As this is the last Indigenous Scholars Speaker series until September this will be a hybrid session. Please join to share some Bannock while enjoying the featured April presenter Kyle Shiells. As space is limited please RSVP Danielle.Lang@umanitoba.ca to reserve your in person spot. A calendar invite will be shared at that time.
Since our earliest times, people have been trying to explain the world around them. What are we made of? What is matter? How does it all work? In this goal, which seems to be tied to human nature, we seem to have a natural insistence on identifying a finite number of “elements” or parts which complete a whole picture of everything we can observe and know. This can be seen from Medicine Wheels to Periodic Tables. In many instances, some of us also require some central unifying principles which gives rise to all the parts – reinforcing a complete whole. I will try to draw on these philosophical ideas of describing nature, and share the picture currently adopted in the so-called Standard Model of elementary particle physics.
One of the “parts” of the Standard Model is the theory of the Strong interactions which is responsible for forming the nuclei in atoms and it is sometimes the called the “glue” that binds us all together. Nuclei, or more generally hadrons, constitute over 99% of all the tactile matter as we know it on earth: from your Manitoba poplar trees to the Assiniboine River to the venison steak on your plate. If we ask what are we made of, hadrons can fill much of that answer! And yet as numerous and prevalent as hadrons are, physicists still struggle to explain how they are formed. I will discuss some general features of the theory of Strong interactions, and why it is difficult to make predictions with it. I will then discuss some of the historical attempts physicists have made to make sense of hadrons, and where we are now today. I will then explain my role in this effort as a so-called nuclear femtographer. The plot takes a very interesting turn when we return to the idea of completing the picture and finding a central unification – motivated by Indigenous perspectives.