Science

A researcher who made color history in 2009 with a vivid blue pigment has developed durable, reddish magentas inspired by lunar mineralogy and ancient Egyptian chemistry.

Traditional economics makes ludicrous assumptions and poor predictions. Now an alternative approach using big data and psychological insights is proving far more accurate

Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because it imposes an odd 'wobbling' motion on the companion star orbiting it. Astronomers have verified the mass of the black hole, putting it at an impressive 33 times that of the Sun.

Researchers adapt a novel force measurement technique to uncover the previously unidentified physics at play at the thin air-film gap between water droplets and superhydrophobic surfaces.

For the first time, scientists have managed to create sheets of gold only a single atom layer thick. The material has been termed goldene. According to researchers, this has given the gold new properties that can make it suitable for use in applications such as carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen production, and production of value-added chemicals.

Optical neural networks may provide the high-speed and large-capacity solution necessary to tackle challenging computing tasks. However, tapping their full potential will require further advances. One challenge is the reconfigurability of optical neural networks. A research team has now succeeded in laying the foundation for new reconfigurable neuromorphic building blocks by adding a new dimension to photonic machine learning: sound waves. The researchers use light to create temporary acoustic waves in an optical fiber. The sound waves generated in this way can for instance enable a recurrent functionality in a telecom optical fiber, which is essential to interpreting contextual information such as language.

An international research team has demonstrated experimentally that electrons in naturally occurring double-layer graphene move like particles without any mass, in the same way that light travels. Furthermore, they have shown that the current can be 'switched' on and off, which has potential for developing tiny, energy-efficient transistors -- like the light switch in your house but at a nanoscale.

An international research team has demonstrated experimentally that electrons in naturally occurring double-layer graphene move like particles without any mass, in the same way that light travels. Furthermore, they have shown that the current can be 'switched' on and off, which has potential for developing tiny, energy-efficient transistors -- like the light switch in your house but at a nanoscale.

In their ongoing quest to develop a range of methods for managing plasma so it can be used to generate electricity in a process known as fusion, researchers have shown how two old methods can be combined to provide greater flexibility.

International shipping does not want to be a climate bad guy and is aiming to be emission-free by 2050. A new tool can help shipowners who are searching for green solutions.

Researchers have produced, stored, and retrieved quantum information for the first time, a critical step in quantum networking.

Researchers have produced, stored, and retrieved quantum information for the first time, a critical step in quantum networking.

Modelling that shows how the world can remain below 1.5°C of warming assumes we can store vast amounts of carbon dioxide underground, but a new analysis reveals that achieving this is extremely unlikely

A black hole would be tough to destroy, but in the season two premiere of Dead Planets Society our hosts are willing to go to extremes, from faster-than-light bombs to time travel

The idea that a field could be responsible for the masses of particles (specifically the masses of photon-like [“spin-one”] particles) was proposed in several papers in 1964. They included one by Peter Higgs, one by Robert Brout and Francois Englert, and one, slightly later but independent, by Gerald Guralnik, C. Richard Hagen, and Tom Kibble. This general idea was then incorporated into a specific theory of the real world’s particles; this was accomplished in 1967-1968 in two papers, one written by Steven Weinberg and one by Abdus Salam. The bare bones of this “Standard Model of Particle Physics” was finally confirmed experimentally in 2012.

How precisely can mass come from a field? There’s a short answer to this question, invented a couple of decades ago. It’s the kind of answer that serves if time is short and attention spans are limited; it is intended to sound plausible, even though the person delivering the “explanation” knows that it is wrong. In my recent book, I called this type of little lie, a compromise that physicists sometimes have to make between giving no answer and giving a correct but long answer, a “phib” — a physics fib. Phibs are usually harmless, as long as people don’t take them seriously. But the Higgs field’s phib is particularly problematic.

The Higgs Phib

The Higgs phib comes in various forms. Here’s a particularly short one:

There’s this substance, like a soup, that fills the universe; that’s the Higgs field. As objects move through it, the soup slows them down, and that’s how they get mass.

