'The Ideas of Particle Physics : four decades past and the next' Physics Alumni Event Summer 2020

'The Ideas of Particle Physics : four decades past and the next' by Dr James Dodd DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, ALUMNI EVENT Hosted by Prof Ian Shipsey (Head of Physics) 20 June 2020 Over the last four decades, many outstanding questions in particle physics have been answered, leading to the Standard Model and its spectacular confirmation with the discovery of the Higgs boson and a wide range of experiments. But our increasingly sophisticated level of understanding has led to even deeper questions. The recently confirmed phenomenon of neutrino oscillations (and so neutrino mass) is definitely beyond its scope. Also, cosmological observations now indicate that as much as 96 percent of the Universe is made up of unknown sources of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ which have yet to be accommodated within the SM. On the theoretical side, yet another string revolution has resulted in a new understanding of string theories as the limit of ‘M-theory’, but whose exact structure is not yet known, leaving the incorporation of a possible quantum theory of gravity as elusive as ever. This talk presents the story of the Ideas of Particle Physics from its origins mid-last century, and outlines the challenges ahead for the future. To see the Q&A list and more details, please visit this page: https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/blog/al... This video is copyright Department of Physics, University of Oxford. Any networking, redistribution, or reproduction of all or part of this site in any form is strictly prohibited without express permission of the Alumni Office [email protected]