The Standard Model Standard

The moderately hungover first years were blissfully unaware of what I was about to tell them. For the past month I have been teaching undergraduate classical mechanics and this week I made an announcement. An announcement of the 2013 physics Nobel Prize winners. In an attempt of dramatics, I also told the tale of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson, for it was Peter Higgs and François Englert who won the 2013 Nobel prize. Both for their work on the theory of the elusive boson that usually goes by the name of the Higgs boson.

A Belgian Boson

I was first told about the Belgian physicists Robert Brout and François Englert, by another Belgian physicist. In a flag waving moment, it was explained to me that Belgians exclusively call the Higgs boson the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson. The reason for this is that the mentioned Belgian duo invented and published the theory, independent of Higgs, only a few months before Higgs himself had. The duos' article can be found here, have a browse, it's in English. Unfortunately, Robert Brout died in 2011. He never got to witness the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson discovery at ATLAS last year, and as for the Nobel prize, well, you kind-of sort-of have to be alive for that...

The Standard Model

The discovery of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson has been said to be one of the final pieces for the Standard Model of physics. This Standard Model is an attempt of a theory of everything - one theory that can explain every bit of physics. The Standard Model has proven to be highly successful, but it still doesn't play well with gravity. But, that doesn't hinder CERN's love of the standard model. They have it's main equation carved into stone:

The SM set in stone at CERN.

In honour of Brout, Englert, Higg and the Standard Model, here are some resources to check out the (Brout-Englert)-Higgs boson and the Standard Model.

Some Video Tape

To start light and short and at the Cranium level, MinutePhysics has a video about the (Brout-Englert)-Higgs boson (below), and about a theory of every thing (here).

Now to jump up in level to a Tibia / Mandible level for my favourite resource: PIRSA. Here's the link to the 2011 Standard Model course by Philip Schuster and Natalia Toro. I chose this year because I've watched every video from it, and they were rather epic.

The Standard Model as the Perimeter Institute sees it.

Some Notes

Staying at the Tibia / Mandible level, these notes are from a series of postgraduate lecture courses, by Professor Wing of UCL.

Alternatively, these ones from the University of Virginia, by Ivo van Vulpen, are more related to the Higgs boson: The Standard Model Higgs Boson.

The above two notes are the forte of this post. You don't need to use both, however, just the one that works best for you.

Previous Particle Post

A while ago I wrote an intro to particle physics post - The Particle Have Landed. The videos at the end are where I'm particularly wanting to point you, right now.

Vive la résistance: la physique!