Some variants replace the soup with other thick substances, or even imagine the field as though it were a crowd of people.

How bad is this phib, really? Well, here’s the problem with it. This phib violates several basic laws of physics. These include foundational laws that have had a profound impact on human culture and are the first ones taught in any physics class. It also badly misrepresents what a field is and what it can do. As a result, taking the phib seriously makes it literally impossible to understand the universe, or even daily human experience, in a coherent way. It’s a pedagogical step backwards, not forwards.

What’s Wrong With The Higgs Phib

So here are my seven favorite reasons to put a flashing red warning sign next to any presentation of the Higgs phib.

1. Against The Principle of Relativity

The phib brazenly violates the principle of relativity — both Galileo’s original version and Einstein’s updates to it. That principle, the oldest law of physics that has never been revised, says that if your motion is steady and you are in a closed room, no experiment can tell you your speed, your direction of motion, or even whether you are in motion at all. The phib directly contradicts this principle. It claims that

• if an object moves, the Higgs field affects it by slowing it down, while
• if it doesn’t move, the Higgs field does nothing to it.

But if that were true, the action of the Higgs field could easily allow you to distinguish steady motion from being stationary, and the principle of relativity would be false.

2. Against Newton’s First Law of Motion

The phib violates Newton’s first law of motion — that an object in motion not acted on by any force will remain in steady motion. If the Higgs field slowed things down, it could only do so, according to this law, by exerting a force.

But Newton, in predicting the motions of the planets, assumed that the only force acting on the planets was that of gravity. If the Higgs field exerted an additional force on the planets simply because they have mass (or because it was giving them mass), Newton’s methods for predicting planetary motions would have failed.

Worse, the slowing from the Higgs field would have acted like friction over billions of years, and would by now have caused the Earth to slow down and spiral into the Sun.

3. Against Newton’s Second Law of Motion

The phib also violates Newton’s second law of motion, by completely misrepresenting what mass is. It makes it seem as though mass makes motion difficult, or at least has something to do with inhibiting motion. But this is wrong.

As Newton’s second law states, mass is something that inhibits changes in motion. It does not inhibit motion, or cause things to slow down, or arise from things being slowed down. Mass is the property that makes it hard both to speed something up and to slow it down. It makes it harder to throw a lead ball compared to a plastic one, and it also makes the lead ball harder to catch bare-handed than a plastic one. It also makes it difficult to change something’s direction.

To say this another way, Newton’s second law F=ma says that to make a change in an object’s motion (an acceleration a) requires a force (F); the larger the object’s mass (m), the larger the required force must be. Notice that it does not have anything to say about an object’s motion (its velocity v).

To suggest that mass has to do with motion, and not with change in motion, is to suggest that Newton’s law should be F=mv — which, in fact, many pre-Newtonian physicists once believed. Let’s not let a phib throw us back to the misguided science of the Middle Ages!

4. Not a Universal Mass-Giver

The phib implies that the Higgs field gives mass to all objects with mass, causing all of them to slow down. After all, if there were a universal “soup” found everywhere, then every object would encounter it. If it were true that the Higgs field acted on all objects in the same way — “universally”, similar to gravity, which pulls on all objects — then every object in our world would get its mass from the Higgs field.

But in fact, the Higgs field only generates the masses of the known elementary particles. More complex particles such as protons and neutrons — and therefore the atoms, molecules, humans and planets that contain them — get most of their mass in another way. The phib, therefore, can’t be right about how the Higgs field does its job.

5. Not Like a Substance

As is true of all fields, the Higgs field is not like a substance, in contrast to soup, molasses, or a crowd. It has no density or materiality, as soup would have. Instead, the Higgs field (like any field!) is more like a property of a substance.

As an analogue, consider air pressure (which is itself an example of an ordinary field.) Air is a substance; it is made of molecules, and has density and weight. But air’s pressure is not a thing; it is a property of air, , and is not itself a substance. Pressure has no density or weight, and is not made from anything. It just tells you what the molecules of air are doing.

The Higgs field is much more like air pressure than it is like air itself. It simply is not a substance, despite what the phib suggests.

