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Knowledge fever Chasing Higgs, and the case for science education in Oklahoma by RAY PEARCEY
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ecently I saw Mark Levinson’s documentary, “Particle Fever,” an intense, dramatic look at the high-energy physics community as it powered up and employed the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most advanced particle accelerator, near Bern, Switzerland. Levinson is himself a particle physicist, in addition to being a first-rate moviemaker. Viewers benefit enormously from the unrivaled eye of Walter Murch (“THX 1138,” “American Graffiti,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The English Patient”), one of the great film editors of our time. I spoke recently about “Particle Fever” and particle physics with Professor Jerry McCoy of The University of Tulsa. He and a couple of other area physicists offered an oral annotation as part of a recent showing of the film at Tulsa’s Circle Cinema. Afterward, the group hosted a discussion about the meaning of the new work at the Hadron Collider, the discovery of the Higgs particle, and the scientific, technological, and managerial talents required to deliver the findings that will reshape physics as we’ve known it. “Fever” is one of the most exciting, lucid documentaries I’ve seen. It chronicles the efforts of an agile cadre of super-nerds who
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managed to convince the European community, India, Japan, and Russia to pony up over $7 billion for one of the most adventurous projects in the history of science and human enterprise. The good, old USA chunked in about $2 billion to round out the budget, but it’s important to know that the LHC project was put on the ground in Switzerland only after our government, via an early episode of congressional cowardice, decided not to build an even larger, more powerful, and possibly more rewarding facility in Texas. But with our buy-in, American scientists have a seat at the table, including a handful of Oklahoma physicists. The LHC is easily the most complex contraption ever erected, but the project is also a brainy micro-society of scientists from over 100 countries, managed by CERN, the European high-energy physics organization. If you get the willies about the future of the planet given ongoing international conflicts or our own seemingly hapless domestic political conflicts, it’s refreshing as hell to learn about a peaceful oasis overseen by a polyglot medley of scientists pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. It was an astonishing success. Within only a few months of operations, the LHC carried out the dead-on detections that led to the
identification of the long-theorized Higgs, which physicists believe is responsible for the fact that matter particles have mass—a profoundly practical feature, since otherwise, the universe as we know it would likely not be possible. A big part of what Peter Higgs, who won the Nobel prize last year, stipulated in a 1964 paper has essentially been detected. Now there is a fresh, grand mystery that springs from how the mass of the Higgs exceeded what was imagined. The findings call into question a theory known as supersymmetry, a passel of subatomic theories that mandate the discovery of a kind of partner to all of the particles on the scene in pre-Higgs days, ghostly particles that, when the Hadron Collider is fired up again in 2015, must be discovered. Otherwise, some physicists say, there will be a crisis at the center of particle physics, and indeed in our entire conception of the physical world. The Higgs quest is important, and science needs to be aggressively supported both nationally as well as here, in the Sooner State. Fundamental science and the push for new knowledge are under attack in America and are far from a top priority in Oklahoma. The efforts of Steadman Upham at The University of Tulsa, David Boren at University of Oklahoma,
and the excellent research work at Oklahoma State University in the material sciences are islands of excellence, archipelagos that are unambiguous refutations of anti-science, those malignant forces that will doom our country and our state if they are allowed to grow and go “untreated.” TU’s professor McCoy told me about his recent visit to Singapore, which is said to have witnessed an explosion in its per-capital gross national product over the course of the last 50 years—in no small part, McCoy reminded me, because of huge increases in outlays for public education, for an ambitious research and development program, and for a slew of science-related training and developmental initiatives. McCoy called them insightful. We could use more of that around here. a RE A D T HE RE S T AT
Ray Pearcey, a technology, public policy and management consulting professional, is managing editor of The Oklahoma Eagle and is a regular contributor to The Tulsa Voice. July 16 – August 5, 2014 // THE TULSA VOICE