Feb 22 2011
LHC Motto
In an earlier entry it was lamented how some physicists seem to make a transition from special to general relativity as though the two are somehow linked. I don’t know if the Wikipedia article on Albert Einstein was written by a physicist, however it goes one step further and gets relativity completely mixed up. It calls Einstein “a German born theoretical physicist who discovered the theory of general relativity effecting a revolution in physics.” [1]
For young people studying math and science, please note that it was special relativity that advanced physics by a giant leap, not general relativity. In a recent article on CERN’s startup of the Large Hadron Collider after a 10-week shutdown, Robert Evans of Reuters, and the Toronto Sun, got it right when it was said:
“New Physics, the motto of the LHC, refers to knowledge that will take research beyond the “Standard Model” of how the universe works that emerged from the work of Albert Einstein and his 1905 Theory of Special Relativity.” [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
[2] http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2011/02/21/17353401.html