CERN May Have Found The Higgs Boson 156
Hilbert writes: "Scientists working at the LEP collider at CERN believe they have found evidence of the existance of the Higgs boson, one of the more elusive particles under investigation. BBC's got the story." Ironically, this important discovery (or possible discovery) comes weeks before the collider used to make it is scheduled to be shut down. Can you say "the dilemma of prior investment"?
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
I'm not saying these guys are dreaming this stuff up. I'm saying that theory is important to scientific discovery. Many theorized the atom to exist long before anyone could prove it. I get sick and tired of people slamming the scientific community because they don't have the intellect to comprehend what is going on.
Hell... I can't comprehend it but, I don't pretend to know otherwise. These people have knowledge you could not even begin to grasp.. Wake up... Don't critisize that which you don't understand. Respect science and people of knowledge because in the future, my grandchildrens granchildren will be reading about them in science books, whereas you and I, won't even get an honorable mention.
Re:The particle myth (Score:3)
Think of the fruits that this sort of research has already given us: transistors, electricity, etc., etc.. You think anyone 200 years ago could have even remotely imagined what life would be like today? Doubt it. So why do you think this Higgs particle is any different? It could very well lead to an entirely new stage of human evolution.
Don't judge so quickly. Unless you can see the future, I don't think you should have such a negative opinion. But hey, who knows? Research like this might one day let you see into the future, for all we know. Have fun
Dave
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
Bible? Who cares, we all know Pi is not 3, so that argument has been dead for some time now.
Jedi Vacquero: We don't need to show you any steenkin' boches!
Attraction by particle mediators. (Score:2)
Actually... If you take the uncertainty principle into account, you can explain attraction this way. Let's say we have a Higgs particle of a precisely known momentum, p, and this Higgs particle is going to mediate the exchange between particle A and particle B. The Higgs particle leaves particle A in a direction directly away from particle B, with momentum p. But because the momentum is exactly p, the position becomes uncertain (meaning the particle actually exists in multiple locations for a moment). Then since one of the locations where the Higgs particle can exist is at particle B, it is able to essentially strike particle B from the other side.
Re:One Page explanations (Score:2)
For those unfamilar with the concept, the reasoning went something like this: if light is a wave (this is before the particle/wave duality became accepted), then it must be transmitted by something we cannot see, since you can't have waves in a vacuum. Thus, there had to be some sort of "luminous ether" which tranmits light waves. This has been disproven of course, but the Higgs Boson seems to be a similar apporoach to explaining the mass of particles.
'Course... Just as disproving the "luminous ether" theory by experimentation brought us to our current understanding of quantum mechanics, I suppose there's no reason not to try to verify the Higgs' existence.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
Sorry, not quite. Dividing zero by itself cannot be solved. Unlike 1/0, we don't even get a limit. Perhaps D approaches infinity, and/or maybe you used L'Hôpital's Rule (I'm too lazy to check the notes for myself), but a plain 0/0 is indeterminate.
Higgs Boson and Mach's Principle (Score:1)
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:2)
Well, I too wish they wouldn't have killed SSC, but I think that your kidding yourself if you think that Texas was chosen for purely techical reasons. I think its pretty well established that a large part of the reason that Texas was chosen is that the Speaker of the House was from Texas (Jim Wright?). And then later when the cuts needed to be made the Wright was gone due to some scandal or another. (Forgive me if the facts aren't exactly right - that the way I recall it anyway).
Anyway the SSC was definitely a great case study in the problems of politics and Big Science.
--
Actual Hard Information (Score:1)
Novel based on this was out long ago (Score:2)
Here's the Cover Blurb copy:
It's a very good book, and published a couple years before this incident. Well worth a read. His entire site, since it's in frames, is at http://www.sfwriter.com/ [sfwriter.com].
Dragon Magic [dragonmagic.net]
Re:Question (Score:1)
Say you have this car you want to find out about, like what's under the hood and all, but the entire thing is encased in a big piece of metal...
