Supersymmetry Part 3

The history of supersymmetry is exceptional. In the past, virtually all major conceptual breakthroughs have occurred because physicists were trying to understand some established aspect of nature. In contrast, the discovery of supersymmetry in the early 1970s was a purely intellectual achievement, driven by the logic of theoretical development rather than by the pressure of existing data.  The history of supersymmetry is unique because it was discovered practically simultaneously and independently by two groups of researchers in different parts of the world. 

Supersymmetry was first proposed by Hironari Miyazawa in 1966, but his work was ignored at the time. In the early 1970s two groups of researchers rediscovered supersymmetry independent of each other. The discovery was made by these groups without any collaboration between them because of political tension between their respective countries at the time. One group in the USSR was exploring the mathematics of space-time symmetry and the other group in the west was trying to add fermions to bosonic string theory.

In the USSR, mathematicians Yuri Gol'fand and E. P. Likhtman wanted to do something exotic with the group theory of space-time symmetries. What Gol'fand and Likhtman ended up with was the group theory of supersymmetric transformations in four space-time dimensions. Using this new type of symmetry they constructed the first supersymmetric quantum field theory. Their work was ignored, both in the Soviet Union and in the West, until years later when supersymmetry was recognized as a major topic of investigation in particle physics. 

In the west, a completely different approach was taken. In 1973 Julius Wess and Bruno Zumino developed a theory of supersymmetry while studying two dimensional dual models. Dual models later came to be known as string theory.

Supersymmetry Part 2

Supersymmetry proposes that there are more elementary particles that are yet to be discovered. According to Supersymmetry every particle in the Standard Model has what is known as a superpartner also referred to as a supersymmetric particle or a super particle. A supersymmetric particle has a lot more mass than its partner particle. Physicists believe that the reason that these supersymmetric particles have not been discovered is that they are too massive to be detected in the particle accelerators of the past. Particle accelerators are machines that smash particles together at high speeds to break them into their constituent particles. Older particle accelerators cannot generate enough energy to approach the speeds needed to produce supersymmetric particles. Physicists are hoping to discover some of the supersymmetric particles with the use of the newer large scale particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

Supersymmetry relates the particles that transmit forces to the particles that make up matter. For every boson (particle that transmits a force) there is a corresponding supersymmetric fermion and for every fermion (particle that makes up matter) there is a corresponding supersymmetric boson. The existence of superpartners would double the amount of elementary particles in the Standard Model. Supersymmetry also introduces a new kind of mathematics. In the math that we use in everyday life numbers that are multiplied are commutative. That is to say that the numbers can be swapped with each other on both sides of the multiplication operator and they will still produce the same result; for example A x B = B x A. The math of supersymmetry can have A x B = -A x B or A x A = 0 even if A is not equal to 0. The combination of superpartners and the math of supersymmetry allow the particles in the Standard Model to be shuffled around an interchanged without creating inconsistencies in the equations that are applied to them. 

Supersymmetry is an important element for string theory. Evidence for supersymmetry at high energy would be compelling evidence that string theory is a good mathematical model for nature at the smallest distance scales.

Online Development Application

I'd like to see a free online version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. I've seen online compilers for many different programming languages. They all have their pros and cons, but I have yet to see one that offers all of the features of Visual Studio. Some of the features that I would like to see are syntax highlighting and a built in debugger that allows breakpoints to be set and single stepping through the code. Perhaps there can be some added features that go beyond Visual Studio such as support for multiple platforms and support for many of the common programming and scripting languages other than the ones that Visual Studio already supports.
 
There is something similar to an online version of Visual Studio at: http://coderun.com/. It looks like an online integrated development environment and it claims to have native support for C#/.NET (3.5), PHP (5.1), JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It looks like it is geared more towards web development. I don't see any C or C++ support like I suggested, but I haven't gotten into the details yet. This is close to what I suggested. It has the look of Visual Studio's IDE. If it supported more languages it would be exactly what I am looking for.

Using jQuery

Recently I was trying to figure out how to create some graphics and animations on web pages using JavaScript. After searching on the Internet I found that there are quite a few graphics libraries that can be used with JavaScript. I wasn’t sure which one would suite my purposes. Then I learned about jQuery. jQuery is a JavaScript library that allows you to add graphics and animations as well as many other enhancements to interactive web pages. After going through a couple of jQuery tutorial videos on youtube.com It was easy for me to see just how powerful it can be. I’ve learned some the basics of manipulating text. You can hide text and make it appear by clicking on a link. I’m sure you can add a button to make the text appear to add a more graphical experience to a web page. You can also manipulate how the text appears, such as fading in or sliding in. You can also alter the speed that the text appears. There are more tutorial videos that I wish to go through to enhance my knowledge of jQuery to create some interesting interactive web pages. 

Another thing that I learned serendipitously in the youtube tutorials on jQuery was how to create websites using Visual Studio. I’ve used Visual Studio in the past for C/C++ development, but I’ve always used a rudimentary text editor or a program called arachnophilia to create HTML documents. Arachnophilia is a nice free HTML editor. Creating web sites with Visual Studio is very convenient because it makes it easy to identify typos and missing delimiters and also gives you hints about what keywords can be used with certain functions and HTML tags. It also provides references and tutorials for the programming languages that it supports including HTML and CSS.

A Useful Interactive Web Page

I was thinking that maybe an interactive web page dedicated to shopping on family websites may be useful. Say, for instance, that a family member notices that they are running low on milk, bread, or any other thing that is needed in the household he or she could go to the family’s shopping page and add those items. An entire shopping list could be added to the web page. Any other family members that happen to be out and about could check the web page on their mobile device before coming home to see what should be picked up at the store before returning. Perhaps the capability can be added so that they can remove the items from the list as they are purchased.

As I think more about it I see that there are a couple of problems with that idea. First, the webpage would need to be password protected so that it is not accessible to the general public who could add or remove items from the list. Second, how could the information be stored? I did a little googling about how to create files using JavaScript and most of the articles that I've read say that you cannot create files using JavaScript through a browser because that would be a security risk. At any rate, I think it would be a convenience to have an interactive web page that has that capability if JavaScript allows for password protected web pages that can somehow store input information that can be retrieved later from another location.

I have gotten some very good feedback on this suggestion. One suggestion by Karen Lamphier was to use a back-end database to store the information. William Allo commented that this type of application already exists on mobile devices that synchronizes items on a list with other mobile devices and allows for adding and removing items.

Creating an Interactive Web Page with JavaScript

This week I've learned how to create an interactive web page using JavaScript.  JavaScript is easy to use and provides added capabilities for creating web pages that are lacking in HTML.  While HTML allows you to create web pages that are static (what you see is what you get) JavaScript allow you to create dynamic web pages that the user can interact with.  JavaScript is similar to the Java programming language, but they are not the same thing. Java was created by Sun Microsystems and its source code needs to be compiled into machine language to create standalone applications that don't require a browser to run. JavaScript was created by Netscape and is mainly used in HTML documents where its commands are interpreted by a browser. Many of the programming structures of Java and JavaScript are similar, but JavaScript uses a smaller command set that is easier to understand.  JavaScript code is embedded in an HTML document.  It allows for the use of variables and the creation of buttons, text boxes, and other objects that allow users to input information and interact with the web page.  Java code is not embedded in HTML documents, but is compiled into a standalone program or applet which is stored in a separate file.  HTML can then be used to invoke the standalone programs.