Image: The planned location of the Future Circular Collider at CERN. Credit: CERN. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the entire field of particle physics is less than 130 years old. I pick as a starting point the date that we discovered our first fundamental particle: the electron (discovered in 1897 by J. J. Thompson).Continue reading “High Energy Physics is a generational project “
Tag Archives: philosophy
Five things we learned about fundamental particle physics in 2025
Image: Louie preaching to the converted (during a visit of his masters students to ALICE experiment at CERN in December 2025). Credit: Adrien Auriol. I would like to dedicate this post to the memory of Deepak Kar, who passed away tragically last week after a short illness. We co-organised the CHACAL school together, and IContinue reading “Five things we learned about fundamental particle physics in 2025”
Ooooh, we’re halfway there…!
NB: All opinions expressed below are my own, not necessarily those of the ATLAS collaboration! The LHC started physics-quality collisions in 2009. It is currently due to operate until 2041. The halfway point of its 32-year lifespan is right now: 2025. In other words, we are (already!) halfway through the LHC’s lifespan. So we haveContinue reading “Ooooh, we’re halfway there…!”
Winning 0.008% of the Breakthrough prize in fundamental physics
On Sunday, I woke to discover that I had won a major award: the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Well, not me personally, but the four main experimental collaborations of the Large Hadron Collider: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb. Together, that’s about 13,500 people, of which I represent about 0.008%. Still, my name is onContinue reading “Winning 0.008% of the Breakthrough prize in fundamental physics”
Louie D. Corpe 