 193–94, 414

and atomic scale,
73
, 79–81

and black hole decay, 171–72, 193

and dark energy, 374–75

and general relativity, 252–53

and gravity, 91–92, 335–36

and measurement uncertainty, 209–10

and Planck length, 91–92

and supersymmetry, 302–7

and wave relations, 96, 129

quantum optics,
24
, 24–25

quantum theory of gravity, 116, 333

Quark and the Jaguar, The
(Gell-Mann), 407–8

quarks, 15, 82–87,
83
,
84
, 97–101

discovery of, 82–83, 98–101

and Gell-Mann, 82, 262–63

and LHC,
86
, 86–87

Standard Model at LHC, 114–19

see also
bottom quark; charm quark;

down quark; strange quark; top

quark; up quark

quaternions, 22

quench, 139–40

Rabi, Isidor Isaac, 144, 243

radio-frequency (RF) cavities, 135–36

randomized studies, 205–6

Reagan, Ronald, 145–46

red shift, 352–53,
353
, 355–56

reductionism, 54

regulators (regulations), 184, 186, 187, 191–92, 195–96

Reinhart, Carmen, 195–96

relativity, 91–92

see also
general relativity; special relativity

relic density, 120, 380–81

relic radiation
see
cosmic microwave background

Religio Medici
(Browne), 44

religion, 45–46

religion and science (religion-science debate), xv, xviii, 4, 40–66, 269, 412

rescaling, 324–25

Richman, Jeff, 164

Riley, Bridget, 267

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 41

risk, 168, 179–93, 195–97, 415–16

Rogoff, Kenneth, 195–96

Rosenthal, Benjamin, xxi

Rubbia, Carlo, 108–9, 150

Rubin, Vera, 369

Rutherford, Ernest, 97–98,
98

Salam, Abdus, 62

Sancho, Luis, 167

scalars, 295–96

scale, xviii, 5–21, 72–81, 183–84, 191, 402

atomic, 77–81

and effective theories, 11–21

and Galileo, 36–37

human,
347
, 348

large, 70–72,
347
, 348–49

LHC energy, 86–87

rescaling, 324–25

small, 72–76,
73

small wavelengths, 95–97

and unification, 88–90

of the unknown, 41–46

weak energy,
115
, 118–20

weak mass, 296, 298, 319, 326, 377, 380–82

scientific measurements
see
measurements

scientific misconceptions, xvi–xvii, 259–75

scientific theories, xviii, 3–5, 11–25, 43–44

bottom-up vs. top-down, 333, 334–35, 355, 363

scientific uncertainty, xix, 201–6, 412

scintillation experiment, 388–89

screening distance, 284

Scrovegni Chapel (Padua), 28–29,
29

sea quarks,
86
, 110–11

Sears, Richard, 183

Secret, The
(Byrne), 10

Segrè, Emilio, 99

selectron, 305, 306

SemiConductor Tracker (SCT), 228

senses, 12, 31, 42–43, 69–70, 77–78

Serra, Richard, 265,
265

Shapley, Harlow, 352

Shell Oil Co., 183

shielding, 386–87

shorter-distance theories, 17–18

Sidereus Nuncius
(Galileo), 34

signatures, 100, 175–76, 275, 296, 307–8, 320–21, 327, 329, 351

silicon, 226, 227–28

Silver, Nate, 178–79, 198–99