6. Not Filling the Universe

The Higgs field does not “fill” the universe any more than pressure fills the atmosphere. Pressure is found throughout the atmosphere, yes, but it is not what makes the atmosphere full. Air is what constitutes the atmosphere, and is the only thing that can be said, in any sense, to fill it.

While a substance could indeed make the universe more full than it would otherwise be, a field of the universe is not a substance. Like the magnetic field or any other cosmic field, the Higgs field exists everywhere — but the universe would be just as empty (and just as full) if the Higgs field did not exist.

7. Not Merely By Its Presence

Finally, the phib doesn’t mention the thing that makes the Higgs field special, and that actually allows it to affect the masses of particles. This is not merely that it is present everywhere across the universe, but that it is, in a sense, “on.” To give you a sense of what this might mean, consider the wind.

On a day with a steady breeze, we can all feel the wind. But even when the wind is calm, physicists would say that the wind exists, though it is inactive. In the language I’m using here, I would say that the wind is something that can always be measured — it always exists — but

• on a calm day it is “off” or “zero”, while
• on a day with a steady breeze, it is “on” or “non-zero”.

In other words, the wind is always present, whether it is calm or steady; it can always be measured.

In rough analogy, the Higgs field, though switched on in our universe, might in principle have been off. A switched-off Higgs field would not give mass to anything. The Higgs field affects the masses of elementary particles in our universe only because, in addition to being present, it is on. (Physicists would say it has a “non-zero average value” or a “non-zero vacuum expectation value”)

Why is it on? Great question. From the theoretical point of view, it could have been either on or off, and we don’t know why the universe arranged for the former.

Beyond the Higgs Phib

I don’t think we can really view a phib with so many issues as an acceptable pseudo-explanation. It causes more problems and confusions than it resolves.

But I wish it were as easy to replace the Higgs phib as it is to criticize it. No equally short story can do the job. If such a brief tale were easy to imagine, someone would have invented it by now.

Some years ago, I found a way to explain how the Higgs field works that is non-technical and yet correct — one that I would be happy to present to my professional physics colleagues without apology or embarrassment. (In fact, I did just that in my recent talks at the physics departments at Vanderbilt and Irvine.) Although I tried delivering it to non-experts in an hour-long talk, I found that it just doesn’t fit. But it did fit quite well in a course for non-experts, in which I had several hours to lay out the basics of particle physics before addressing the Higgs field’s role.

That experience motivated me to write a book that contains this explanation. It isn’t brief, and it’s not a light read — the universe is subtle, and I didn’t want to water the explanation down. But it does deliver what it promises. It first carefully explains what “elementary particles” and fields really are [here’s more about fields] and what it means for such a “particle” to have mass. Then it gives the explanation of the Higgs field’s effects — to the extent we understand them. (Readers of the book are welcome to ask me questions about its content; I am collecting Q&A and providing additional resources for readers on this part of the website.)

A somewhat more technical explanation of how the Higgs field works is given elsewhere on this website: check out this series of pages followed by this second series, with additional technical information available in this third series. These pages do not constitute a light read either! But if you are comfortable with first-year university math and physics, you should be able to follow them. Ask questions as need be.

Between the book, the above-mentioned series of webpages, and my answers to your questions, I hope that most readers who want to know more about the Higgs field can find the explanation that best fits their interests and background.

This is a true test of people like me who are pro-Israel in the current conflict but are also in favor of free speech. But it’s not a hard decision, for if you’re a hard line free-speech advocate, you must accept the fact that it’s most important to allow freedom of speech when what the person says offends you or many others.

And that is the situation in the case of Asna Tabassum, the valedictorian of the University of Southern California (USC), who, apparently because she might talk about (Israeli) genocide or advocate for a Palestine “from the river to the sea”, isn’t going to be allowed to speak at graduation. (Of course, the USC administration uses other excuses for censorship, like “safety”.)

