by Sean Carroll
Tonelli, Guido, 164, 184, 195–96
topography, 152
top quarks
charge of, 50, 294
and creation of Higgs bosons, 167
discovery of, 16, 68, 198
and Higgs decay modes, 170
and the Higgs field, 137
interaction with Higgs boson, 143
and quark generations, 51
and resting value of Higgs field, 146
and symmetry of weak interactions, 158
A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS. See ATLAS
toroidal magnets, 99–100
TOTEM (TOTal Elastic and diffractive cross-section Measurement), 97–98
Touschek, Bruno, 62
translation invariance, 149
triggers, 111–12
Twitter, 203–4
UA2 detector, 184
uncertainty, 35, 130
unified theories, 282
up quarks
and atomic structure, 10–11, 28
charge of, 50, 294
interaction with Higgs boson, 143
and particle spin, 285, 291
and quark generations, 51
and resting value of Higgs field, 146
and symmetry of weak interactions, 158
and weak interactions, 32
U.S. Congress, 1, 24, 269
U-70 Synchrotron, 87
vacuum energy, 221, 253, 254–56, 265–67
valence quarks, 102
Veltman, Martinus “Tini,” 236
Violent J, 115–16
VIRGO observatory, 124–25
virtual particles
and boson mass, 156
and creation of Higgs bosons, 167–68
and dark matter, 249–50
and field values, 253
and Higgs decay modes, 170, 188
and mass, 144
and neutron decay, 132–33
and proton collisions, 102
and proton mass, 101
and quantum field theory, 129–30
quark-antiquark pairs, 51, 101
and resting value of Higgs field, 253–54
and supersymmetry, 260
visible light, 122
viXra log (blog), 163–64
Wagner, Walter, 189–91
Waldgrave, William, 137
Ward, John, 233–34, 235–37
Ward identities, 233
Watts, Gordon, 2, 68
wave functions, 33–34, 42, 129
W bosons
and the Big Bang, 161
and connection fields, 153
and creation of Higgs bosons, 169
discovery of, 62, 237
effects of, 237
and Higgs decay modes, 170, 171, 172–73, 173, 187
and the Higgs mechanism, 224
and mass, 53, 145
and particle detector findings, 104, 180
and particle spin, 53, 283, 286, 288, 290
prediction of, 235
and Schwinger’s model, 231
and the strong nuclear force, 130
and supersymmetry, 258, 259, 260
and symmetry breaking, 156, 160
and weak interactions, 31–32, 229–30
and WIMPs, 248–49
Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), 247–48, 250, 261
weak nuclear force
bosons of, 31
and dark matter, 247–48
evolution of theory, 228–32, 230
experimental evidence for, 162
and fields, 31–32
and the hierarchy problem, 254
and the Higgs field, 34
and neutron decay, 47, 47
and particle spin, 291
and resting value of Higgs field, 140
and solar energy, 30
and the Standard model, 230, 235, 280
and symmetry, 36, 150–53, 158–60, 162, 213
and W and Z bosons, 31, 62, 162
and Yang-Mills theories, 156
Weinberg, Steven
and axions, 249
background, 234–35
Congressional testimony, 24
on funding for Big Science, 270–71
and Goldstone’s theorem, 217
Nobel Prize, 237
and origin of Higgs boson name, 238
and “A Theory of Leptons,” 235–37
and vacuum energy, 267
and weak interaction theory, 162
Weyl, Herman, 151
Wheeler, John, 33
Wigner, Eugene, 23
Wikipedia, 240
Wilczek, Frank, 30, 168–69, 249
Wilson, Robert, 67–68, 269–70
“WIMP miracle,” 248–49
Woit, Peter, 202
Wolf Prize in Physics, 240
working groups, 192–93
World Conference of Science Journalists, 198
World Data Center for Climate, 111
Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, 112–13
World Wide Web, 113, 274
Wu, Sau Lan, 64–65, 104, 202, 277
Yahia, Mohammed, 279
Yang, Chen Ning, 154–55, 158, 212–13
Yang-Mills model, 229–31
YouTube, 205–6
Z bosons
and the Big Bang, 161
and connection fields, 153
and creation of Higgs bosons, 169
discovery of, 62, 237
and electroweak unification, 233
and Higgs decay modes, 170, 171, 172, 173
and the Higgs mechanism, 224
and mass, 53, 145
and particle detectors, 96, 104, 180
and particle spin, 53, 283, 286, 288–89, 290
prediction of, 235, 237
and the strong nuclear force, 130
and supersymmetry, 258, 259, 260
and symmetry breaking, 156, 160
and the weak force, 31
and weak interactions, 162
and WIMPs, 248–49
Zweig, George, 50
Zwicky, Fritz, 244