Hi guys,
I guess I should explain why I'm starting this blog. I'm an undergraduate researcher in particle physics, and I absolutely love it. Yesterday, I posted a result from my work that had me bouncing off the walls ("Might have found a bump in some backgrounds that corresponds to the kaon's mass :D Next question, is it statistical?") to my Facebook page. I was kind of sad by the first response: my brother, a soon-to-be college freshman, pointing out that he had no clue what something like that meant ("... i hate you and ur scientific talk xD jk but can u put this in laymans terms if ur goign to put it on fb").
And today, I got thinking, why can't someone try to explain for a general lay audience what's going on in particle physics? Really, there's not a good reason we can't try. Yeah, a lot of stuff is kind of technical, but if you start far enough back in the basics, you can give at least a qualitative feel for how stuff works in particle/nuclear physics.
So that's what this blog is for. I know no one's reading it yet, but if/when people start reading it, I'd love to answer questions about the news in particle physics. In the near future, this blog will likely focus on what I'm doing and what it actually means. If anyone has any questions, I'd love to answer them. So, start emailing and commenting :D.
