Updated Thurs 1.50pm
GOOD TIMING FOR Irish physics and science fans. The director general of the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland is to give a talk in Ireland on Friday week.
It’s also been confirmed that he’ll be taking part in a free Q&A session on Saturday 14 July in the Royal Irish Academy.
Astronomy Ireland
Professor Rolf Heuer was invited by Astronomy Ireland some time ago to be a guest speaker at their lecture series. Today, the team at CERN said that they had found a particle in the search for the Higgs Boson or so-called ‘God’ particle – which could help shed light on the mysteries of the Earth’s creation – but that they couldn’t confirm it was the Higgs Boson particle. However, Prof Heuer did say:
In layman’s terms: I think we have it.
Prof Heuer is to give a lecture to outline the work at the Large Hadron Collider that has led to this discovery – and outline where they will go from here. Tickets and DVDs of the lecture can be booked at Astronomy.ie or by calling 01 890 1111. It is taking place on Friday 13 July at 6.30pm in Trinity College Dublin.
David Moore, editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine said of today’s announcement by CERN: “This is truly a historic day in science, up there with the discovery of gravity by Newton, or the development of relativity by Einstein. The new particle seems to fit all the requirements to be a Higgs boson, so scientists around the world are confident that more results will lead to an official discovery! This is definitely Nobel Prize-winning work.”
Royal Irish Academy
Prof Heuer will also be taking part in a free Higgs Q&A session at the Royal Irish Academy on Saturday 14 July, and those interested can apply online for a place.
He’ll be joined by Belfast born Dr Steve Myers aka ‘The Lord of the Rings’ who is in charge of accelerators at CERN, Oxford theorist, Professor Frank Close, who has written a book about the Higgs.
Professor Themis Bowcock, an experimental physicist working at CERN and physicist Dr Tara Shears who works on the LHC and has broadcast widely about particle physics will also be taking part.
– Additional reporting by Emer McLysaght
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