If the Higgs Boson Is Found I'll.....
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions: (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I do intend to brush up on my E&M.
But I intend to do that every day, so I guess the same as always.
Same thing (Score:5, Funny)
The same thing I do every night.
Try to take ov^H^H^H^H^H^H^H understand the world!
Re:Same thing (Score:2)
are you pondering what I am pondering?
Higgs Bosun? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't get me wrong, his job is important but shouldn't we look for the Higgs Captain?
Well, it's life, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it;
it's life, Jim, but not as we know it, not as we know it, Captain.
It's worse than that, it's physics, Jim. [youtube.com]
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:3, Funny)
We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, shoot to kill
We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill, men
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:5, Funny)
Ye canna change tha laws of physics, laws of physics, laws of physics!
Ye canna change tha laws of physics, laws of physics, Captain!
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:3)
You should all get bonus points for remembering this. And for the record...
There's Klingons on the starboard bow...
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:2)
I thought of that song last night while watching an episode of ST:TNG.
They were literally saying the come in peaces WHILE firing phaser at them.
Pew, pew.
We come [pew, pew] in peace.
Pew pew.
The same episodes that instead of beaming out the person ion trouble, or the person causing trouble, they had Riker shoot is [current episode] love 3 times.
Which was also stupid because each time she stop and was clearly in pain,l but he kept upping the power.
More evidence that Number one was actually a Number two.
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:2)
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:2)
Actually, he's not even a Bosun, just an Airman Third Class. [wikia.com] However, he *is* Unstoppable.
Re:Higgs Bosun? (Score:3)
Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd like to pick option 1, but, actually, I've never really seen a good explanation of the Higgs mechanism; all the explanations I've seen end up being either way too superficial, or way too mathematical, so I have no idea what the origin of mass is even if the Higgs particle is found.
It doesn't help that the word "mass" is used in physics with at least five different meanings (connected meanings, of course, linked via relations such as the equivalence principle), and I'm not quite sure which meaning(s) of mass is(are) being explained.
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm no expert either. Apparently the proton's rest mass is 1% due to the Higgs and 99% due to the kinetic energy of its component quarks (energy mass). AFAICT the Higgs doesn't explain this 99%, M-E equivalence does; Higgs explains only the rest mass of the quarks.
I've heard claims that if the rest mass wasn't there, everything else would be super-mysterious, but photons seem to do OK with kinetic energy and no rest mass, so I'm as confused as you are about this Higgs thingy.
I think perhaps it's real importance is to complete the Standard Model, not really to explain mass, and that the explaining mass part is just a handy media soundbite.
Can anyone more knowledgeable inform us?
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Informative)
Its been a while, but the rest mass is the important part for making particles travel less than the speed of light. Light itself has kinetic mass for example, and yet it still travels at the speed of light.
Kinetic mass also has the property that it changes depending on your frame of reference. If you manage to push yourself up to the speed of light (so that you're traveling right along side some specific photon,) then you would measure that photon's mass as zero. A proton on the other hand would have a non-zero mass (its rest mass.) The Higgs mechanism is an explanation for why that non-zero mass exists.
One of Leonard Susskind's lectures goes into detail as to exactly what happens here, but its been a year or so since I watched those and I can't recall much details by now. All I really remember is that the Higgs is a scalar field and that there's some kind of pseudo-motion at the bottom of a Mexican hat function. The energy of the cross-motion (up and down the sides) interacts with real matter in some fashion giving rise to the observed rest masses. Or something like that! Might want to go watch the videos yourself in case my memory is more off-base than I think it is ;).
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Informative)
Err.. quick link to Dr. Susskind's lectures [youtube.com] on Stanford's Youtube channel for anyone who's interested.
Higgs Mechanism Explained (Score:5, Interesting)
The other strange property that when you take all the energy out of the Higgs field the strength of the field does not go to zero. This is another big difference with, e.g. magnetic fields where no energy means that the field strength is zero. This property means that the universe is filled with a non-zero Higgs field because the lowest energy state of the field is when the strength is not zero. This non-zero field, filling the universe, is what fundamental particles bind to and this binding energy gives them a mass. So, fundamentally, the Higgs mechanism explains why mass is related to energy because all masses come from energy.
The final piece of the puzzle is why do we need to do all this instead of just give the particles a mass. This reasoning is a little complex but if we just give the particles masses this breaks an important symmetry which we see in nature. The Higgs mechanism gets around this by letting the physics be symmetric but having the universe (i.e. the environment) not be symmetric due to the non-zero Higgs field.