I was alerted to the situation by this tweet sent to me by Luana:

Incredible story. USC offers a minor in “resistance to genocide”, this girl minored in it, was named valedictorian, and then they cancelled her speech because she might talk about genocide https://t.co/Ivk9LFwjAC

— Tom Gara (@tomgara) April 16, 2024

Is this the case? Does USC really have a minor in genocide? Did the valedictorian minor in genocide?  And did USC also prevent its valedictorian from speaking because of the possibility she might discuss genocide? The answer to all four questions appears to be “yes”. But I think it’s wrong to prevent her from speaking—not if USC has a tradition of having valedictorians speak, which there is.

First, yes, USC does have a minor in genocide, or rather “resistance to genocide”. Here are part of the details of that minor (click to read), but if you look at the the courses, there’s nothing about Israel/Palestine: most of them are about the Shoah (Holocaust of Jews during WWII), Native American genocide, the Armenian genocide, and genocide and the law. It seems like a creditable minor.  Of course one suspects that Tabassum might have minored in this because of a belief that Palestine is undergoing genocide, but we don’t know that, and at any rate it’s irrelevant to this kerfuffle.

This article from the school’s site USC Today (click headline below to read) confirms that Tabassum was indeed the valedictorian:

USC’s 2024 valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, was also recognized. Tabassum, who is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering a minor in resistance to genocide, has studied how technology, immigration and literacy affect the type of medical care people receive. She has also been an advocate for the community through her service with the Muslim Student Union and the Mobile Clinic at USC.

 

And here are two articles, the first from the Los Angeles Times and the second from USC Annenberg Media, both confirming that Tabassum has indeed been banned buy USC’s administration from speaking. Click both to read, though the quotes below come from the L.A. Times.

From the L.A. Times:

And from the USC Annenberg site:

Quotes from the LA Times:

Saying “tradition must give way to safety,” the University of Southern California on Monday made the unprecedented move of barring an undergraduate valedictorian who has come under fire for her pro-Palestinian views from giving a speech at its May graduation ceremony.

The move, according to USC officials, is the first time the university has banned a valedictorian from the traditional chance to speak onstage at the annual commencement ceremony, which typically draws more than 65,000 people to the Los Angeles campus.

In a campuswide letter, USC Provost Andrew T. Guzman cited unnamed threats that have poured in shortly after the university publicized the valedictorian’s name and biography this month. Guzman said attacks against the student for her pro-Palestinian views have reached an “alarming tenor” and “escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.”

. . .“After careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement. … There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement. The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period,” Guzman wrote.

The student, whom the letter does not name, is biomedical engineering major Asna Tabassum. USC officials chose Tabassum from nearly 100 student applicants who had GPAs of 3.98 or higher.

But after USC President Carol Folt announced her selection, a swarm of on- and off-campus groups attacked Tabassum. They targeted her minor, resistance to genocide, as well as her pro-Palestinian views and “likes” expressed through her Instagram account.

Here’s an Instagram post quoting Tabassum and calling for her deplatforming. Her own Instagram site is now private, but note that the words are probably not hers, but from a link in her own Instagram biography.

And even if the words quoted above were hers, do they promote imminent violence (presumably towards Jews)? Nope. It’s not a First-Amendment exception to call Zionism a “racist settler-colonial ideology, nor to call for the complete abolition of Israel. If it were, half of Twitter would be taken down.

As expected, Tabassum didn’t like this decision, and issued a mature but passionate statement:

In a statement, Tabassum opposed the decision, saying USC has “abandoned” her.

“Although this should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all,” said Tabassum, who is Muslim.

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“This campaign to prevent me from addressing my peers at commencement has evidently accomplished its goal: today, USC administrators informed me that the university will no longer allow me to speak at commencement due to supposed security concerns,” she wrote.

“I am both shocked by this decision and profoundly disappointed that the university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice. I am not surprised by those who attempt to propagate hatred. I am surprised that my own university—my home for four years—has abandoned me.”

And of course the university issued a weaselly decision:

In an interview, Guzman said the university has been “in close contact with the student” and would “provide her support.” He added that “we weren’t seeking her opinion” on the ban.

“This is a security decision,” he said. “This is not about the identity of the speaker, it’s not about the things the valedictorian has said in the past. We have to put as our top priority ensuring that the campus and community is safe.”

