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Editor-in-Chief:
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Assistant Editor:
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Online Editor:
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Staff Writers:
Victor Albert
Brady Nash
Eric Swanson
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Dr. Amlan Biswas

 
   
High Energy Physics
by Victor Albert

Throughout the last 100 years, science has fragmented into a mess of various disciplines, most of which overlap with each other. This section attempts to clear up and organize the various scientific kingdoms and phyla one topic at a time. This is only an attempt, as the distinctions among the fields are almost always debatable. This month we deal with the complicated world of high energy physics.

High energy physics, or particle physics (as opposed to particle science, which partially is the study of how to make paint), is the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and energy. The reason it's called 'high energy' is because most of the cool, exotic, and unknown particles do not exist at day-to-day energy levels. Physicists need a lot of energy (and taxpayer money) to find and track down these exotic particles - the most popular method being accelerating and colliding known particles.

As with all physics, high energy can be classified into theoretical and experimental. Theorists try to use math to make models about current experiments as well as predict new particles and/or experimental results. The predominant group of theoretical physicists concern themselves with the physics of the standard model. However, there are several other divisions of theoretical high energy physics such as lattice field theory (the idea that the universe is basically a lattice) or string theory (the idea that the universe is made up of little strings). All of these theories require a solid mathematical background and computer calculations (some more than others, particularly lattice field theory, which deals with simulations because a lot of lattice theories are not solvable).

Experimentalists try to verify theories as well as run interesting experiments that would potentially produce results that would expand our understanding of the world. They actually try to implement, design, and build the massive colliders that are required to gain any headway in today's high energy science. While theorists try to determine what to look for, it's up to the experimentalists to determine how to look.

Thus, experimental particle physicists study the many techniques, such as particle acceleration and ionization, that are used to find out more about matter. Since experiment and theory in high energy are closely intertwined, at least for those theories that have the possibility of ever being experimentally predicted, a new subcategory of physics has formed which can be classified as phenomenology.

Phenomenologists are the middle men; they attempt to determine the experimental consequences of a theory. They try to determine what experimenters should look for in determining whether a theory is correct. This includes calculating exact numbers that can be compared to the numbers obtained in an experiment. However, since theoretical particle physics is very complex and mathematically abstract, these are not your regular plug-and-chug calculations. Phenomenology is also quite mathematically intensive as many phenomenologists are, in a sense, theorists hanging out with experimentalists.