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a pretty good explanation:
http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/the-known-apparently-elementary-particles/the-known-particles-if-the-higgs-field-were-zero/ [profmattstrassler.com]
In short (and by my potentially incomplete understanding), the theory explains mass as a sort of drag introduced by the Higgs field. This serves to link mass and energy, explaining where rest mass comes from and why mass increases at relativistic velocities (higher drag). This is handy because we've 'known' for a while that mass is an artifact of energy but had no real explanation as to how/why. As far as "explaining mass", however, it does almost nothing: It replaces 'why does this have mass x' with 'why does this have y interaction with the Higgs field'. So indeed I'd not personally consider it as an "explanation for the origin of mass", but it is a step in the right direction (well, supposing it is right!).
Does a lot to Explain Mass (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as "explaining mass", however, it does almost nothing
No, actually it does a huge amount! The bit you are missing is that if you give particles mass then they break very important symmetries of nature (which in turn means that we would expect to see violations of conservation laws which are not observed). The Higgs mechanism gets around this by saying that while the laws of physics are symmetrical the universe is not. So while on the face of it may seem not to do much for mass behind the scenes it lets us have both the particle masses and the symmetries which we need to explain the universe.
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:3)
Now when I build mass fabricators in Supreme Commander I'll be able to better appreciate the energy required.
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Informative)
You start off sounding very authoritative and then just kind of trail off into complete ignorance ...
The lighter particles are not "made out of" Higgs Bosons.
The Higgs Boson is the mediation particle for the Higgs field; it's the field that gives rest mass to quarks, not the boson itself (in the same way, photons don't make things electrically charged). The point is, the Higgs field equation turns into something in the Hamiltonian that looks exactly like a rest mass term, so we can say that the particles don't have that rest mass term intrinsically, but that it comes from the Higgs field interactions.
All this is easily gleaned from Wikipedia.
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:5, Informative)
The Higgs Boson is one of the most heavy particles in the standard model. So there is no way the mass of the lighter particles can be made out of Higgs Bosons.
Well, at least I do know the answer to that one. Mass is acquired when particles perturb the Higgs field as they move-- it's not that the "lighter particles are made out of Higgs bosons."
It's the details of exactly how this explains mass that is unclear. (and, which mass is explained?).
--(for what it's worth, though, in quantum mechanics lighter particles actually can be made out of heavier particles bound together, since binding particles together releases energy, and that energy is of course mass.)
Re:Understand the origin of Mass (Score:2)
Well, at least I do know the answer to that one. Mass is acquired when particles perturb the Higgs field as they move-- it's not that the "lighter particles are made out of Higgs bosons."
It's the details of exactly how this explains mass that is unclear. (and, which mass is explained?).
Or is it that the energy required to impart motion to particles accounted for by resistance of the Higgs field to motion by those particles in which case we are back to inertia and mass, albeit from a reverse perspective in that inertia explains mass? In which case we have photons merrily propagating at the speed of light since there is no resistance by the Higgs field? Which is just fine by the internal model I've been carting around for a very long time,
Back to Hmmm... mode
Great for science (Score:3, Interesting)
If fundamental understanding of how the universe we live in works: great (and then those billions spent on the LHC might have been well spent). If such improved understanding translates into practical applications over time, even better.
But other than that: who cares (and that's coming from an ex physics student).
Re:Great for science (Score:5, Insightful)
Also banging on the practical applications drum is getting tiresome. Fundamental research should be carried out for its own sake.
I could cite the everything everywhere* that says practical applications of fundamental research come eventually but that is beside the point. This machine we call civilization is spending most of its energy doing nothing but spinning its gears. Spending more and more effort to produce widgets and convince people to buy them so they can wind up in landfill, or spending a significant minority of world effort on building militaries just in case the other guy attacks.
Looking at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures [wikipedia.org]
Even a tiny country like New Zealand could have easily funded the thing alone rather than buying obsolete second hand fighters. Australia could do it in a single year with change -- and that's not even getting into countries with a military that would do anything on a world scale. *I challenge you to find a single artefact created in your lifetime that did not involve knowledge of EM -- 'what nonsense, making a needle move, where are the practical applications?' -- somewhere in the production of it or the tools used to produce it
Re:Great for science (Score:2)
Pet Rocks.
Super Soaker
Hi impact Dice.
I could name many.
Although to be honest I'm not exactly sure what you mean by artifact.
However, yes supplemental research should be carried out for it'sown sake, ad we should do more.
We are clever animals, and if some makes a discovery, someone else will eventual find a practical devices that uses it.
