What's Up with the Higgs Boson? - The Road Show Begins

This fourth presentation of Marc Merlin's talk "What's Up with the Higgs Boson?" is sponsored by the Atlanta Astronomy Club (http://atlantaastronomy.org/) as part of their September general meeting. The talk itself will begin at 8pm in the Fellowship Hall, directly below the main sanctuary. Everyone is invited to come early for socializing and refreshments.

What's Up with the Higgs Boson?

Marc Merlin, Director
Atlanta Science Tavern

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/7/d/5/c/event_158732092.jpegIn this talk I will introduce the Standard Model of particle physics and explain why the Higgs has become a Holy Grail of sorts for physicists from around the world working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN accelerator laboratory outside Geneva, Switzerland. I will discuss the experiments that have been underway there to nail down this elusive particle once and for all to close a 40-year story of the creation of a theory of (almost) everything.

Once upon a time Marc Merlin dreamed of becoming a particle physicist. Abandoning that hope, he labored for years - not so strenuously - in the vineyards of software development. Now Marc once again finds himself with a career in science, this time as the Director of the Atlanta Science Tavern.

Above right: A candidate event from the CMS detector at the LHC in which a Higgs decays into two high-energy photons (CERN).