What is the Higgs Boson?

Welcome to the first official Science for Writers post. Last week I gave you a quick introduction. This week we will be discussing the Higgs Boson, its related Higgs Field and the standard model. Throughout the post I will discuss how this could be used in writing, but the main focus is on the science.

The science here shouldn't be too taxing. After all the Higgs Boson is science for the masses. If you aren't already, you'll be groaning at that joke by the end of the post!

I have put important words in bold. These words are important in physics and I will refer to them throughout the post. It isn't overly important that you know the exact meaning, just so long as you get the gist of what they are you will be fine understanding this science for the masses.

Science for Writers: An Introduction

Every Sunday I aim to write a post about an important aspect of science, be that physics, chemistry, biology, psychology or medicine.

This is Science for Writers. Writers in all genres should be aware of and have a basic understanding of any science that effects what they are writing about. Romance writers need to be aware of the psychology of love and how it effects other emotions. Action writers should understand the physics behind firing a gun. Crime writers need to know the chemistry behind blood analysis. Sci-fi writers should know about ... well, most sciences, but in particular inter-stellar flight. And, fantasy writers like my self, should understand evolution (if we are writing magical races), the physics of fire balls (if that kind of magic exists) and a whole bunch of other stuff.

The content of the posts will focus primarily on the science, but will contain my opinion on how the science can be incorporated into writing and potential misunderstanding that could degrade your work. 

Please post in the comments any science theories you wish to explained.

Thanks

Matt B

Vocab Builder: A

'Never use a long word where a short one will do,' is George Orwell's famous quote. I have quoted it before and no doubt will in the future. The extension for this rule is 'use the right word, not the big word'. Sometimes the right word may well be a big word. The aim, as in all writing, is to be clear and precise so the reader fully understands what you are trying to say.

At the start of the year I made 5 New Year Resolutions and number 4 was to learn new words. This week I am going to list, define, and comment on some words beginning with 'A'. My source for the words, definitions, and origins will be the 365 New Words a Year calendar, but I will be writing my own commentaries.

I think it is only right to start with the first new word I learnt this year:

The Magician's Tattoo, Chapter 1 - Purple

A purple light flashed past Nathan’s car. He slowed his descent of the slope leading to the seventh floor of the multi-storey car park. Another light whizzed by causing him to slow further. Typical teenagers and their laser pointers.

He looked around for the mirrors the lasers would be reflected off but found none.

Continuing down to what he assumed was the sixth floor, he was surprised at the amount of new graffiti. Guns and curse words were normal, but rabbits were certainly different. He chuckled to himself as a third light zoomed past. Whoever was shining the lasers probably went to the college he taught at and likely had a detention with him in the past.

A fourth light stopped in front of the car. Worrying for his, and the student’s safety, he stopped the car.

Ten purple lights circled the car - each glistening in puddles of rain water accumulated over the last few hours of near horizontal rain. A solo saxophone played a smooth jazz tune from somewhere unidentifiable, the lights pulsated to the swing rhythm.

He instantly recognised the song as Deluge. A student had recently performed this in a college recital. Nathan remembered the student’s face when he learnt a music professor from Cambridge had been listening and was able to award a scholarship. But, he knew it couldn’t be that student as they were on holiday.

Then it stopped. The lights vanished and the saxophone finished on a final big note. Silence.

He got out of the car and clapped the performer.

“I liked what you did with the ending.”

There was no response. They were probably worried he was going to tell them off for the lasers.

He got back in the car and looked at his watch, 7:05 p.m.. He had promised his girlfriend, Claire he’d be home in time for dinner. She wouldn’t be suspicious if he was late but that night he wanted her to say yes. He continued down the slope and laughed when he saw that all the floors had had their numbers changed to 8.

Something hit the car roof with a loud bang. Nathan lost control and swerved violently He tried to slam on the brakes, but missed hitting the accelerator. He managed to successfully bring his foot to the brake as the edge of the car park quickly approached. The car crashed through the barrier and stuck out over the ledge.