... So, you get two cars, and you smash them together at REALLY high energies (for a single car to have). At some point, you will crack the casing, and get a glimpse of the car inside, and see all of the parts subsequently flying out. Then, you have to get the trajectories of all of these little particles, project them backwards, and write an engine manual. Not exactly easy
Now, for the Higgs boson, it's kind of like trying to open the trunk and look at the spare tire intact... when the cars are colliding head-on. It will take more energy for the trunk to spontaneously open, and the spare tire to come out intact... well, bad analogy, but you get the picture, sorta!
Have a nice day.
-----
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
No, you'd only have theories proven by experiments that were possible. Not theories so divorced from reality that it isn't possible to test them. .
. .
Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
If you really believe that, then stop wasting your time and effort on religion. "Blind faith" is the mantra of religion - belief without proof. So take your argument against science and practice what you preach. The Shroud of Turin's authenticity has already been disproven. I get sick and tired of hearing about "miracles" all the time. Can anyone prove a miracle?
The rebuttal "God made it that way" is one of my favorites. Isn't that how something is typically explained by religious types when they don't know the answer? Leave the mysteries of the universe to those with the intelligence to search for the REAL answers.
There are two ways I would believe in God - if He proved his existence to me personally or if I go to Hell.
Mass and weight ARE different things. (Score:1)
Yes, they are different things. Weight is the force exerted on an object put on a gravitational field. Mass is an object's intrisic property.
I think you were confusing the weight/mass issue with an other troubling coincidence which is: Why inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same thing?
- Gravitational mass is the gravitation force "charge".
- Inertial mass is something else. The energy expense needed to accelerate an object is proportional to its inertial mass.
As far as I know, both inertial and gravitational mass have been experimentally verified to be the same, and general relativity is mostly based on that equivalence (one cannot distinguish between a small region of space subject to gravitational force from an other small regsion subject to constant acceleration) but we do not know why these two properties of particles are the same.Like electrostatic attraction (or repulsion) between to electrically charged object is proportional to their electric charge, gravitational attraction between two massive objects is proportional to their gravitational charge, aka mass.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
Sorry, no. Think of it this way. You have a small baloon. There are poka-dots all over this baloon. Someone is slowly blowing it up. Every point on this baloon is getting farther and farther away from every other point. There is no real 'single point' at which some polka dots are moving one way, and some are moving equally the other way. The entire sphere is expanding. This is the 2-d analog of a 3-d big bang. In essence, every point is the 'center' of the big-bang, because at every point, it appears that all remote objects are rushing away from you in every direction.
So there is indeed no absolute velocity. Velocity and motion are realtive terms, and only apply between two (or more) arbitrary bodies. I am not moving relative to my desk right now, but I am moving very quickly relative to the planet Mars...or Mars is moving very quickly relative to me.
- Spryguy
Re:Making Sense (Score:2)
Well, there are many good reasons to get rid of the imperial system, but this isn't one of them (I hated it when we had to use them in some engineering classes - the conversions are such a mess).
Anyway, the pound can be used for both mass and force in the imperial system, but its really 2 different units. The pound mass (lbm) and pound force (lbf) are two separate units. A pound mass weighs one pound force on Earth. But, there is another, better unit of mass in the imperial system - the slug. One slug is the mass that is accelerated 1 ft/s^2 by one pound or force.
--
Re:job preservation exercise (Score:2)
Yes, really.
The CERN facility is being replaced, but the full replacement will take years. Many of the people whose careers or career advancement depend on results from an "obsolete" facility like the LEP will be adversely affected when the instrument is taken down. Yes, some of them will be among the best and brightest on the new project, the LHC, but others...won't.
Now, further progress demands the building of the LHC, while limited resources require the shutdown of the LEP, and people will get caught in the middle. This is exactly how Big Science works, and why people have long felt uneasy about the entire process. Scientists are, thankfully, only human. Their careers are of finite duration, and their specialized knowledge can become obsolete in the wake of further progress.
And, it goes without saying, this is just as true in genomics, neuroscience, geoscience, computer science, or any other rapidly advancing field.
Question (Score:3)
Personally I wonder if it might just be a jealous attempt to compete with the increasing popularity of NASCAR racing.
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
Do I smell a theology troll in our midst? Hmmm, for a moment I'll play along as though this isn't.
