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Video URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vUgCcUGES8

Video Description

What is supersymmetry? In this video, the JESup team explains the basics behind this powerful theory in particle physics. Starting from an investigation of the symmetries of a square, we eventually work our way up to a discussion of the current search for evidence of supersymmetric particles with the Large Hadron Collider, a giant particle smasher buried beneath the Swiss-French border!

Video Co-Creator(s)

Katie Colford, Yale University

Video Creator Bio

Will De Rocco and Katie Colford are both juniors at Yale University. Will has had a love of physics since he was in second grade and has been working since then to pursue his dream of becoming a particle physicist. He has spent the last two summers working at CERN on the search for supersymmetry. Katie has always found physics a beautiful subject and enjoys trying to teach younger people about it.

25 days later

Will and Katie,

Thank you for your entertaining and instructive video about supersymmetry. You made good use of pen and paper, and I particularly liked the analogy at the end of a pencil not being strong enough to bleed through the paper to reveal new symmetries!

Your video is a good match for the goal of this contest --- to show "the fun of physics" --- and I hope it does well. Good luck!

Marc

P.S. If you have a chance to view, comment and vote on my trilogy of videos entitled "This Is Physics" --- where I try to convey the "fun of physics" by focusing on some of the greatest moments of its history --- it would be quite appreciated! I think many of the participants in the contest have not yet realized that a video needs to get at least 10 community ratings to be considered for the final round, so I have started to actively ask for ratings... Don't hesitate to do the same, many authors had to resort to this approach in the previous contests organized by FQXi...

    Thank you so much, Marc! We had no idea that a video had to get ten community ratings, so thanks for the heads up!

    8 days later

    Well it was fun,

    Of course; at some point, it got a little too real, when I started to smell the Sharpie, but... I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. The analogy is perhaps a bit of a stretch, but we'll have to see. It is certain that some phenomena only 'live' in the higher energy regime, which may be a window on the higher-dimensional realm that could be home to super-symmetric particles. We'll have to see if the LHC is indeed sufficient to show us what 'bleeds through' from that regime, or if there are super-symmetric particles to be found.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

    Hey Will and Katie,

    I thoroughly enjoyed your video! It was very informative and well thought out. I also enjoyed the way you chose to present the information through illustrations.

    If you get a chance I'd love to hear what you guys think of our video. Please don't forget to rate it!

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2189

    Thanks so much,

    Ian

    Great job of making a complicated concept very simple. You did a really elegant job. Low tech, high quality. Love it! I keep thinking they've got to find proof of supersymmetry at CERN or there's gonna be trouble!

    If you would please vote on our 2 short videos, we would really appreciate it:

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2167

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2230

    Thanks so much,

    Schatzie Dudee and kids

    hello will and Katie

    Supersymmetry - wow,maybe between fermions and Bosons.In strings Dualities.In the ordinary world The sexes Male and female,elegant and splendid in particle theory about chirality(handedness).in newtonian physics the concept of action and reaction.its what makes the world so exciting killing boredom,Please take your time to rate my simple video that at a glance gives you the concept of symmetry in 11 dimensions here- http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2223

    7 days later

    Great simple, non-math explanation of Supersymmetry. The length was just right and noting that there appear to be a lot of missing bosons was well presented.

    Thank you and please check out my video at:

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2257

    Amusing and interesting !

    Thanks for your comments on my video. I just voted for yours, and you got 10 community ratings!

    stephane

    FYI, supersymmetry also used to be talked about a lot as a way to solve the problem of the flatness of the universe. With all the quantum fields out there, they all have huge vacuum energies associated with them which, if we believe general relativity, should immensely warp spacetime into a wrapped-up curving mess. But if you have exactly symmetric bosonic and fermionic fields, everything exactly cancels out and you're left with no vacuum energy at all, and a perfectly flat universe. I guess this has become less of a concern since we discovered that the universe is NOT perfectly flat, but filled with a (MUCH smaller, like 10200 times smaller) amount of vacuum energy after all, which we call Dark Energy. Perfect symmetry doesn't do so great a job of explaining a slight asymmetry.

    Anyways, the video was fun and I think you did a really good job especially of explaining to people what physicists, as opposed to everyday language, mean when we talk about a symmetry. If you have time, it'd be cool to follow up with a video explaining discrete vs. continuous symmetries. Get the sharpie out again and draw a circle :)

    If you care to come check out and rate my videos, they're the A Capella Science ones. Have a lovely day!

    -Tim

    8 years later
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