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Hunt for Higgs Boson and Dark Matter Now Starts on your Sofa

posted by janrinok on Friday November 21 2014, @11:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-found-2-coins-and-a-boiled-sweet dept.

AnonTechie writes:

If you're not too busy this weekend, why not sit down on your sofa and try to find a Higgs Boson or dark matter ?

The idea's feasible because CERN yesterday released data generated by the the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS). “one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors” at the Large Hadron Collider. CERN says the CMS' goal is “to investigate a wide range of physics, including properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson as well as searches for extra dimensions and particles that could make up dark matter.”

It's rather complex. CERN says “it takes CMS scientists working in groups and relying upon each others’ expertise many months or even years to perform a single analysis that must then be scrutinized by the whole collaboration before a scientific paper can be published.

The data is a little old: (recorded in 2010) http://opendata.cern.ch/collection/CMS-Derived-Datasets

The CMS team has prepared tools ( http://opendata.cern.ch/collection/CMS-Tools ) to help you with your exploration, plus a virtual machine ( http://opendata.cern.ch/record/250 ) in the notionally portable .OVA format (and recommends VirtualBox to run it).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/hunt_for_higgs_boson_and_dark_matter_now_starts_on_your_sofa/

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 21 2014, @12:36PM

    by c0lo (156) on Friday November 21 2014, @12:36PM (#118453) Journal

    Might have a good chance with my sofa. I haven't run the vacuum cleaner over it for two months.

    Surely there will be speck of dark matter on it, why don't you move the computer there and use it to start looking for them?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 21 2014, @12:54PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday November 21 2014, @12:54PM (#118459) Journal

    Depends what colour the sofa is. If it's a pale colour, maybe white or cream, then the dark matter should be relatively easy to find. However if it's one of those 80s-style black executive sofas then you'll have a hell of a job.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 21 2014, @02:50PM

      by c0lo (156) on Friday November 21 2014, @02:50PM (#118493) Journal
      This is why CERN wants to use your computer to find it. They even make an app for you to use.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday November 21 2014, @07:22PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday November 21 2014, @07:22PM (#118570)

      Regardless of the colour, you just don't want to find out the nature of the matter on the sofa, especially if the computer is nearby...