Rumor of the Week

A few months ago, CDF, the New York Times by releasing results claiming to see a resonance in the invariant mass spectrum of two rays produced together with a w. last week, they released a new analysis with twice as much data, alleging that the signal was still there, now at a statistical significance of almost 5 sigma.

I recently wrote about this here, the reasons for his skeptical, despite the high statistical significance. A very good reason for being a skeptic is that the CDF Tommaso Dorigo is not that this is really believe, go so far as to put his money where his mouth is, offering a $ 100 bet to back up his arguments. The crucial question in everyone's mind is been or D0, CDF of competition and sister detector at Fermilab, would the same thing in the data. If there really is something there, D0.

This Friday, there will be a wine and cheese talk on Fermilab D0, where the results will be revealed, and you can use this as a live video stream here. But, as one would expect, now that the D0 result is ready to be revealed, people do things like print jobs late on printers, etc., allowing editors to spread rumors. Blogs like this seem to be a place where such information tend to end up, so I can report a rumor (based on excellent sources) that Tommaso's right. D0 will on Friday report that nothing is there, that they have no evidence for a dijet resonance in the region of 110-170 GeV. They reject the CDF hypothesis of a resonance with a diameter of 4 OJ on a significance level of more than 4 sigma.

In other news, the LHC performed very well, with the official purpose of this week to achieve an integrated luminosity of fb-1, something that has been the official goal for the entire year (though, unofficially, 2-3 fb-1 if the more). Right now, they are around 8 fb-1. This kind of clarity should finally start to results that a Higgs in the region that are expected to exclude or see first indications if, in the next few months.

The KITP this week marks the beginning of a program on the first year of the LHC. Unfortunately, theorists, the only result data from the first year of the LHC had to shoot some of their favorite models, ruling from, for example, a large amount of parameter space where supersymmetry was expected to be found, which is the most popular theoretical idea of the last 30 years are considerably less popular. The first interview held at the KITP Program was this afternoon, and not with the LHC data, but with the alleged CDF resonance (it appears that news of the D0 result had not yet made it to Santa Barbara).

Update: the KITP talk is now available here.

Quick Links

The big news from the past few days is the release of more data by CDF which is still a bump in the invariant mass of two beams produced with a w. Resonaances gives an excellent description of this and the possible meaning. Tommaso Dorigo remains a skeptic.

I can't do better than the two of them on this story, but here's my summary to take on the situation:

With the new data, this may no longer be written off as a statistical fluke. 3 sigma you can claim off as such a fluke, but not 5 sigma.

The main reason to be skeptical but it is not the statistical significance, but the possibility that this is due to poor modeling of background. The signal is extracted from a huge background, so a small misunderstanding of the background would be the cause. If this is the case, expect that the new data does not change anything, you have to continue to see the effect as more data is analysed.

The fact that Tommaso a skeptic is carries much weight, as he is on the CDF experiment works and understand the problems. In general, the experimentalists to experiments that they are working on to make great discoveries, so tend to have their own results optimists. When someone skeptical about the outcome of their own experiment, that gives a break.

What would really be the case for the new physics here would be more compelling if the result is confirmed by one of the other experiments (DO at Fermilab, CMS or on the LHC ATLAS) that able to see the same effect as it's there. These groups have a certain motivation to confirm not only their competition from the discovery (raise the question why they don't find it first), but in a convincing way to shoot it down. This post by Pauline Gagnon of ATLAS says that they have nothing in their data 2010. It is expected that D0 is hard at work and should quickly free what they have found. ATLAS and CMS must also hard at work looking for the much larger 2011 examples. We will soon know the results, but the public comments from Dorigo and Gagnon not sounds to me like they would if they knew their experiments provisional confidential results confirm the CDF anomaly.

Finally, while there are numerous paper theory models out already with alleged explanation for this, are not really convincing. This is not an experimental result with theoretical explanation a naturally attractive.

Year 3 Mathematics: couples who make 100

When working out how much more to make a number of up to 100 it important not to mix up two different ways to do it. Let's ask the question:

' How much more there is of 45 to 100? "

One way to do this is to add 5 to 45, 50 and then count on 50 to 100. That is a total of 55.

Another way is to count on in dozens of 45 to 95, that is 50, and then add it to the extra 5, again making 55.

Watch out for children who get something confised, adding at from 40 to 100, 60, and then on another 5. This method will always lead to ten more than the correct answer.

The ultimate goal of questions such as these is to make the answers second nature or even know them off by heart. "

This page can be found in our annual 3, calculation of the section.

