6A
SCIENCE
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
THURSDAY DECEMBER 3, 2009
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3. 2009
KU involved in 'God Particle' search
Three Jayhawks begin international experiment that could have a galaxy of implications
BY ROCHELLE VALVERDE
editor@kansan.com
Behind Professor Michael Murray is a green chalkboard covered in the scribbles of nuclear physics equations. His messy hair curls on its ends and is flecked with gray. He speaks with a Welsh accent and a soft, honeyed tone as he explains what he likes about physics with childlike enthusiasm. From what he says, one may not think he is speaking of colliding particles with energy so strong that some scientists fear it could destroy the world.
"Well, it's just great fun. We're basically a bunch of kids who never grew up, playing with Legos." Murray said.
Stephen Sanders, also a professor of nuclear physics at the University, joins Murray to work on one of the six experiments being conducted with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the world's largest and highest energy particle collider. The LHC was reactivated Nov. 20 after a year of repairs. Murray and Sander began the experiment Tuesday.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world's largest particle physics laboratory, is conducting the experiment. It will investigate a wide range of physics, including additional dimensions to the familiar three-dimensional world and the composition of dark matter.
Sanders said they expect to discover the existence of the Higgs boson particle, which is thought to be responsible for the mass of other particles, and everything else in the universe. Also known as the "God Particle," it has eluded scientists for more than 30 years, Murray said. But if they are not correct, according to the CERN Web site, this could launch a revolution in physics, sending theorists back to the drawing board and challenging their ideas about the world at the
most basic level.
Murray and Sanders are among scientists from around the world who will be studying the collisions that will recreate conditions less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, a theory scientists believe explains the creation of the world. The collisions will be conducted nearly at the speed of light and with as much energy as the momentum of a high-speed train. The LHC has 27.5 times the energy of the collider Sanders just finished working on.
The LHC is located 330 feet underground near Geneva, and spans the border between Switzerland and France. It uses a circular tunnel 17 miles in circumference to accelerate two beams of particles in opposite directions. Sanders said there would be six experiments in multiple regions where the beams of particles would collide. Of these, Murray and Sanders will work on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, "which is something of a misnomer if you actually look at the device." Sanders said. "Because it is anything but compact. It's huge."
Jeff Wood, a graduate student in physics and Murray's research
assistant, is currently on-site in Geneva, working on the LHC experiment. Wood uses his own metaphor to explain particle collision experiments.
"It's like a glorified crash test. Over time, you
But crashing particles together has more risks than crashing cars. Sanders said some have speculated that the high-energy collisions could create black holes.
smash enough cars and begin to believe that cars are made of aluminum, glass and tires because those are the pieces that come off. Particle physicists are glorified crash testers, but instead of finding what cars are made of, we're finding the building blocks of the universe." Wood said in an interview on Skype.
"There have been a number of mechanisms that have played into catastrophe theories. All I can say is people who I respect, who have looked into these things, have found them extraordinarily unlikely." Sanders said.
Murray said the LHC is actually much weaker than the particle collisions that occur naturally in space. With this in mind, Murray said, if the fabric of space-time could be ripped apart by high-energy collisions, it already would have been.
"It's a very exciting energy region," Sanders said. "It's a region that has not been explored. So things will certainly happen."
"I don't think it's unreasonable that people would worry about it."
It isn't just the risks involved with the LHC that is getting it a lot of attention. Despite the hysteria of creating black holes or ripping the fabric of space-time, the investigation has caused some local controversy.
MICHAEL MURRAY
Nuclear physics
professor
"I don't think it's unreasonable that people would worry about it. I think its our job to explain why space and time must be very strong." Murra said.
In addition to fears of apocalypse, discovering the building blocks of the universe
carries religious implications.
"As long as they don't deny what God did, always keep themselves humble and try to remember that
Sister Elena Morcelli, spiritua, director at St. Lawrence Catholic Center, said the task of those working on the LHC is discovering how God made the universe.
we are creatures and God is the creator, I don't see any problem," Morcelli said.
"Particle physicists are glorified crash testers."
JEFF WOOD Graduate student
Although Sanders himself doesn't see any religious implications, he speculates why some might call the Higgs boson "the God Particle".
"It's probably because if we don't find it, it's going to lead to all sorts of mystery as to why we didn't find it and what the mechanism is that accounts for the mass of all the particles," Sanders said.
