Intelligence Squared Getting Weird with Physics, with Harry Cliff
Apr 21, 2024
Harry Cliff, a particle physicist from the University of Cambridge and author of 'Space Oddities', teams up with reporter Alex Wilkins to unravel cosmic mysteries. They discuss why stars seem to be escaping faster than predicted and delve into enigmatic particles buried in Antarctic ice. The conversation highlights the thrills and challenges of scientific discovery, including the emotional roller coaster of working at CERN, the quest to understand beauty quarks, and the groundbreaking significance of findings at the Large Hadron Collider.
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The Planet Vulcan
- Astronomers struggled to explain discrepancies in Mercury's orbit in the 19th century.
- Le Verrier hypothesized a planet, Vulcan, based on a sighting by an amateur astronomer, but it was never confirmed.
Anomaly Leading to Relativity
- Einstein's theory of general relativity accurately predicted the anomaly in Mercury's orbit, a tiny discrepancy.
- This anomaly served as a clue to a revolutionary new theory of the universe.
Beauty Quark Anomaly
- Harry Cliff and colleagues discovered an anomaly in beauty quark decay rates, suggesting a new fundamental force.
- Later, they found a missed bias, highlighting the iterative nature of scientific discovery.
