Recommended by us: Interview with John Ellis

To come across John Ellis at CERN is actually not a rare event: at seminars, at coffee breaks... But probably in those situations you do not have so much courage or time to ask him what is his position about the role of science in the society, or even more when he decided to become a theoretical physicist!

If you have a kind of curiosity about these topics and other related questions, take a look at this interview: past CERN Summer Students with the kind help of the PH Newsletter have had the fortune to ask to him directly

http://ph-news.web.cern.ch/content/interview-john-ellis


Have a good read and, if you will have the patience to go until the end, you will find a final question to you.

The brightest pulsar ever

Last week the astrophysics community was hit by an exciting news. A very luminous X-ray source located in the "Cigar" galaxy M82 was discovered to be a spinning neutron star (a pulsar) rather than a black hole, as all models have assumed so far. This research was lead by astrophysicist Matteo Bachetti, who also happens to be a writer of this blog. Thus, we take the opportunity to ask Matteo a couple of questions whose answers you will not find in the excellent press (and radio) coverage that has followed the publication of this discovery.

Q: Matteo, first of all congratulations for what sounds like a great scientific achievement! How would you explain this discovery to my grandma?