Exploring Space: a Big Leap for Humankind

On July 20, 1969, the United States’ Apollo carrying 3 astronauts landed on the moon. Armstrong who is the first man to ever put foot on a mass outside the earth famously stated that his first step was a huge leap for mankind. While history will forever celebrate this day (and talk has advanced of shipping man to Mars despite astronomical costs and risks), much more progress to human knowledge has been achieved by satellite missions (Hubble Space Telescope, Viking, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Cassini-Huygens, Mars rovers, WMAP, Voyager). Basically these machines, perhaps not as popular as Mr. Armstrong, have provided so much insights about our universe to revolutionize our understanding of it and its origins. While politicians may want to capture the public’s imagination of landing on Mars, it will be useful to remember that dollars spent on (man-less) missions have yielded much more return on investment than any huge spending on a single landing mission ever will. However just like basic economics, politicians seem unable to grasp the basics of how science progress is made: usually in small patient steps rather than with big splashing leaps.

Darwin’s evolution and humanity’s fate

This year will be the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution suggests basically that all living things are related and ultimately descend from a single common ancestor. This revolutionary theory has troubled many throughout history because it challenges the idea of divine creation. As a result countries where religion is important are least accepting of evolution. Seeing how many people in rich countries, America especially, do not embrace evolution despite mounting evidence is hugely disappointing for humanity. If even people who believe themselves to be living in ‘developed’ countries blessed by higher level of education cannot rid themselves of dogma and embrace the more rigorous discoveries of science, the future of humanity will remain at great risk. The survival of our species depends on our ability to adopt to new environments and use our scarce natural resources to survive natural disasters. This will be impossible if we do not realize that humans of all races and beliefs are part of a shared family whose survival depends on adaptation rather than divine intervention. Let us educate, not pray for, our children about who we truly are.

Collisions to Unveil the Laws of Nature

Today at Geneva’s CERN the world largest physics machine became operational. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a gigantic scientific instrument, is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding two beams of subatomic particles (called ‘hadrons’ – either protons or lead ions)  head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions to create new theories to improve the Standard Model of particle physics that it is the basis of our understanding the fundamental laws of Nature. Key questions that the LHC may help to answer:

1) What is the origin of mass? Could it be the Higgs boson particle?

2) What is 96% of the universe made of? Everything we see in the Universe, from an ant to a galaxy, is made up of ordinary particles. These are collectively referred to as matter, forming 4% of the Universe. Is the remaining 96% made up of Dark matter and dark energy ?

3) Everything in the Universe, including ourselves, is made of matter. Antimatter is like a twin version of matter, but with opposite electric charge. At the birth of the Universe, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced in the Big Bang. But when matter and antimatter particles meet, they annihilate each other, transforming into energy. Somehow, a tiny fraction of matter must have survived to form the Universe we live in today, with hardly any antimatter left. Why does Nature appear to have this bias for matter over antimatter?

4)  What was matter like within the first second of the Universe’s life? Today, the ordinary matter of the Universe is made of atoms but in the very early Universe conditions would have been too hot and energetic for the gluons to hold the quarks together. Could during the first microseconds after the Big Bang the Universe contain a very hot and dense mixture of quarks and gluons called quark–gluon plasma?

5) Do extra dimensions of space really exist? Einstein showed that the three dimensions of space are related to time. Subsequent theories propose that further hidden dimensions of space may exist; for example, string theory implies that there are additional spatial dimensions yet to be observed. These may become detectable at very high energies, so data from all the detectors will be carefully analysed to look for signs of extra dimensions.