Full number of sentences (pg 2)

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Source of the Week: 6 year convert metric units

Children in year 6 still have plenty of practice using the metric system, in particular larger convert metric units to smaller. Here we are a page that looks meters into centimeters, pounds to grams and liters to ml mark.

One of the trickier aspects of this is to put a weight as 6.09 kg in grams, which of course is 6090 g. watch out for common mistake children write only 609 g.

This is one of several similar pages found in our year 6 measuring section of the site.

Year 6 larger units for smaller units (1)

Stern equipment from MathsExtra

Learn the best by far the best equipment of mathematics that I am over the years come the Stern structural arithmetic program, which encourages children to reason than just rote. This approach was designed to follow a child's natural stages of learning and development in the early years, up for the development of a number of number sense, concepts, knowledge and number of relationships, as well as to ensure that the required skills in place prior to any formal work. It is also ideal for SEN children where little or no progress has been made in the past and for children who are ' on ' move to the next phase, a clear insight in the earlier phases.

Stimulate a child's cognitive processing functions is the core of the programme; the range of equipment offers beautiful ' pictures ' which Visual and auditory perceptual processing to develop.

An example is the ' trap ' in the 10-Box, where a more cube add makes it the same size as the next number. The concept is explicit-adding a to any number always will result in the next issue.

The Board of Directors position and counting introduces order. The simple task, when you are prompted for a block to fit in an empty groove indicated, develops, of course, judging, scan and discrimination ability of a child. Children discover that each block has its own special place in the series of blocks to 10. This means that there is not only to work with numbers up to 5.  Number of relationships are an essential building block. Instead, children see the small numbers of all ' live ' at the beginning, and larger ' live ' at the end, (later to be on the left and right).

As an example of the approach of the structural arithmetic, look 3 + 7 = 10. Children discover all combinations that will create 10 by fitting combinations of blocks in the 10-box. They reason that if 9 1 should make 10, 8, 2, 3 and 7, 10. By switching of the blocks around, they discover that the order of the addends can be altered without the sum. So, they understand that addition can be done in random order and put it to use, reasoning that if 7 + 3 = 10, then 3 + 7 = 10. This fact is not taught in isolation, but has been examined in a context where the relatioship to the other facts can be seen.

When children see an example like 5 + 4 = and don't know the answer, they often respond by counting ' 6, 7, 8, 9. Teachers can assume that encouraging children to count, will one day result in their stop counting and say, ' 9 '. Stern argues that, in fact, every time they see + 4 (as in 6 + 4 or 9 + 4), they are practicing automatic counting. The numbers themselves have no sense. Counting child equal 5 plus 4 not 9; It makes 9 by counting. No picture in the mind of the child makes it number fact 5 + 4 = 9 unforgettable. In addition, if children the total incorrect if 10 count, they have no certain way to check that result except by another uncertain counting procedure. On the other hand, in the structural arithmetic measuring the two addends actually 9 5 and 4 in the Track number.

The stern kits are not cheap, but I would advise having a further read on

http://www.mathsextra.com/

The path of a football ....

Sharpen your pencils, and on your thinking cap for this quadratic problem. The projected path of a kicked football is represented by a function, and your task is to know how much time the ball in the air, what the height of the ball of path is, what the the line of symmetry, axis of symmetry, quadratic zeros and corner point of the function.

Of course, when you're ready, you can have your answers here.
See also: quadratic equations

More year 4 mental arithmetic: subtraction

This is the second page of ' very difficult ' subtraction questions for year 4, that needs to be answered by using mental arithmetic methods, although many adults would struggle to achieve the correct answers: they are really very difficult!

Once again shows that there are different ways to set up each question; the key is to choose a method that efficiently and quickly. For example, they can be performed by counting, but this is also possible the quickest way and it's speed and accuracy that we are looking for.

It is also always a really good idea to check answers by performing the inverse operation; in this case would complement the answer and smallest number the largest number.

This, and other similar pages can be found in our year 4 calculations category even if the section four lines.

Very difficult mental arithmetic: subtraction_ (2)

Free group worksheets

Fractions, fractions, fractions, they just don't get fractions! as I've heard this comment once, I've heard it 1000 times. Unfortunately, without enough practical experience, students struggling with fractions when you begin with fractions, have students find the half in sets and repeat using a quarter of the entire (half of a circle, chocolate bar and half of 10 flowers or 4 sweets). Many concrete examples use before going to the developmentally appropriate worksheets here.