A screenshot from Provost Andrew Guzman, who singlehandedly decided to ban Tabassum (he doesn’t even have the guts to name her in the letter):

Some of those who objected were, of course, Jewish groups:

We Are Tov, a group that uses the Hebrew word for “good” and describes itself as “dedicated to combating antisemitism,” posted Tabassum’s image on its Instagram account and said she “openly promotes antisemitic writings.” The group also criticized Tabassum for liking Instagram posts from “Trojans for Palestine.” Tabassum’s Instagram bio links to a landing page that says “learn about what’s happening in Palestine, and how to help.”

The campus group Trojans for Israel also posted on its Instagram account, calling for Folt’s “reconsideration” of Tabassum for what it described as her “antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.” The group said Tabassum’s Instagram bio linked to a page that called Zionism a “racist settler-colonial ideology.”

Well, I have little doubt, based on the above, that Tabassum is pro-Palestinian, may feel that Israel is committing genocide, and has made social-media posts that may smack of antisemitism and perhaps a desire to eliminate Israel.  But none of that is relevant here. The only consideration is whether Tabassum’s words are calculated and intended to promote imminent and lawless violence—something that would violate her First-Amendment freedom to speak. And, as a private university, USC doesn’t need to adhere to the First Amendment. They could ban Tabassum without citing freedom of speech. But, like any decent university, public or private, USC should follow the First Amendment. The only exception is that universities should allow “time, place, and manner” expressions of speech that don’t disturb the mission of the university. That means no disrupting speeches or blocking access to university facilities like classes.

Further, USC promotes First-Amendment-like freedom of speech on their website.  Here’s one bit from USC’s Policy on Free Speech:

As the Faculty Handbook declares, the University recognizes that students are exposed to thought-provoking ideas as part of their educational experience, and some of these ideas may challenge their beliefs and may lead a student to claim that an educational experience is offensive.  Therefore any such issues that arise in the educational context will be considered in keeping with the University’s commitment to academic freedom.

Except, of course, when the issue arises in a graduation speech!

Yes, there may have been threats, but it’s up to USC to have enough security on hand to both protect Ms. Tabassum and also allow her to speak without heckling. The mere citation of threats and palaver about “security decisions” is simply a way that USC can ban a controversial speaker without having to provide the conditions where and when she can speak freely.

Tabassum is a valedictorian, valedictorians traditionally speak at USC, and her speech is almost certainly not designed to incite imminent lawless violence. Even if she accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, that is not sufficient grounds to ban her. (If USC is worried about First-Amendment exceptions, they can vet her speech in advance, but they better have constitutional lawyers look at it, too!).

In my view, USC is cowardly and censorious in preventing Tabassum from speaking at graduation.  The school is, as she notes, robbing her of her big moment: her reward for working hard over four years to become the best student in her class. I urge USC to change their minds and let her speak, but of course it’s too late.  The gutless wonders, fond of selective censorship, appear to be running USC. And the great irony here is that although the school offers a minor in genocide, it prevents someone from speaking because they might bring up the subject.

_______________

Full disclosure: I was the valedictorian in my college class, too, and was also prevented from the traditional (short) speech because the administration knew I was an antiwar activist. Thus they announced my award from the stage while I was in the audience. I got to stand up when I was recognized, but I was wearing a black armband and made the “Black Power” fist salute. (That cost me a summer job.)  I, too, felt a bit cheated, and for reasons similar to those of Tabassum. But I think that  the censorship of Tabassum is a much bigger deal than mine given that she was supposed to make a full speech and not just an elongated “thank you”. And, of course, free speech is especially important to emphasize these days.  Too many schools are using “safetyism” as a reason to cancel speakers, which merely empowers those who are encouraged to give the “heckler’s veto” and make threats. If a speaker isn’t going to violate the First Amendment, it’s up to the university to protect her and remove those who try to shout her down.

h/t: Luana Maroja

Hmmm spaceflight is not the easiest of enterprises. NASA have let us know that their plans for the Mars Sample Return Mission have changed. The original plan was to work with ESA to collect samples from Perseverance and return them to Earth by 2031. Alas like many things, costs were increasing and timescales were slipping and with the budget challenges, NASA has had to rework their plan. Administrator Bill Nelson has now shared a simpler, less expensive and less risk alternative.

