Here is the complete press conference held today, July 4, 2012, at the CERN offices in Geneva, Switzerland. (Alas, the press conference was not held in Cedar Hill, Texas, making it a monument to the dangers of saying “we can’t be great in America any more” and refusing to appropriate money for science, or anything else good.)
This may be the biggest discovery of the decade for particle physics; it’s incredibly exciting, despite the appearance of calm. It may be the biggest discovery of the century. (We have 88 years left in the century, too.)
This is the full press conference update on the search for the Higgs boson at CERN in Geneva Switzerland. This press conference followed the 2-hour Seminar that you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAlgX4FNiyM
This original CERN webcast recording was officially published at https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604 but I re-uploaded it here because YouTube is best. The CERN Copyright notice seems to say doing something like this may be ok http://copyright.web.cern.ch/ but if they release this video on the official http://youtube.com/cerntv YouTube channel, I may remove this copy from my YouTube account.
So, if the video above goes dark, check the official CERN YouTube site.
Especially for middle school and high school teachers, More:
On September 30th America’s biggest particle accelerator, the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago, will be switched off for good. Until the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) started smashing protons in earnest, the Tevatron was the fanciest bit of kit at physicists’ disposal. When it shuts down, America will have conceded the high-energy-physics game to Europe, whose CERN laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva is home to the LHC. Some American (and foreign) scientists are dismayed. Others hope that planned new experiments at Fermilab, which will be probing the strange behaviour of particles called neutrinos, will make up for the loss of the Tevatron. But the cost of these new projects, though less than the LHC’s, will still be counted in the billions of dollars. Is fundamental science worth that much money, especially in the current unfavourable economic climate? Should the United States be funding expensive projects with no obvious practical applications? Cast your vote and join the discussion.
You voted: Yes Current total votes: 2238
Voting opened on Sep 29th 2011
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
The video fills an educational need. It explains some of the work in high-energy particle physics going on there on the border between France and Switzerland.
This video could make a key part of a geography warm-up, noting research in the European Union. CERN’s premier position in nuclear particle research is due to the cancellation in 1993 of the Superconducting Super Collider, which was then under construction near Waxahatchie, Texas. A little bit of digging could produce a lesson plan on government funding of research, especially in nuclear physics, or on geography of such massive cyclotrons, or on the history of particle physics, black holes, or uses for atom splitting.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
/ˈsɜrn/; French pronunciation: [sɛʁn]; see History) is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border (46°14′3″N 6°3′19″E). Established in 1954, the organization has 20 European member states.”
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 