“It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.” –Ernest Rutherford
Over 100 years ago, Ernest Rutherford fired a stream of alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil, watching in amazement as some of the particles recoiled, backwards, opposite to the original direction they started off in. With one fell swoop, he had discovered the atomic nucleus.
Image credit: Teach Astronomy / Chris Impey, via http://ift.tt/1TS1UOg.
At even higher energies, we learn that the atomic nucleus is made of protons and neutrons, which in turn are made of smaller, more fundamental particles. But protons and neutrons are hardly the only possible combinations. In fact, mesons, baryons and anti-baryons aren’t the only possible combinations, either, as we’re just learning now. And the farther down the rabbit hole we go, the greater the possibilities for new fundamental physics becomes.
Image credit: CERN / LHC / LHCb collaboration, via http://ift.tt/1UWZEXe.
Come see what the discovery of the pentaquark means for QCD and new physics moving forward!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LEqoHO
“It was quite the most incredible event that has ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.” –Ernest Rutherford
Over 100 years ago, Ernest Rutherford fired a stream of alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil, watching in amazement as some of the particles recoiled, backwards, opposite to the original direction they started off in. With one fell swoop, he had discovered the atomic nucleus.
Image credit: Teach Astronomy / Chris Impey, via http://ift.tt/1TS1UOg.
At even higher energies, we learn that the atomic nucleus is made of protons and neutrons, which in turn are made of smaller, more fundamental particles. But protons and neutrons are hardly the only possible combinations. In fact, mesons, baryons and anti-baryons aren’t the only possible combinations, either, as we’re just learning now. And the farther down the rabbit hole we go, the greater the possibilities for new fundamental physics becomes.
Image credit: CERN / LHC / LHCb collaboration, via http://ift.tt/1UWZEXe.
Come see what the discovery of the pentaquark means for QCD and new physics moving forward!
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LEqoHO
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