By your logic, if I may be so bold as to call it that, you would only have experiments performed on those theories which have already been proven. Just exactly how does one go about proving a theory without performing experiments? If something has already been proven, what is the point of experimenting with it any further?
Ahhh, but then I get down to this...
For those of us who have no need to find out the Truth, this kind of waste is deplorable.
Oh the subtlety in the giveaway on this. Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth. Ya see folks, the Bible didn't cover nuclear physics, therefore none of this stuff really exists. Furthermore, since the Bible already tells us everything we ever needed to know about how the Earth came about this experimenting is completely useless.
Re:Boson Particles? (Score:1)
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:3)
The project was not far from completion when congress discontinued funding. The law states that the land would have to be put back in it's original condition, meaning the removal of miles of steel and filling in the holes and returning the environment back to normal. It cost more to remove the damned thing than it would have to finish it and keep it running for a year. Talk about cutting spending and increasing the stupidity.
They could have left that project and let others take it over, but you know congress! Anyhow, I'm glad the Swiss care about science. We Americans care about fame, fortune, football, or what some Hollywood star is doing in the privacy of their own home. Things of consequence don't matter here... only money, power, and politcs... Benjamin Franklin would keal over in his grave if he could see America today.
If pro is the opposite of con then what is the opposite of progress?
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:2)
Re:Boson Particles? (Score:1)
- Spryguy
The aether (Score:1)
The Higgs field is a [hypothetical] field that extends throughout the vacuum and by particles moving through it they are given mass and inertia.
It has been posted further down the page, however here it is again:
Have a look at http://hepwww.ph.qmw.ac.uk/epp/higgs.html for some down-to-earth explainations of the Higgs field and the particle it uses.
-- kai
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
Au contraire, mon ami. I use the capital "t" to distinguish between "Truth" and "truth", and it doesn't necessarily have to do with theology. As I see it, "Truth" is the structure of the universe, the underlying set of laws that make everything tick. Some of it we know, some of it we're working on, some of it is unknowable. Now I understand that this definition superficially agrees with the poster you replied to, but since the existence of god falls into the "unknowable" category, argument about it is futile. With that out of the way, "truth" is simply accurately witnessing to your perception of "Truth", and doing so is everyone's responsibility as to not tell the "truth" is to deny the structure of reality.
Anyway, just thought I'd point that out.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
Re:One Page explanations (Score:2)
If, as one of them states, the Higgs field is a little like the electromagnetic field, two questions immediately arise. First, is the Higgs field the same everywhere in the Universe? And second, perhaps we can learn to manipulate it?
If the Higgs field "causes mass", maybe its different in other areas of the universe. Maybe this could explain the "dark matter" problem - perhaps there is no missing matter, but the Higgs field is stronger in other places so everything just has more mass "out there".
If we could make a device that modifies the Higgs field, would that have the effect of changing the apparent mass of objects within the field?
Would it perhaps be possible to make a "Higgs Ray" that projects an extra-strong or extra-weak Higgs field, thereby changing the mass of objects in the beam?
Fun to speculate. Could some of you particle physicists hanging out here say if this is possible? Thanks!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
I use 'truth' when I'm just talking about truth, as in this sentence. I use 'Truth' when it is part of a proper noun ("Truth or Consequences", an old TV game show title) or when the word appears at the beginning of a sentence.
- Spryguy
They didn't fill in all of the tunnels... (Score:2)
It would have been a marvelous scientific instrument. Most sad that it got canned. Atleast we got some mushrooms out of the deal, though.
--Lenny
would this complete standard model? (Score:1)
Not shutdown, replaced (Score:5)
Beams Energy Luminosity
LEPe+ e- 200 GeV10^32cm^-2 s^-1
LHCp p 14 TeV10^34
Pb Pb1312 TeV10^27
So in the end, the new Large Hadron Collider can accelerate those little bugger's up to much higher energies, thus probably alloweing other new particles to be observed (or confirmed) Oh and by the way, the Cern's at www.cern.ch [www.cern.ch] See ya
Re:Question (Score:1)
If you can not move your Viewpoint at the same speed(rel) as the object in question, slam it into some thing and watch the hubcaps^h^h^h^h^h^h^hparticles fly off. IANAHEP nor an ICEF but learned this one by smashing gear as a child "ohh look must be tubes in there as broken glass pours out now.