1% of a Bank Bailout (Score:5, Interesting)
Even a tiny country like New Zealand could have easily funded the thing alone rather than buying obsolete second hand fighters.
Actually a colleague of mine pointed out that the entire cost of the LHC, including all our experiments, was under 1% of the bank bailout. So, not only is the cost not large, but if we could not get jobs as physicists and had to work for banks think how much more we could be costing you!
Re:Great for science (Score:3)
There were scientists back in the 50's that were complaining about the $30.000 being 'wasted' on such an expensive particle accelerator.
Re:Great for science (Score:3)
Practical applications are guaranteed. When is another matter - I'm guessing 40 years to the first demonstrable use, 40 more to the first practical use.
WHAT those practical applications are is anyone's guess. We've not found the graviton (the Standard Model can't be completed beyond the Unified Theory stage - can't do GUT without the graviton), but who needs to control gravity if you can control mass? Mass is arguably a much more useful thing to be able to manipulate.
Personally, I'm more interested in things like quasi-particles, fermions and the Pauli Exclusion Principle. I'm not going to go rambling on about my pet theories on the subject - a third of you would be too bored to read, a third would complain that I don't know what I'm talking about, and the final third would use me as a replacement to a cooling rod in a reactor core to shut me up. But that's where I think you'll find the most action between now and when the Higgs Boson is in practical use.
(That's not to say they shouldn't have looked. I'd have preferred them to have built a much larger ring and not only looked for the Higgs Boson but ALSO looked for physics beyond the Standard Model - we know there's plenty. To stop where they have is boring. Why look for one particle when you can look for two at twice the price?)
What I'd really do is ... (Score:5, Funny)
... make a fake copy and sell it on EBay.
Re:What I'd really do is ... (Score:2)
... make a fake copy and sell it on EBay.
Either that, or try using it to pick up girls with ... something's got to work!
Re:What I'd really do is ... (Score:2)
Either that, or try using it to pick up girls with ... something's got to work!
My "Particle physics gives me a hadron" T-shirt works great.
I'm thinking of making a Three Wolf One Boson one.
Re:What I'd really do is ... (Score:2)
You must do that now.
I can think of..4 people I know who will probably buy one.
Re:What I'd really do is ... (Score:3)
You know what works? asking.
Now it might only work 1 out of 20 times, but that's no reason no to ask the first 19!
Richard Feynman was a nerd. He wasn't exactly over handsome. He just talked to women and asked. When one said no, you move onto the next.
So ask..jut don't be creepy.
Shouldn't the last option be ... (Score:4, Funny)
Who's this Higgs bozo?
Re:Shouldn't the last option be ... (Score:2)
Who's this Higgs bozo?
Cowboy Neal is the Higgs bozo (the missing Cowboy Neal option)
Missing Option (Score:3)
Spend a few days in a media blackout to avoid hearing all the idiots talk about the "God particle".
Re:Missing Option (Score:2)
Do the same things I always do (Score:2, Funny)
Try to take over the world.
Higgs not responsible for most mass (Score:2)
The Higgs field is conjectured to be responsible for the rest mass of certain particles, in particular the quarks that make up protons and neutrons. However, the vast majority of the mass of a proton or neutron doesn't come from the quarks themselves, but from the binding energy holding them together. Without the Higgs field things would be just a few percent lighter.
Re:Higgs not responsible for most mass (Score:2)
Uh, what? This isn't right.
Binding energy is what get's released when you form the various heavier particles - it's why quarks condense into hadrons, and why you need staggeringly high energy collisions to produce free quarks.
So, absent the Higgs field, all these things would have no mass whatsoever.
Re:Higgs not responsible for most mass (Score:2)
He's actually right (sort of) ---> review paper [arxiv.org]
The Higgs serves to explain the mass of the W & Z bosons, plus the quarks that make up nucleons, but for various reasons (explained in the previous link), the mass of the individual constituent quarks does not contribute to the observed mass of the nucleons. Rather, that comes from back-reaction forces provided by QCD. The mass of neutrons & protons, and thus most normal matter, has been predicted by theory long ago.
It's not binding energy like he said, but he's right to say that the Higgs mechanism doesn't explain the masses of protons or neutrons.
Haven't we been here before? (Score:3)
I have a feeling that history will repeat itself and we will discover that there are more sub-particles to find and we will need 100X more power to see them....
The Atom that was the smallest particle at one time...
Then Protons, Electrons and Neutrons followed as the basic building blocks of matter...
Now we have the standard model with its various families particles.