Murray, on the other hand, said. 21 science gives glory to God.
"I like trying to understand the questions: How is the universe made? How did God put them all together? I think we are only seeing a tiny fraction of creation, but I think every time we look at creation, it's just wonderful. That's what drives me," Murray said.
Once completed, the data from the collisions will be sent around the world, including the University, where Murray, Sanders and a number of graduate and undergraduate students will analyze the results. According to CERN's website, more than 2,000 scientists collaborate alongside Murray and Sanders in the CMS experiment, coming from 155 institutes in 37 countries
If all goes well, Murray said, the rest of the experiments should be operating with eight times the energy by January. He hopes they will have their first report published in February. The first collisions will mark the beginning of a series of experiments that will run for the next 15 to 20 years.
Edited by Jacob Muselmann
INTERNATIONAL
Israeli police arrest disobedient mayor
Associated Press
BY JOSEF FEDERMAN
JERUSALEM — Israeli police arrested the mayor of a West Bank Jewish settlement on Wednesday after protesters blocked security forces from entering the community to enforce a construction freeze.
The showdown was the most serious incident of settler unrest since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week announced the 10-month building freeze, which bars the construction of new homes in West Bank settlements.
Jewish settlers build a cement foundation for a synagogue as a symbolic act of protest against the Israeli government decision to freeze construction of private homes in settlements in Erat, a West Bank Jewish settlement south of Jerusalem on Wednesday. Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a 10-month building freeze, which bars the construction of new homes in West Bank settlements.
ASSOCIATED PRE
Settler leaders have vowed to defy the order, which Netanyahu says is meant as a confidence-building gesture to get peace efforts with the Palestinians back on track.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Confronting the settlers could help Netanyahu convince skeptical Palestinians and a wary Obama administration that he's serious about resuming talks. The Palestinians are refusing to talk peace with Netanyahu and say his settlement freeze is a sham because it excludes certain projects as well as east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city they claim as a capital.
An Israeli advocacy group on Wednesday released a report showing a sharp rise in the number of east Jerusalem Arabs who were stripped of their residency in 2008. HaMoked said Israel's Interior Ministry revoked the residency of 4,577 east Jerusalemites in 2008 — more than 20 times the annual average of the previous 40 years. It cited official statistics obtained under a freedom of information request.
"At the beginning of 2009, the immigration authority decided to conduct a thorough check of permanent residents in Israel whose center of life is not in Israel," the statement read. "When it was found that many do not live in Israel, it was decided to update their status in the registry accordingly."
The Interior Ministry refused to confirm the statistics, but said that individuals must prove they spend most of their time in the city to maintain their residency.
East Jerusalem Palestinians, in
HaMoked's executive director, Dalia Kerstein, said the Interior Ministry action is aimed at cementing Israeli control over Jerusalem.
In Wednesday's unrest, Avi Naim, mayor of the Beit Arieh settlement in the central West Bank, was apprehended for allegedly disrupting a police officer in the line of duty, said settler spokesman Yishai Hollender.
contrast to those in the West Bank, have residency rights that allow them to travel freely in Israel and entitle them to Israeli health care and social benefits.
Inspection teams, joined by soldiers and police, have visited dozens of the roughly 120 Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent days to enforce the order. The Israeli military said it has issued more than 60 orders to halt unauthorized construction and
He said Naim and a group of settlers had blocked the entrance to the settlement when troops arrived to hand out orders to cease construction at the site.
The settler movement, a small but formerly influential lobbying group, has been struggling to regain its strength since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, uprooting all 8,000 settlers living there. At the same time, the settlers are wary of being portrayed as violent extremists.
While there have been minor confrontations between settlers and security forces,there have been no reports of violence.
The settlement freeze has put both Netanyahu and the settlers into delicate situations.
confiscated about a half-dozen pieces of heavy equipment.
Dani Dayan, leader of the West Bank settlers' council, said that activists would use only nonviolent means to defy the freeze.
"We'll do whatever it takes to preserve our communities. This is where we live. We can build where we want," he said during a cornerstone laying ceremony for a new synagogue in the settlement of Efrat. "If we have to be arrested, we
will be arrested."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak met settler leaders late Wednesday. According to a statement from his office, he said that the main blocks of settlements near the Israel-West Bank line are "an integral part of Israel as regards any negotiations with the Palestinians." Barak is the head of the centrist Labor Party, which backs giving up much of the West Bank for peace.
