Large Hadron Collider

• The joint effort adds three 400 Gbps spectrum circuits between exchange points in the U.S., U.K., and France.
• The collaboration among CANARIE, ESnet, GÉANT, and Internet2 to leverage the new subsea infrastructure started in 2020, following an R&E community-driven proposal to modernize and augment intercontinental connectivity to support research.
• With the addition of the new circuits, the combined capacity of the ANA collaboration's trans-Atlantic network is now 2.4 Tbps.
• "Being among the first to deliver spectrum-based 400 Gbps transoceanic connections dedicated to research and education is a truly pioneering achievement," said James Deaton, vice president of Network Services at Internet2.

• Right now, generative AI in particular – tools like Midjourney, ChatGPT, Gemini (previously Bard) and others – is at the peak of hype.
• But as an academic discipline, AI has been around for much longer than just the last couple of years.
• Here’s a rundown of some of the wide-ranging AI applications you may be less familiar with.

AI in healthcare

• Various AI systems are already being used in the health field, both to improve patient outcomes and to advance health research.
• For example, AI is helping researchers comb through vast genetic data libraries.
• AI is also helping to speed up the search for medical treatments.

The hidden AIs

• Last year, astronomers used an AI algorithm for the first time to identify a “potentially hazardous” asteroid – a space rock that might one day collide with Earth.
• This algorithm will be a core part of the operations of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory currently under construction in Chile.
• Robot vacuum cleaners use AI software to process all their sensor inputs and deftly navigate our homes.

• Of course, there is also no shortage of more quirky AI applications.
• A few years ago, UK-based brewery startup IntelligentX used AI to make custom beers for its customers.

AI can also be weaponised

• For example, some experts have warned AI can aid the creation of bioweapons.
• Where active warfare is taking place, military powers can design warfare scenarios and plans using AI.
• Much has also been said about how generative AI is supercharging people’s abilities to produce fake news and disinformation.
• This way we can reap the many benefits of AI while making sure we stay ahead of the risks.

Niusha Shafiabady does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• We are two scientists who study nuclear and particle physics using CERN’s Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland.
• Working with an international group of nuclear and particle physicists, our team realized that hidden in the data from previous studies was a remarkable and innovative experiment.
• In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, we developed a new method with our colleagues for measuring how fast a particle called the tau wobbles.

Why measure a wobble?

• Taus are the heaviest in this family of three and the most mysterious, as they exist only for minuscule amounts of time.
• Since the 1940s, physicists have been interested in measuring magnetic moments to reveal intriguing effects in the quantum world.
• By measuring this wobble very precisely, physicists can peer into this cloud to uncover possible hints of undiscovered particles.

Testing electrons, muons and taus

• Muons and taus are much heavier but also far shorter-lived than electrons.
• They found that muons wobbled noticeably faster than Standard Model predictions, suggesting unknown particles may be appearing in the muon’s quantum cloud.
• But taus are also the hardest to see, since they live for just a millionth of the time a muon exists.

Lead ions for near-miss physics

• The particles used in this experiment were lead nuclei that had been stripped of their electrons – called lead ions.
• The electromagnetic fields of lead ions contain particles of light called photons.
• When two lead ions collide, their photons can also collide and convert all their energy into a single pair of particles.
• It goes like this: Lead ions are so small that they often miss each other in collision experiments.

First measurement of tau wobble in two decades

• Using that data, the team was also able to measure the tau magnetic moment – the first time such a measurement had been done since 2004.
• This landmark result measured the tau wobble to two decimal places.
• Much to our astonishment, this method tied the previous best measurement using only one month of data recorded in 2018.
• This increase in data will double the accuracy of the measurement of the tau magnetic moment, and improvements to analysis methods may go even further.

• While each of its main theories works extraordinarily well, they clash also with each other – leaving physicists to search for a deeper, more fundamental theory.
• But do we really need a theory of everything?
• Our two best theories of nature are quantum mechanics and general relativity, describing the smallest and biggest scales of the universe, respectively.
• If it could, it would indicate that quantum theory might ultimately be more fundamental than general relativity, accounting for four out of five forces – suggesting general relativity ultimately may need to be modified.
• If it couldn’t, that would shake up physics – suggesting we may need to modify quantum mechanics, too.

What about other mysterious properties?

• And what about other mysterious properties such as dark energy, which causes the universe to expand at an accelerated rate, or dark matter, an invisible substance making up most of the matter in the universe?
• “Dark matter and dark energy are most of the matter energy content in the universe.
• So it’s not really a theory of everything if it’s not accounting for most of the matter energy content in the universe,” she argues.
• “One of the strengths that people will point to with string theory is that string theory built on quantum field theory,” explains Prescod-Weinstein.