We might be at the end of our math and there is more to discover once the math catches up.. It may be the last major discovery because we have everything fully described.. I just don't think we have enough information to know how this will go.
Re:Haven't we been here before? (Score:3)
Re:Haven't we been here before? (Score:2)
yes, but at that point we'll be able to see the turtles neatly stacked up.
Maybe quantum mechanics is too abstract (Score:4, Interesting)
...but scientists haven't done a good job explaining this for the laymen. I'm an armchair science enthusiast and I have never been able to figure out what the heck this particle is, besides ash from a high-speed collision.
Re:Maybe quantum mechanics is too abstract (Score:2)
Layman's explanation of QM: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0412182 [arxiv.org]
Re:Maybe quantum mechanics is too abstract (Score:2)
Re:Maybe quantum mechanics is too abstract (Score:2)
Why would they bother explaining it to laymen? If you are interested, go through a couple of years of calculus, then physics, then whatever the heck they teach in a physics course!
Because if you can explain it to the layman (taxpayer), the layman might be more enthusiastic about funding this and other branches of science. I realize that no one wants to pay more taxes, but perhaps the attitude toward the allocation of taxes paid could be shifted.
what have the Romans ever done for me? (Score:2)
I lied. (Score:5, Funny)
I picked Disneyland because that sounds like fun but I'll probably do the same things I always do.
I don't know who this Higgs guy is... (Score:3, Funny)
Higgs number of 3 (Score:2)
Peter Higgs is my PhD supervisor's PhD supervisor's PhD supervisor.
Just sayin'.
I was going to make a sacrifice (Score:2)
I was going to make a sacrificial offering to Cowboy Neal.
Higg's Bosom (Score:2)
Missing option: Teleport to Disneyland (Score:2)
If the Higgs Boson is found, I'll .... (Score:2)
[Extra mod points to whoever gets that bit of trivia.]
I'll be surprised... (Score:2)
I had taken this whole "any second now"... nonsense to mean that actually they made a mistake somewhere and actually it doesn't quiet work out the way they thought.
Thr ei sreallu only one question (Score:2)
Will understanding the effect allows us to manipulate the Higgs interaction so we can change the mass of large things?
Yes, I am talking about flying cars, Jet packs(not actual jets) artificial gravity, and interstellar flight..or at least 'quick' interplanetary flight.
Announcing the announcement (Score:2)
Counting new extra new particles needed (Score:4, Funny)
I will be doing the same as before... (Score:3)
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:5, Funny)
So what you're saying is "If we're going to spend money on fundamental physics research then we should spend it on something else"?
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
Yes. Aren't fusion researchers discovering new things in physics?
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not really fundamental research if it has to have "some hope of return on investment" (note: "has to have", not "has").
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
The operative phrase is some hope.
Excellent return in the long term (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not really fundamental research if it has to have "some hope of return on investment"
Tell that to Schrodinger, Heisenberg et al. who gave us quantum mechanics, which let us understand semiconductors and, well the rest is history. Fundamental research DOES have an excellent return on investment but you have to wait 50-100 years for the investment to mature. This makes it hard to get money because neither individuals nor governments last long enough to see the return. It's our grandchildren and great grandchildren who will benefit likely with applications we cannot conceive of at the moment. I doubt Schrodinger ever foresaw his discoveries being used to make something like the web possible!
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
Cash doesn't disappear.
People got [paid. People paid taxes, people bought things and people saved.
Money only 'disappears' if it sits around not doing anything.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:5, Funny)
but US$10bn is a big heaping percentage of the world's hard science budget..
Yes, but in reality zero dollars were spent on it. It's in Europe; they spend Euros to built it.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
With the way the euro is going, maybe they can build another LHC on the cheap.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
[I know. I'm feeding a Troll.]
Funny how that it is the European news outlets that this citizen of the United States relies on for most all his news that have been obsessing over the states of the Euro and EU. Mostly they ignore or give very short shrift to anything outside the national borders. I distrust US news except for the local crime reporting and weather and I don't trust them all that much on either of those.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
Those items are not fundamental physics. They're applied physics.
The aforementioned bits of applied physics are based on prior work in fundamental physics.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
Point taken. But if we have only a limited amount of money to spend, where is it best spent?
What is the argument for spending scarce tax dollars on the LHC instead of fusion research?
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:3)
That neither might pay off?
Science is not a linear path from one technology to the next. You don't just allocate all your money to the thing you really want, and expect to get it, because you can't know if you will. Instead you fund diverse areas and let their discoveries inform each other.