The Mars Perseverance Rover departed Earth as part of the Mars 2020 mission on 30 July 2020. It’s no quick nip round the corner to get to the red planet so it arrived just under 7 months later on 18 February 2021. Among its many tasks was to collect rock samples, package them up into tubes and deposit them ready for collection by another future mission to return them to Earth. The samples are to be analysed in Earth based laboratories to help us understand the formation of the Solar System, to look for signs of ancient life on Mars and to enable future human exploration. So far so good but enter NASAs budgetary challenges. 

Illustration of Perseverance on Mars

In response to these budget challenges and to an independent review of the Mars Sample Return mission, NASA have had to get creative. The mission design has been updated to include a simpler, less risky approach and at lower cost. The timescales for the sample return have also now been pushed out to return the samples by 2040 instead of the original target date 9 years earlier. 

The team at NASA are under no illusions as to the complexity of the task at hand. To land safely on Mars is just the beginning. The samples have to be collected and safely stowed away, then the rocket must take off from Mars and return safely to Earth! This has never been done before without human intervention – think Apollo with astronauts bringing several kilograms of lunar samples back for analysis. 

At the time of writing this report, NASA do not yet have a way to reduce the costs yet maintain a high level of confidence of success. NASA has asked multiple teams to work together to come up with a plan that takes an innovative approach with where possible, proven technology. They are to work with other industries on proposals to find ways that the mission can be delivered to the cost challenges, with less complexity and by bringing the delivery of the samples back to the 2030’s. 

Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator from Washington said “NASA does visionary science – and returning diverse, scientifically-relevant samples from Mars is a key priority.” Clearly it’s a challenge, not only the logistics of the mission itself but to bring it in given the constraints facing the team is no mean feat. One thing NASA has on its side is their can-do attitude. It’s an organisation that never fails to impress with ingenious solutions. I have no doubt that, by the end of the 2039 we will see the samples returned to Earth in another first for interplanetary exploration. 

Source : NASA Sets Path to Return Mars Samples, Seeks Innovative Designs

The post The Current Mars Sample Return Mission isn’t Going to Work. NASA is Going Back to the Drawing Board appeared first on Universe Today.

Thanks to the readers who sent in photos at my behest. And today we have one of most faithful contributors, Mark Sturtevant, with some lovely photos of arthropods. Mark’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Last summer I chose to go back to Ohio to spend a few days “bugging” the local parks with a camera. I had gone late the previous summer, but this trip was done much earlier. Here are some of the critters that I had found, beginning with moths.

Here is a Tulip Tree Beauty Caterpillar (Epimecis hortaria). This will become an intricately patterned Geometrid moth with variable color patterns, as shown in the link:

A Orange-patched Smoky Moth, Pyromorpha dimidiate. Larvae feed on decaying leaves in oak woods. The moth is clearly a mimic of one the toxic Net-winged Beetles, but I don’t know if this is a case of Batesian mimicry, where the beetle is the only one with a defense, or Müllerian mimicry, where both are unpalatable and so they mimic one another:

Deep in the woods, these boldly marked moths were quite common on the low vegetation, although they seldom allowed me to get close. It is one of the Haploa Moths (which is in the Tiger Moth family), but there are perhaps three species that are similar and I can’t be sure of the exact species. I can say that it is a dead ringer for Haploa lecontei:

Next up is a bumble-bee mimicking Robberfly Laphria sp. These robust predatory flies are always interesting to watch since they can swivel their heads around to look for prey. When I found this one, it had recently hauled in a Golden-backed Snipe Fly (Chrysopilus thoracicus), and it was still struggling. 

