John Ellis

Latest Articles in this Channel:

04/09/05--03:37: Holes around the world (chan 1356719)

The late lamented SSC continues to provide grist for the literary mill - I have just finished reading 'A Hole in Texas' by Herman Wouk, which I recommend as an entertaining page-turner. Its portrayal of a physicist's lifestyle is hardly...


04/28/05--12:17: Two weeks of peace and quiet (chan 1356719)

Sorry to have been quite for a while: I was too busy having a quiet time! For two whole weeks, I did not budge from CERN, and so was able to catch up on a couple of projects. One of...


05/01/05--11:17: Quantum Gravity Phenomenology: nice hat, but where are the cattle? (chan 1356719)

Off to College Station, Texas for a small workshop on the possible phenomenology of quantum gravity hosted by the Mitchell Institute of Theoretical Physics at Texas A&M University. Bringing together advocates of string, loop gravity and the more traditional quantum...


05/01/05--11:34: Moscow, Music and Mongols on the Mississipi (chan 1356719)

Next stop after College Station was the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to visit my friend Keith Olive and work with him and Yudi Santoso – see the first picture. This was the first time I had meet Yudi, despite...


05/13/05--14:02: The universal language of astroparticle physics (chan 1356719)

One of the most fascinating aspects of particle physics is its close connection with astrophysics and cosmology. In particular, many of the fundamental questions about our Universe - such as the origin of matter, the formation of structures including galaxies,...


05/13/05--15:29: Sur-Prize (chan 1356719)

As I have mentioned in previous posts in this blog, my collaborators Nick Mavromatos, Dimitri Nanopoulos and I have been developing a novel string approach to cosmology, in which we allow the string to live in a space that evolves...


05/29/05--01:26: Was there a sneutrino in your past? (chan 1356719)

Where does the matter in the Universe come from? We are made of molecules containing atoms of heavy elements made in supernova explosions. Atoms could not exist when the Universe was less than about 300,000 years old. Before then the...


05/29/05--01:30: From (India and) Russia with love (chan 1356719)

This week we had contacts with high-level representatives of a couple of non-member countries that are participating strongly in the LHC programme. Last Wednesday CERN was visited by the President of India, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam. Born into a...


06/05/05--03:36: Back in the (ex-)USSR (chan 1356719)

Back to Russia again, for the second time in a week, this time for a meeting of Scientific Council of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna. A new Director has recently been designated, Alexei Sissakian, and the...


07/08/05--10:56: From Big Bangs to Little Bangs (chan 1356719)

A PPARC Council meeting yesterday took me to London just as the multiple terrorist explosions were unfolding. I arrived by train at King’s Cross station shortly after the explosion in an Underground train in a tunnel nearby. We were told...