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
Do I smell a theology troll in our midst? Hmmm, for a moment I'll play along as though this isn't.
Ah yes, because anyone expressing doubts about /. doctrine is obviously a troll aren't they? But at least you condescend to reply.
By your logic, if I may be so bold as to call it that, you would only have experiments performed on those theories which have already been proven.
No, you'd only have theories proven by experiments that were possible. Not theories so divorced from reality that it isn't possible to test them.
If something has already been proven, what is the point of experimenting with it any further?
Errm, none. Anything more is just busywork, a waste of resources.
Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth.
Indeed, because there is truth, as in conversational truth, and Truth, as in the Truth of our Lord. Different things entirely.
Ya see folks, the Bible didn't cover nuclear physics, therefore none of this stuff really exists. Furthermore, since the Bible already tells us everything we ever needed to know about how the Earth came about this experimenting is completely useless.
Of course the Bible didn't cover those things, it was written thousands of years ago! What kind of fool do you take me for? But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Who names all these particles? (Score:4)
There's been Charm, Up, Down, Strange, and others I forget. In 10 years time will we discover that Higgs boson is made up of Shoe, Ni!, Migrane, and That Stuff Behind The Fridge?
I don't understand one bit. (Score:1)
A boson by any other name (Score:2)
A physicist told me that Bose deserved the Nobel, but didn't win due to politics. (In any case, it's probaly cooler to have a subatomic particle named after yourself rather than win the Nobel.)
On another note, from the article:
"Such a Higgs signature may have been seen in several unusual events observed recently at Lep. "
Yeah, such as a cut in funding.
w/m
Re:Question (Score:1)
Interesting particle like the Higgs have a lot of mass(=energy). If you want to see one, the best to do it is to get a lot of energy in a very small volume.
A good way to do this is to get a particle and it's corresponding anti-particle (electron/positron in the LEP, proton and anti-proton in the up-coming LHC) and put them together. They anhiliate each other and the resultant energy burst (equal to the mass of the two particles squared, of course )can create new particles.
All well and good, but if you want more energy, then instead of just putting the particles together, get them to crash into each other really fast
So, instead of just putting the e+'s and e-'s in the same room, the LEP accelerates them up to about 90% of the speed of light, then collides them. Result=plenty of energy for creating whizzy new particles.
And yes, there does seem to be an element of "Hey everyone check out my massive collider" going on. They're on to a looser if they think that particle physics is ever going to replace Formula 1 on a sunday afternoon, though.
Re:Run, then analyse (Score:1)
Serious Questions: What is the Higgs Potential? (Score:1)
How does the Higgs boson relate to this field-potential? Do Higgs bosons/fields in our universe change their characteristic qualities over time?
Is this related to the recent discovery that there seems to be an EXPANSIONARY force in the universe (meaning that my favourite theory of Big-bang, Big-crunch is no longer viable)?
And yeah, how does Superstrings/branes theories fit these "particles" into their paradigm?
If anybody knows, I'd be surprised. Just asking.
Re: SSC too bad ... but Texas choice was political (Score:1)
In Bativia Illinois, there is this little collider called Fermi. The Speaker of the House at the time was from Texas. It would have been a lot cheaper to build the SSC in Illinois where it could be hooked up to the existing loop at Fermi. I believe the plan was to use Fermi as an injector. But, politics beat out technology and unfortunately in the end the Texas project was scrapped too.
---
Re:I don't understand one bit. (Score:2)
The Higgs theory is one among many that starts by guessing at an explanation for what is seen, then develops a rigorous model for the explanation, which leads to a prediction of what will be seen if we keep looking.
The prediction isn't so much a recipe for finding the particle as it is a police sketch of the suspect. And the experiments to find the particle are only "designed" to find it in the same way that a microscope is "designed" to find bacteria -- if the bacteria doesn't exist, the most powerful microscope in the world won't make it seem to.
After all, the experiment is quite crude in concept: bash particles into each other at high enough speed that lots of energetic things fly out, then watch for the suspect by recording all the trails these energetic things take, which will tell you their mass, charge, spin, and what they decay into. If one of them fit's the suspect's description, you've confirmed the theory.