Next up are a pair of Leaf-footed Bugs, Acanthocephala sp. The female is feeding on bird poo, which is a thing that these bugs often do:

I was quite happy to see this Cocklebur Weevil, Rhodobaenus quinquepunctatus. Larvae bore into cocklebur stems and in other members of the sunflower family. I presume it is a Batesian mimic of the toxic milkweed bug:

Here is a pair of black-headed Ash Sawfly larvae, Tethida barda. Although they resemble Lepidopteran caterpillars, sawfly larvae actually grow up into stingless wasps:

There were quite a few of these Stoneflies near a river. I cannot even begin to ID these further with any confidence. The immature stages of these archaic-looking insects are aquatic:

The terrain gets quite hilly farther south in the state, and so the park trails there would send me down deep gorges. Along these trails the rocks and trees were generously festooned with large millipedes (the size of pencils) that I think belong to the Narceus americanus/annularis species complex. The taxonomy in the group appears to be messy and someone needs to sort them out:

Lastly, here is an interesting spider, the Humpbacked Orbweaver Eustela anastera with an unknown moth as prey. I don’t remember if I’ve ever seen one before:

Remote-controlled cockroaches with computers mounted on their backs can move as a swarm towards a target location, and could be used for search missions

Just like Isaac Newton, Galileo and Albert Einstein, I’m not sure exactly when I became aware of Peter Higgs. He has been one of those names that anyone who has even the slightest interest in science, especially physics, has become aware of at some point. Professor Higgs was catapulted to fame by the concept of the Higgs Boson – or God Particle as it became known. Sadly, this shy yet key player in the world of physics passed away earlier this month.

Peter Higgs was born on 29th May 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne. He suffered with asthma as a child and, coupled with the family moving around due to his father’s work, was schooled at home for much of his earlier years. Whilst living in Bristol, Higgs’ father had to move to Bedford so Peter and is Mum stayed behind. Eventually he enrolled in Cotham Grammar School in Bristol where he excelled at science and won many prizes for his work. Surprisingly this tended to focus around chemistry rather than physics. It was at Cotham that he became fascinated by quantum mechanics.

By the time he was 17, he had moved to City of London School and here he focussed on mathematics, eventually graduating with a first-class honours degree in physics. His masters came two years later in 1952. In 1954, he was awarded a PhD with a thesis titled ‘Some Problems in the Theory of Molecular Vibrations from the Universe.’ Higgs tried to get a job at Kings College where he earned his PhD but was unsuccessful so moved to the University of Edinburgh and set about answering the question – Why do some particles have mass?

He worked upon the idea that, at the time when the Universe began, particles did not have mass. This was later gained due to interactions with something which became known as the Higgs Field. The concept was a field that permeates through space giving mass to sub-atomic particles like quarks and leptons. His work was an evolution of earlier work from Yoichiro Nambu from the University of Chicago.

Two other groups of scientists published work at similar times with a similar concept, but Higgs’ work published in 1964 was prominent and so the (theoretical) particle, that transferred mass, became known as the Higgs Boson. In the years that followed, scientists hunted for the new particle, chiefly using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN but Higgs retired by 2006 with nothing detected.

The Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator that had been built to simulate conditions equivalent to billionths of a second after the Big Bang. By crashing subatomic particles together and observing the interactions, scientists can probe the very nature of matter. It cost $10bn and it was this that scientists hoped would prove, or otherwise Higgs’ theory.

In 2012, Higgs received word from CERN at the collider ‘Peter should come to the CERN event or he will regret it!’ Higgs went along and to his delight and amazement, and at the age of 83 and 48 years after he published his theory, he heard that the Higgs Boson had finally been discovered. Higgs later said “It’s been a long wait but it might have been even longer, I might not have been still around. At the beginning I had no idea whether a discovery would be made in my lifetime.”

The discovery changed the face of physics and it was this that led to being awarded a Nobel Prize. Higgs didn’t own a mobile phone though and he found out about his award when a neighbour stopped him in the street to congratulate him. It is clear though that Higgs was in it for the science and not the fame that came with his groundbreaking discovery. He was a man who was often referred to as shy and retiring and he will be a great loss to the world of Physics. Professor Higgs died on 8th April 2021.

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