Think of the universe as a skateboard park: Supernovas and sphalerons

Forget politics and enjoy some physics. (If you're American, vote first!)

Last week I spent a couple of days in Abingdon discussing particle physics, and specifically where we might be headed with the high-energy collision data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Whatever it may be remembered for in terms of celebrity deaths and politics, 2016 has been a great year for the LHC, with more collision data delivered than ever before, at the highest energy so far.

I shared a taxi from Didcot Parkway with John Ellis and Nick Mavromatos, two particle theorists from King's College London (though John has spent much of his career at CERN). Whenever two or more scientists get together these days, they will discuss Brexit and/or Trump. But (probably desperate to change topic) we also talked about some relatively recent evidence for pieces of supernova impacting the Earth about 2.5 million years ago. This article is written in a similar spirit.