The problem comes with the negative result -- if you don't find the particle, or don't see your favorite strain of bacteria, that doesn't mean they're not out there. But if you keep on increasing energy (magnification), and you run enough experiments, you can at least determine how rare the beast is.
I hope this answers the question and gives some credence to the idea that there's not a circular logic going on.
Disclaimer: there may be some property of matter that we haven't seen yet that gives better insight into how things occur, and the experiments are NOT designed to see that -- of course, without a negative or confusing result, we have no reason to believe such a property exists.
Other disclaimer: just because there is a critter that fits the description of the Higgs, doesn't mean there isn't another theory that also explains its existence -- it does mean that that theory probably is equivalent to Higgs' theory in some situations, just as Newton's theory of gravitation makes the same predictions as Einstein's theory of relativity within a certain range of observations.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
If the image you're trying to convey is one of being on the surface of the balloon watching the dots around me grow in distance from one another.. say if you had a fuzzy ballon, more like an elastic mist, with the polka dots spread throuout it. if you were at the center of part of that mist, not all parts of it would be traveling at the same rate in the same direction, but spreading apart uniformly away from each other spot in the mist as it streached further apart.
Either way I think it's time I do more research. It works in my head, so (more likely) my understanding of physics is flawed or I'm just not very good at expressing myself. Thanks
Re:Question (Score:1)
Since I am just a computer programmer, please excuse my ignorace, but since an electron's mass is 0.5 MeV standing still (if they ever stand still), doesn't the mass of the electron increase as it approaches the speed of light? (I know the numbers are probably wrong) but say that as it approaches 99.999% the speed of light, according to relativity, wouldn't the mass of the particle go up to say 2.0Mev, therefore slowing the particle down to like 90% the speed of light?
LEP talks (Score:1)
The news coverage seems to be based on the talks that the four LEP experiments gave earlier this week at CERN. If you're interested in the physics behind the press reports, here's a link to the summary talk [l3www.cern.ch]. You can also hunt around the CERN Experiments web site [web.cern.ch]; click on Aleph, Delphi, L3, and Opal.
I read through the summary presentation -- I think the evidence for a Higgs is not very compelling. The signal (albeit a ~ 4 sigma signal) comes solely from the 4-jet channel in the Aleph experiment. I'd be much more interested in seeing the result in a refereed journal, however. At any rate, you can read the talk and judge for yourself.
Disclaimer: while I am a physics grad student (well, for another month, anyway), Higgs searches are not my realm of expertise.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
Re:My Opinion. (Score:1)
But if the data is as sketchy as you say, why in the world did the press pick this up?
This reminds me of a few years back when I heard on the radio that "room-temperature" superconductors had been discovered. I was so excited I almost drove off the road, only to find out later that it was just a bad case of the press picking up an early result which later proved incorrect. Doh!
dabacon
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
It's ALEPH again (Score:1)
LEP has four detectors (named ALEPH, L3, DELPHI, and OPAL). Each does its analyses independently, and their results are merged into a LEP-wide figure. The significance of the repored result is almost entirely due to ALEPH: they report 3.8 sigma, while the other three combined have 2 (a sigma is a measure of how unlikely it is that your result is a statistical fluke; you need 5 or so to claim discovery). Earlier this year, ALEPH reported 3.8 sigma evidence for supersymmetry which disappeared under further analysis. ALEPH has a history of having fake results that are much more significant than those from any other LEP detector. (They even claimed to have discovered the Higgs a while ago...)
Then again, I do work at Fermilab so I am a bit biased.
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:1)
as for microgravity research, there is alot of interesting stuff going on. Offhand, I know of studies to look at liquid interfaces, which in the absence of strong gravitational fields, can fold back in on itself many times, leading to new studies of condensed matter physics. And I'm also aware of studies that were previously done on the vomit-comet, which has limitations of only 30 seconds or so weighlessness, to study electrical arcing in absence of gravity. So there's two projects right there.