War Horse, The Play - Review

War Horse advert courtesy of
whatdidshesay.ca

In a word:  beautiful.

War Horse is a play based on the eponymous novel by Michael Morpurgo and performed at the New London Theatre in London.

The story tells of a boy, Albert, who looks after a foul, Joey, his father bid for whilst drunk and how he grows to love the horse. The foul grows into a stunning and powerful horse that is meant for riding after Albert trains it up.

Albert's drunken father, in a bid for more money, sells the horse to the army who will send it to the WW1 battlefields.

Eventually Albert gets into the army too and the story is of him trying to find Joey. Along side Albert's story there is Joey's tale of what he does during the war.

All the animals in the play are puppets associated with the Handspring Puppet Company. This premise concerned me before I went to the play. I thought the puppets would be off-putting. I couldn't have been more wrong! The puppetry was brilliant, elegant, and masterful. Joey was played by three people:  One for the head and two under the torso controlling the legs.

Review of: The Final Empire (Mistborn book 1) by Brandon Sanderson

The best book I have ever read. That is no exaggeration. The book is a polished, intense masterpiece of epic fantasy.

The characters are fantastic. The plot is intricate. The world is suitably epic.


The premise of the book is simple:  'What if the Dark Lord won?' From that Sanderson has crafted a unique, engaging story full of intrigue, treachery, deception, and politics.

This book is my first in the Epic Fantasy genre. I have read a lot of fantasy but none in the Epic sub-genre. If you can't tell already, I am thrilled to have entered the sub-genre with this book.

Sanderson is perhaps best known for is complex magic systems with rules that determine how the whole thing works. The magic system used is known as Allomancy; users burn metals, and their alloys, to produce different affects.

For example burning Iron allows one to Pull on nearby metals. Burning Steel, an alloy of Iron, allows one to Push on nearby metals. The affect of this pushing and pulling allows them to send metal flying around the room making for the best fight sequence I have ever seen. I say 'seen' intentionally - the fight sequences are so well written it feels like you have just watched it live with the addition of feeling the emotion of the character.

Every metal either pushes or pulls on something and is either internal or external. A pure metal (Iron, Tin, Zinc, or Copper) Pulls and the metal's alloy Pushes. An internal metal affects the user and an external metal affects something outside of the user. In the example above Iron Pulls, Steel pushes and they are both external metals.

AS results

Hi,

I've just collected my AS results. I was hoping for all A's.

I took my ICT a year early so have actually picked up my final result for A2 ICT. I got an A*! Obviously very pleased with that.

In Physics and Biology I got A's. An A is the highest possible in AS level, so am again thrilled with these results.

As you may know, I am hoping to take Chemistry at university and so Chemistry is really the most important result. I got a B. I'm disappointed with this as I thought the exam went ok, but I got a c in the exam, luckily I got an a in January, so it is possible to still get an A overall. I will be resitting the exam and ordering to get my paper sent to me so I can see where I went wrong.

Overall they are fantastic results, but it is marred somewhat by. The subject I'm wanting to take in university being the one I did worst in. I still want to do Chemsitry, and will just have to put more effort into it. Perhaps I was complacent after the success in my January exams and didn't put the needed effort into the exam. Needless to say I will be revising a lot more now. In fact I plan to start revision for the resit  during the holidays.

It might be that I need a new revision technique. Does anyone have any?

Thanks,
Matt B

Ted

This film is rude, disgusting, vile, inappropriate, taboo.......

And that is why I loved it so much!

Essentially the film is about a teddy bear, Teddy, that can talk after a child made a Christmas wish. A child's Christmas wish is the powerful thing, but as the narrator correctly points out it isn't:

Now if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that nothing is more powerful than a young boy's wish. Except an Apache helicopter. An Apache helicopter has machine guns AND missiles. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry, an absolute death machine.

The bear grows up, with its owner, into an offensive bear (now called Ted).

The two of them take drugs together, drink far too much and take the piss out of each other pretty much all day. But, they love each other which is one of the less comedic themes that runs throughout the film. The film is obviously a comedy, but in many ways could be construed as a weird romance involving 3 characters.

