From Big Think, Feb. 16, 2023: Common sense says nothing is nothing but science proves that nothing is in fact something. Fermilab’s Don Lincoln explains at the tiny quantum level, empty space is actually a vibrant place with tiny subatomic particles appearing and disappearing.
In the news
From Big Think, Feb. 15, 2023: The Standard Model of Physics has been challenged by the Muon g-2 and W-boson measurements. Don Lincoln discusses a recent paper in the journal Nature Communications that attempted to resolve two significant discrepancies in particle physics.
From Popular Science, Feb. 3, 2023: Recently, researchers created a full 3D muon image of a nuclear reactor the size of a large building which provides a safer way of inspecting old reactors or checking on nuclear waste. Scientists can collect muons to paint images of objects as if they were X-rays. Fermilab’s Alan Bross and a team of researchers are working to use this same technology to image the inside of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
From Big Think, Feb. 6, 2023: For the first time, the proton’s size and structure was measured using Fermilab’s MINERVA detector by studying proton/neutrino interactions. This new method, which studies weak force interactions, is a first step in which scientists can use to better understand the laws of the Universe.
From National Geographic (Poland), Feb. 2, 2023: A group of 150 scientists, including researchers from Fermilab and the University of Chicago, has published one of the most precise measurements of the distribution of matter in the Universe. The analysis is groundbreaking because it used data from two very different telescope surveys and it indicated that something is missing in the current standard model of the universe.
From Science Daily, Feb. 1, 2023: Yesterday, Nature posted new research which used a beam of neutrinos for the first time to investigate the structure of protons. With Fermilab’s MINERvA detector, scientists were able to precisely measure the proton’s size and structure using neutrinos with data gathered from thousands of neutrino-hydrogen scattering events.
From Big Think, Jan. 31, 2023: Fermilab researchers are part of a group who studied analysis from the South Pole Telescope and the Dark Energy Survey in a series of three scientific papers describing the expansion history of the Universe is tells a confusing tale. The predictions and measurements disagree slightly, it could be a hint that our theories about the Universe need to be revised.
From Physics, Jan. 31, 2023: Fermilab scientists are part of a group of researchers using cross-correlation measurements combining data from the Dark Energy Survey and the South Pole Telescope to determine cosmological parameters with greater precision. The analysis involved more than 150 researchers with results published as a set of three articles in Physical Review D.
From Big Think, Jan. 25, 2023: How old is the universe? Don Lincoln discusses the Methuselah Star measure versus the Big Bang theory.
From Phys.org, Jan. 25, 2023: Researchers at Fermilab, Northwestern University and Stanford University recently demonstrated an entirely new method for searching for meV dark matter. The group is testing a hypothesis that when the rest energy of a dark photon matches the energy splitting of the two lowest cyclotron levels, the first state of the electron cyclotron will be excited.