Not to mention all the biophysics and astrobiology studies (don't confuse that with exobiology) in a weightless environment which are essential to provide insight about human presence in microgravity environment for extended periods of time. Ie, manned mars mission, among others.
So don't get your obvious bias in the way of research, there's more than just particle physics. And see my other post below about information about LHC competing with SSC.
Re:Significance (take this with a grain of salt) (Score:1)
Only really really stupid conspiracy theorists. Think about it, either (A) the physicists genuinely believe they've seen Higgs bosons, or (B) the physicists don't think they've seen Higgs bosons and this is just an excuse to keep the LEP running.
Now, what the scientists want to be is the people who discovered the Higgs boson If the scientists did not believe they're seeing Higgs bosons (i.e. assuming B is true), what would be their desire? They would want to rip out the LEP and replace it with the LHC as fast as possible, since the LHC is supposed to be able to see Higgs bosons whereas the LEP (according to their beliefs under this scenario) can't! Thus, their actions, attempting to DELAY the ripping out of the LEP rather than trying to speed along pretty much proves (B) is false. (A) is the only plausible explanation for their attempts to delay ripping out the LEP.
Which doesn't mean they've actually discovered Higgs boson, it simply means they're sincere in their beliefs and this is not a conspiracy.
(...or it's a far, far more convoluted conspiracy. :)
--
Leibniz (Score:1)
Significance (take this with a grain of salt) (Score:2)
The fact of the matter that it is very easy to get statistical fluctuations of this magnatude in high-energy physics. (insert obligatory comment about the accuracy of political "polls" here) And in the higgs search at CERN they have frequently seen extra events just at the end of their range. (The mass of 114.9 GeV is barely within the range of the accelerator to see at its current energy)
If the higgs exists, it will be found by the LHC. It's enticing to think it's barely beyond LEP's reach, and if the LHC finds it there, the LEP people will bemoan not being able to extend LEP's run just a little bit longer...
Disclaimer: IAP (I Am a Physicist), and have worked on the higgs analysis at CERN (but do not currently). How come more physics people don't post to slashdot? I know you guys read it. ;)
--Bob
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
if it can't be proved by experiment, it isn't science at all.
This is a statement that can only be made by someone without the first foggiest knowledge of what science is, much less how it relates to theology. Even the simple minded have a rudimentary understanding that science is not truth, but rather the search for it. Despite what Jon might otherwise lead you to believe...
Science has a lot to offer mankind
...his follow up post confirming my suspicions really brings the point home of what he is.
What kind of fool do you take me for? - just begging for a follow up snide remark not provided.
But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
Here is the first real clue to the true nature of this person, although it leaves us with one of two possibilities. He is either someone blindly parroting someone else's rant, attempting to present this as his own, or he is simply trying to egg folks on to reply to him. I suspect that our troll here is probably a healthy dose of both, not quite understanding what the heck this article is talking about, but using enough summarizing from it to try and denounce science as a humanist endeavor.
In short, I wouldn't hold your breath for an in depth response to your post. The moderators nailed this one perfectly (Score:-1, Troll).
Re:Run, then analyse (Score:2)
--Bob
Gates Bogon (Score:3)
The main result of Gates Bogon absorption is a loss of contact with reality.
Re:job preservation exercise (Score:2)
You see, although the CERN facility is scheduled for closure, the REASON is that it is being REPLACED by a bigger and better facility.
Re:Who names all these particles? (Score:1)
Re:Who names all these particles? (Score:1)
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:1)
Technically, CERN consists of about two dozen member countries; others may also participate. CERN just happens to reside on Swiss-French soil so it is governed by their laws. (As far as the number of Swiss people working at CERN is concerned, CERN is definitely not Swiss).
Re:Question (Score:1)
when I said
mass of the two particles times squared
I meant
hrmph.
Re:Who names all these particles? (Score:1)
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
I believe the oil level in my car is sufficient, but I don't consider it a waste of effort to check it the dipstick anyways.
It should be noted that religions claim to report the truth, and science is a means of testing propositions for their truthfulness. Now, there are many religions, and they are contradictory, so only one (if any) is likely to pass this test.
Thus, whatever religion is the True Religion has a great deal to gain from scientific exploration. However, false religions have a great deal to lose.
