Weird News

[Flint]

Have you ever read a post on a subject you felt like you knew a little bit about, and subsequently been absolutely certain that you've missed the entire point due to your now apparent ignorance?

[ZenGum]

"Doc! Doc! What the hell is an inverse femtobarn?"

No, seriously, I'm into this kind of stuff and I've never heard of that.

[Lamplighter]

Femto is like "milli" or "micro", but equal to 10 to the -15th
or 0.000000000000001

A "barn" is a measure of area (10 to the -28 square meters)
or about the size of the uranium nucleus
(femtobarn = code word from WWII days of developing the atomic bomb)

And from my old math books I finally get use that famous phase:

It naturally follows that:
The inverse femtobarn is how many particle collision events per femtobarn.

Oh, and here is another phase.
The derivation is left to the reader.


Oh, oh. Here is something that tickled me...

The Higgs particle was named the "God particle" by Peter Higgs, who said,
"No one around him would allow it to be called "that God damn particle".
.

[Scriveyn]

God particles per femtobarn - how much is that in angels per needle point?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Scriveyn

God particles per femtobarn - how much is that in angels per needle point? Attachment 35832

It depends on if they are fallen angels or not. Offhand, I'd say one angel per needlepoint.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Femto is like "milli" or "micro", but equal to 10 to the -15th
or 0.000000000000001

A "barn" is a measure of area (10 to the -28 square meters)
or about the size of the uranium nucleus
(femtobarn = code word from WWII days of developing the atomic bomb)

And from my old math books I finally get use that famous phase:

It naturally follows that:
The inverse femtobarn is how many particle collision events per femtobarn.

Oh, and here is another phase.
The derivation is left to the reader.


Oh, oh. Here is something that tickled me...

The Higgs particle was named the "God particle" by Peter Higgs, who said,
"No one around him would allow it to be called "that God damn particle".
.

Yes, to the individual meanings of "inverse", "femto", "barn" and "data", but how does tha allow "5 inverse femtobarns of data"???

Okay, femto = 10 to the -28. Inverse femto = 10 to the 28. But barn is area and you don't measure data in terms of area. How can you have any amount of barns of data?

Shopkeeper, I'll have five cubic hours of oranges, please.

I suspect leg-pulling. Maybe a mishievous scientist is feeding BS to an incredulous journalist.

[Lamplighter]

I think the way to look at it is... as the collider runs over time,
the accumulated area of the particles increases.
This value needs to be corrected for the inefficiency of each specific
collider in detecting 100% of the particles (fudge factor=luminosity)

I don't really know what I just said... and
maybe someone can offer a better explanation.
But, in the meantime, as quoted directly from Wikipedia

The "inverse femtobarn" (fb−1) is a measurement of particle collision events per femtobarn.
One inverse femtobarn is equal to around 70 million million (70 x 1012) collisions.

Over a period of time, two streams of particles with a cross-sectional area, measured in femtobarns, are directed to collide.
The total number of collisions is directly proportional to the luminosity
of the collisions measured over this time.

Therefore, the collision count can be calculated by multiplying the integrated luminosity
by the sum of the cross-section for those collision processes.
This count is then expressed as inverse femtobarns for the time period (e.g., 100 fb−1 in nine months).

Inverse femtobarns are often quoted as an indication of particle collider effectiveness.
Fermilab has produced 10 fb−1 in the last decade.
Fermilab's Tevatron took about 4 years to reach 1 fb−1 in 2005,
while the Large Hadron Collider experiments ATLAS and CMS reached
over 5 inverse femtobarns of proton-proton data in 2011 alone.

Usage example

As a simplified example, if a beamline runs for 8 hours (28,800 seconds)
at an instantaneous luminosity of 300 × 1030 cm−2s−1 = 300 μb−1s−1,
then it will gather data totaling an integrated luminosity of 8,640,000 μb−1 = 8.64 pb−1 during this period.

By next year, collisions will be occurring – if all continues to go well
– at a rate producing what physicists call one "inverse femtobarn,"
best described as a colossal amount of information for analysts to ponder.

Therefore, it naturally follows in todays news that
they will also need a much bigger computer.
.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

But barn is area and you don't measure data in terms of area.

Horseshit per acre.

[Griff]

[baits]Good thing we didn't build that under-size one in Texas.[/tw]

[ZenGum]

THE minister in charge of broadcasting standards has used the F-word live on television during children's viewing hours.

More here: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/n...-1226220933112

[infinite monkey]

(I like that song!)

The albatross and the whales, they are his brothers.

(I like that one too!)

[classicman]

AWESOME! When is the movie coming out?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by classicman

AWESOME! When is the movie coming out?

They're gay, too? Cool!

[Lamplighter]

Here's followup from Higgs Boson Central.
The quote below has been re-organized to clarify the article.

Close, but no cigar. (yet)

NY Times
DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: December 13, 2011
Data Hints at Elusive Particle, but the Wait Continues

Physicists will have to keep holding their breath a while longer.

Physicists around the world, fueled by coffee, dreams and Internet rumors of a breakthrough,
gathered in lounges and auditoriums early Tuesday morning
to watch a lengthy Webcast of the results at CERN.
“Physicists at 8 a.m.,” exclaimed Neal Weiner,
a theorist who organized a gathering at New York University.
“That’s really impressive!”

Two teams of scientists sifting debris from high-energy proton collision
in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization
for Nuclear Research outside Geneva, said Tuesday
that they had recorded tantalizing hints — but only hints —
of a long-sought subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson,
whose existence is a key to explaining why there is mass in the universe.
By next summer, they said, they will have enough data
to say finally whether the elusive particle really exists.

Meanwhile, the other team, known as C.M.S.
— for its detector, the Compact Muon Solenoid —
found what its spokesman, Guido Tonelli, termed “a modest excess”
in its data corresponding to masses around 124 billion electron volts.

The physicists from the different teams are already discussing
whether these differences are significant.

The fact that two rival teams using two different mammoth particle detectors
had recorded similar results was considered good news.

They still think they will need a bigger collider.

[classicman]

Man Eats Cocaine From Brother's Butt, Dies

A South Carolina man's brother died after police said he was forced to eat cocaine hidden in his brother's backside.

Both brothers were taken into custody on allegations they had drugs in their car.

But police told Charleston, S.C., TV station WCIV there were additional drugs hidden in 23-year-old Deangelo Mitchell's backside.

Officers said Deangelo Mitchell convinced his brother, 20-year-old Wayne Mitchell, to swallow the ounce of cocaine to hide the evidence. He died soon afterward.

"It's sickening," North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt told WCIV. "I got upset when I saw the thing. I was pretty shocked on it."

Deangelo Mitchell already bonded out of jail on the drug charge, but now police are looking for him again on charges of involuntary manslaughter.

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