The Palestinians have refused to start peace talks with Netanyahu unless he freezes all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured areas they claim as parts of a future independent state. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Jewish Israelis living in eastern Jerusalem.
They have rejected Netanyahu's 10 month freeze as insufficient because it does not include east Jerusalem or 3,000 homes that were already under construction when the order was approved.
ECONOMY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Wall St. street sign is seen near the New York Stock Exchange in New York. The upbeat assessment by the Federal Reserve helped offset drops.
With a little optimism, market holds its ground
BY SARA LEPRO AND TIM PARADIS Associated Press
NEW YORK — The stock market struggled but held its ground Wednesday as an upbeat assessment of the economy from the Federal Reserve offset drops in bank and energy stocks.
Most stocks finished higher after the Fed said regional economic activity has generally improved since its last snapshot in October. The central bank said consumers have increased spending even as employment and commercial real estate remain weak.
A mixed reading on the labor market kept trading subdued. The ADP National Employment Report said private companies cut 169,000 jobs in November, fewer than in October but worse than the 160,000 cuts expected by
The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 19 points after gaining 162 points in the first two days of the week. Reports of analysts' warnings about bank stocks hurt financial shares, while a steep drop in oil weighed on energy companies.
A rising dollar also cooled the market's advance.
Investors are struggling to determine whether the massive gains in the stock market since early March are justified by an improving economy or if they're overdone. Analysts have been worried that the nascent recovery could be threatened by economic problems overseas or missteps by the government and the resulting gyrations in the dollar.
Stabbing suspect captured in Ohio
MILITARY
The ADP report doesn't represent the entire economy but is often seen as a good indicator of what will emerge in the government's monthly employment report, which is due on Friday. Economists are expecting the unemployment rate remained flat at 10.2 percent in November.
economists polled by Thomson Reuters. It was the eighth monthly drop.
in an apartment complex housing mostly military families in Evans Mills near the post's main entrance. Fort Drum is the 10th
"It all falls apart if you don't get jobs to come around," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management.
BY BEN DOBBIN Associated Press
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A Fort Drum soldier was arrested at a hotel in southern Ohio early Wednesday on a warrant charging of two fellow servicemen at an apartment near the military post in northern New York.
Investors are focused on the job market, which remains weak despite signs of life in manufacturing, housing and other parts of the economy.
The bodies of Waide James, 20, and Diego Valbuena, 23, each with multiple stab wounds, were found Tuesday morning
Hunter
Mountain Division's home base.
A warrant was issued charging Joshua Hunter, 20, with two counts of second-degree murder, county prosecutor Cindy Intschirt said at a news conference. Based on a tip provided by New York authorities, Hunter was arrested at a hotel in Wheelerburg, Ohio, at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, said Capt. David Hall of the Scioto County Sheriff's Office.
"The impression we have right now is there's only one suspect," Tim Dowe, the Jefferson County undersheriff, said in a telephone interview.
Deputies called Hunter's cell phone and told him to surrender, which he did without incident. Hall said. Hunter is in custody at the county jail in nearby Portsmouth, Ohio.
Dowde declined to provide a motive or say whether a murder weapon was recovered. Autopsies
were scheduled Wednesday.
Hunter did not have a lawyer. He will likely be appointed one during a video arrangement at 11 a.m. Thursday with Portsmouth Municipal Court, Hall said.
Hunter indicated to deputies that he did not intend to fight extradition, Hall said.
The killings came a little more than three weeks after an Army psychiatrist was accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas.
Hunter's father, Jim Hunter of Ona, W.Va., told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that his son spent 15 months in Iraq and had been back for about four months. He said he had seen his son in October and "seemed to be doing good."
Jim Hunter described his son as "a pretty outgoing kid" who was married, but had no children, and lived off base.
Sheriff's deputies in New York, he said, had not provided much information. "They told us not to come up until they get him from wherever he's at," he said.
In September, James and Valbuena graduated from Fort Drum's Warrior Leaders Course, which teaches skills required to lead, train, fight and accomplish the mission as noncommissioned officers. They and Hunter all listed each other as friends on their MySpace pages.
On his MySpace page, Valbuena wrote that he was born in Bogota, Colombia, and had joined the military in August 2008. He also wrote that hed been deployed to Iraq.
"We're just trying to digest the news," Valbuena's brother, Sergio Valbuena, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "It's really hard."