Thus, we have an effective litmus test for the validity of any religion. A true religion will promote science at every available oportunity. Only a false religion would develop an adversarial relationship with science. Only worshipers of a false religion will consider science a waste of time and effort...
--
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
Actually, I've frequently seen this used as a short-hand way to distingush necessary truths from contingent truths. (It's necessarily true that pi rounded to 3 significant digits is 3.14 -- it just couldn't be any other way. It's contingently true that I have no brother -- I don't, but I could have had things been different. Of course, if you're a determinist, there are no contingent truths, but then if you're a determinist you're probably not into 20th century physics and are therefore not reading this article...)
--
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
Remember, though, that in the mathematics of quantum mechanics particles and fields are the same thing. Photons are quanta of the electromagnetic field, electrons are quanta of the electron field. And Higgs particles are simply quanta of the Higgs field.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
Perhaps you do, but it's certainly not a commonly used form of the capitalization. In addition, this was but one factor in spotting the troll out from under his bridge. The context of this clue was also quite important.
Then there was the resultant data from my experimental post which confirmed my now proven theory.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
if it didn't happen I'd really like to know :/
Re:Attraction by particle mediators. (Score:2)
Which is, of course, exactly why it is impossible to nail jello to a wall.
Re:Question (Score:1)
No, because the speed of light is currently an absolute limit (no speeding tickets!), when you pour energy into a relativistic particle, most of that energy goes into increasing the particle's mass rather than its velocity.
So it doesn't slow down (Newton's first law applies anyway) even though its mass increases.
Re:One Page explanations (Score:1)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:Question (Score:1)
As for relativity... What happens is that a particle has a total energy equal to the sum of it's rest energy and its kinetic energy (nitpickers: I'm simplifying, leaving out potential energies and internal energies...I don't believe electrons -have- internal energies anyway). The actual formula used these days is E^2 = m^2c^4 + p^2v^2, where m is the rest mass and p is the momentum. Roughly speaking, those two terms correspond to the rest and kinetic energies, roughly. The momentum p = Mv, where M is the relativistic mass of the particle, which goes up with speed. So that last term is M^2v^4.
So as the total energy of a particle increases, the contribution from its rest mass remains constant, and the increase goes into increasing (Mv^2)^2. For any given amount of energy, there is only once consistant set of values for M and v, and both go up as energy goes up. M goes up because v goes up, so they are intimately tied.
So as E goes up, so does v, and M. It doesn't make the particle slow down, just harder to make go faster.
Re:Nothing ironic (Score:1)
I believe that it is not actually going into the trashcan, but large parts of it will be mothballed for possible future use at the current facility as part of an electron-proton "upgrade" when the LHC program is done....at least, that's what Chris Llewellyn-Smith (sp? former director general of CERN) told us when he was here a few years ago.
Re:My diet ends now! (Score:2)
I've been modded pretty harshly when trying to be funny lately. I'm not sure if people are just more defensive because of trolls maybe.
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:1)
A fine good morning to you, as well. I think if you'll carefully reread my post, you'll see that I was fairly even-handed about both boondoggles. On the other hand, though we both know that it's "total bogus" that the SSC would have contributed to actual science, if not necessarily "useful" science, i.e. technology. However, I would love to see a reference to the scientific value ot the "various experiments in the microgravity environment" that didn't come from NASA's PR department, as a response to the link I provided to demonstrate that experiments have, so far, not been valuable as "actual science." As I'm sure you're aware, science isn't about pissing, as you have done, but about substantiating your claims.
Re:Making Sense (Score:1)
FWIW, there is an analogy (a pretty hokey analogy) for explaining attraction as an exchange. You think of repulsion as the exchange of "balls" while you can think of attraction as the exchange of "boomerangs" - you throw the boomerang AWAY from the one you want to be attracted to, it loops around, and they catch it. YOU are "pushed" toward the one you are attracted to when you throw the boomerang, and the CATCHER is pushed toward YOU.
Like I said, its a hokey analogy, but it helped some of my students at one point.
Re:I don't understand one bit. (Score:1)
The book Constructing Quarks [amazon.com], by Andrew Pickering discusses this very issue. It's a sociological look at the process of HEP. Very dense read, but worthwhile, if you can get throug it.