Ted loves John. John loves Ted back. But, John loves Lori. Lori doesn't love Ted (as much as John does anyway). She wants Ted out so John can finally grow up. He doesn't want Ted to go. Ted doesn't want to go. I mean it is a story as old as time itself.

Pay for Privacy

I read an article today about how a man's entire digital life was ruined in the space of an hour. He was hacked by some so called 'ethical' hackers who were making a point about different companies lax security procedures, namely apple and amazon. After reading it I went to my most important and connected online accounts and went direct to their security pages. There I was looking for security and privacy options that I could turn on.

First I enabled two-step verification for my email account. This means when I log on to a computer I have not used before I must type in a 6 digit code that is sent to my mobile before I can log in. The same procedure is also used when I forget my password. Extra hassle, yes. Peace of mind, more so.

However, certain companies only offered the best privacy and security settings for premium members.

Why should I have to pay for security? Surely it is in the companies' best interest to offer me their most secure of security features and their most powerful privacy tools for free? The paid extras should be things like more space, or the ability to upload lager files. I should not have to pay to stop hackers from accessing my files.

On Box.com, for example, if I wish to have encrypted storage I need to pay for an enterprise account. Why? Why should I have to pay for my files which I upload to their servers to be encrypted? Why should I have to pay for them to be encrypted if I transfer them to another person?

I just received an email from Prezi - a service I haven't used in years. It was advertising their premium account. Their biggest feature was the ability to make Prezis private. I should have that feature for free. I should not have to pay for it.

Sure, companies have more at stake if you are paying for their services, so perhaps they feel the security of paying customers is more important. Bull-shit!

I wouldn't expect NatWest to say to me, "Good afternoon, sir. Did you know for only £20 a month NatWest won't put a poster up with your bank account details? For an extra £5 a week you also have the option of having a PIN. Even better if you pay us just £2 a day we will let you have a strong password on your online banking account."

It just wouldn't happen. But, a service I use to store backups of my school work and writing wants me to pay for security. I know that a hacker isn't going to personally target my school work, but that doesn't mean I won't be collateral damage to one of these 'ethical' hackers. What if I needed the backup of my work, but Box was targeted by LulzSec (I think they have disbanded, though) or Anonymous? What if my account was chosen at random to be the the account they decided to showcase the security holes with? Am I expected to sit back and think, 'if only I'd paid premium prices'?

It is utter stupidity that companies would even consider charging for security. In a world that is ever more online it is damn time that company execs got their heads out of the clouds and into cloud security ... for free.

Commitment

Writing is hard.

It just is.

That is why commitment is so important. If you start something, I think it is important that you try your hardest to finish it. I have been writing as a hobby for 6 years. In that time I have written some good stuff … and some not so good stuff. Despite the bad stuff, I pride myself on one particular statistic:  I have only ever stopped writing two pieces before they were finished.

For me this is important. The satisfaction of completing a piece of writing is one of the greatest feelings one can feel. The knowledge that you have crafted characters, worlds, civilisations, emotion, and more with just words. Since I joined writing.com, I have uploaded all but one of my stories. The reason is I get a thrill from knowing that someone, somewhere, has read those words and been transported to a world of my creation. What more could a writer wish for … apart from publication? However, if you don’t finish you leave yourself with half a world; a character left in endless turmoil; a civilisation, yet to defeat the evil wizard.

The decision to stop writing the two pieces was a tough one to make. The first one I stopped was a Christmas story that would be a sequel to one of my short stories. I stopped because I never really started. The feel was too different from the first story and my ability as a writer was not up to the level it needed to be to do the story justice. I wrote a different Christmas story that year that was, in my opinion, very good.

The second was more recently. I was entering a short story contest, but realised the story I was writing required me to write in early modern English for much of the dialogue. Without extensive support, I would not have been able to write it. Instead, I wrote a different story with a completely different plot and cast.

Both times, I stopped writing because I didn’t have the skills to do the story justice. I also kept copies of the stories I stopped; one day I may restart them with new skills and a fresh mind.