Mittwoch, 15. Mrz 2017, 15:00 - 16:30 iCal

Guest lecture Martina Merz and Sophie Ritson

The “750 GeV Bump” in the Light of the Tri-Relation between Media, Theory, and Experiment

Hs. 3E im Neuen Institutsgebäude (NIG)
Universitätsstraße 7, 1010 Wien

Vortrag


On 15 Dec 2015 the two biggest experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider independently announced results, illustrated by a ‘bump’ around 750 GeV of small significance, which indicated the possibility of ‘new physics’. The announcement was followed by a flurry of activity. Within only two days, theoretical physicists had uploaded several dozen papers on the resonance at 750 GeV while major newspapers and physicists’ blogs spread the news across wider communities and publics. Behind the scenes, experimental physicists in the ATLAS and CMS collaborations gathered additional data and continued their analysis under heightened attention. Those watching the LHC were concerned with the evolving status of the 750 GeV resonance with additional data: would the observed excess become a ‘discovery’ of new physics or would it disappear, rendering the initial result a statistical fluctuation? The status of the observed 750 GeV resonance assumed special importance in view of the belief and hope of physicists that the LHC would discover novel phenomena. Half a year later, in August 2016, this belief was tempered when both experiments declared that the bump was a statistical fluke.

This recent episode of a non-discovery provides an interesting and multifaceted study case for STS and HPS scholarship. In this paper, we will explore the management of credibility as it is exposed and performed within the lively public debate involving different actor groups and media (e.g. preprints, blog posts, talks, newspaper articles). With a focus on the tri-relation between media, theory and experiment, this paper will investigate also how credibility is attributed to distinct actor groups differentially. In addressing these issues, we will pay attention to how this episode of a non-discovery brings to the fore the implicit and explicit norms and standards underlying experimental and theoretical practice.

Martina Merz is Professor of Science Studies at the Department of Science Communication and Higher Education Research, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt | Wien | Graz. Sophie Ritson is a post-doctoral researcher in the project "Producing Novelty and Securing Credibility: LHC Experiments in STS-Perspective", funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).


Veranstalter

Doktoratskolleg "Naturwissenschaften im historischen, philosophischen und kulturellen Kontext"


Kontakt

Mag. Mag. Mag. Ramon Pils, DipTrans
Institut für Geschichte
01 4277 40872
dksciences.geschichte@univie.ac.at