It seems very odd to contrast fusion against the LHC in the first place - both deal with particle and plasma physics, and a huge amount of fusion knowledge would have inherited from understanding provided by particle accelerator research and the standard model.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:5, Funny)
Science is not a linear path from one technology to the next. You don't just allocate all your money to the thing you really want, and expect to get it, because you can't know if you will.
You are lying. I should know that, because I played Civilization.
Re:Finding the God Particle is nice and all... (Score:2)
Fundamental research. Once those discoveries are made, practical application start coming to mind. This is where private companies can use their dollars for RnD new items.
The false concept you seem to have is that there is only one pile of money.
There are several piles. Government pile, Smaller government pile, Corporate money, 'garage' researcher money.
All for differnt things, all of which can work well.
Government money spent gave us Google, Yahoo, Netscape, on and on. All because some people got a few bucks to research the idea of computer communication.
Re:And what if it's not found? (Score:2)
The thing is that NOT, finding something doesn't prove it doesn't exist.
Re:And what if it's not found? (Score:2)
You can show it doesn't exist where you look for it.
And you can prove it can't be somewhere else.
Re:Bluffing? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not cynicism. That's naivete trying to dress up in cynicism's clothes.
Re:Getting nervous (Score:3)
Even when what you saw was the basis of reality, it wasn't. People as far back as Alchemy or earlier found out you couldn't treat some properties such as color or hardness as fundamental properties. Well before there was science, natural philosophers had pretty good arguments that what was real was behind some sort of veil of the senses, and historical figures such as Aquinas, Bacon, and da Vinci would have all agreed on occasion with you and the great Tom Petty.
Re:Getting nervous (Score:2)
Even when what you saw was the basis of reality, it wasn't. People as far back as Alchemy or earlier found out you couldn't treat some properties such as color or hardness as fundamental properties. Well before there was science, natural philosophers had pretty good arguments that what was real was behind some sort of veil of the senses, and historical figures such as Aquinas, Bacon, and da Vinci would have all agreed on occasion with you and the great Tom Petty.
Mmm, Bacon...
Re:Getting nervous (Score:2)
> How far down does the rabbit hole go?
"It's elephants all the way down."
Re:Getting nervous (Score:2)
It's turtles, all the way down.
Re:Great discovery but (Score:2)
Re:Great discovery but (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great discovery but (Score:3)
Dose of reality (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dose of reality (Score:5, Informative)
Are you a teacher? I hope not because you successfully destroyed this child's imagination.
I'm a physicist. If you cannot handle having your imagination compared to reality to see whether something is possible, and if so how, then I pity you because, without this simple step, you will never be able to turn any of your dreams into reality.
*Teleport* to Disneyland! (Score:2)
Beam me up, Mickey!
Besides, the Higgs Boson explains why it's not such as small world, after all!
Re:anti-gravity or lightspeed if I can neutralize (Score:2)
Mass, no matter how small, requires almost infinite energy to approach the speed of light.
Mass can not be accelerated from below the speed of light to above the speed of light. But there's nothing that prevents mass from being created above the speed of light. All the dark matter is mass moving too fast to be detected. One day we'll learn to use energy to influence the matter going above the speed of light, and then we'll have faster than light information transmission, even if we can't hop in a ship made of the stuff.
Re:anti-gravity or lightspeed if I can neutralize (Score:2)
"But there's nothing that prevents mass from being created above the speed of light. All the dark matter is mass moving too fast to be detected."
Never talk about physics again.
Re:anti-gravity or lightspeed if I can neutralize (Score:2)
What, not good enough?
Re:Complete the Standard Model? (Score:2)
Also because no scientific model is ever "wrong" - just less accurate then it's successor. Any replacement of the Standard Model needs to simplify to the Standard Model under current experimental conditions where the Standard Model is accurate.
Re:Higgs bozo? (Score:2)
We're all bosons on this bus!
Re:God of the gaps (Score:2)
... to not know of anything ever again. Every day in infinity with no existence. It would be as if you never existed. And when the universe dies in the heat death nothing would have mattered anyway. No record of civilization. No life. Nothing but a bunch of subatomic particles hanging out in eternity. No matter what you did, who you were, what deeds you've done, it never mattered. Yes, a good time to die.
Hey wait... I think you're a theist. You want to die that evening because you know it will never come. Tricky.
Re:God of the gaps (Score:2)
Assuming we don't invent time travel, or manipulate matter on a wide scale, or create another universe to move into.
I think you mean 'an atheist' and not 'a theist'. I'm not sure how believing in a god would make sense in that context.
And thanks to denial, I'm going to live forever.