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
A lot of these particles were actually "invented" to make theoretical physics agree with experiments. A good example is the neutrino: its existence was first postulated in the 1930s to account for the conservation of energy in beta-decay (without neutrinoes, a little energy was missing), and since then a lot of experiments have been done that confirm their presence. In the case of Higgs bosons, squarks and the like, these particles were postulated to keep theory in accordance with other experimental data (like particles having mass, and the existance of gravity). But having a theory that works doesn't automatically mean it's true, and that's why people like to observe these particles in an experiment. A confirmation of the theory would be nice, while proof that the theory is wrong would make people come up with a new theory that does agree with experiments.
Re:The particle myth (Score:1)
Bollocks!
What Science can do is show God's Alleged "Truths" up for the fiction they are. Consign the Bible in to the "Historical Fiction" section of the bookshelves where it belongs.
Science has already shown so much to be complete hogwash. The more we learn about the universe the better.
One Page explanations (Score:5)
http://hepwww.ph.qmw.ac.uk/epp/higgs.html [qmw.ac.uk]
Re:Question (Score:2)
The LHC is a proton-proton collider. This will be acheived by having two rings that cross each other in four places. Everything else you've said is correct. (If you're interested, I'm working on my M.Sc. in Particle Physics, and I'm currently at CERN to do it. I'm working on a piece of ATLAS [atlasinfo.cern.ch], which is a detector that will be used on the LHC. If anyone has further questions, feel free to use my e-mail address...
Re:A boson by any other name (Score:2)
Minor correction: the graviton is a spin 2 excitation. Incidentally, this is why it is so hard to come up with a consistent quantum theory of gravity. You might know that all of our particle physics is based on renormalizable quantum gauge field theories, and, as you said, they contain spin 0, 1/2, and 1 fundamental fields. These, it turns out, are the only types of fields that can be consistently renormalized in four space-time dimensions. Thus, when you try to turn a classical theory (like E&M, with its spin 1 photon), into a quantum field theory, you can do it consistently, and make all the icky infinities disappear. Since you can't do that to spin 2 fields, you can't make the infinities go away, and naive quantization of Einstein's gravity doesn't give a consistent quantum theory....but I've digressed :-)
Re:One Page explanations (Score:2)
Warning! Handwaving to occur! Intended for non-theorists! Complaints on details not expected!
First, is the Higgs field the same everywhere in the Universe?
No, just like E&M
And second, perhaps we can learn to manipulate it?
Probably not. We can manipulate EM fields because the sources of such fields are electrically charged particles, and they are easy to grab and move around, since EM forces are relatively large. You can think of masses as being the sources of the Higgs field. But, the coupling of the Higgs field is extremely weak, making it hard to have an impact on the field by wiggling masses around.
If the Higgs field "causes mass", maybe its different in other areas of the universe. Maybe this could explain the "dark matter" problem - perhaps there is no missing matter, but the Higgs field is stronger in other places so everything just has more mass "out there".
This is a reasonable extrapolation of what's been written here, but as usual, popularizations leave out some important technical details. The particle masses are generated by their coupling to the Higgs field, and the magnitude of those masses is set by the vacuum expectation value of the Higgs field, which is how strong the field is when there are no excitations (no real Higgs particles) lying around. We know the value of this VEV fairly well (246 GeV in the most popular normalization). Assuming the vacuum has the same structure everywhere in the universe (and there are observational limits on this that are very strict), then particle masses would be the same everywhere as well, even if the instantaneous value of the Higgs field is different
If we could make a device that modifies the Higgs field, would that have the effect of changing the apparent mass of objects within the field?
No, but we could do so if we could build a device to modify the structure of the vacuum...which we don't know how to do! But, if the rumblings out of CERN are right (and I doubt they are more than a desperate grab on a primacy claim for the Nobel that the discovery will garner), we have ALREADY BUILT a machine to change the Higgs field (athough not in the same sense that we've built machines (radio transmitters) to change the E&M field), namely LEP, since "changing the Higgs field" is the same thing as generating real Higgs particles.
Re:A boson by any other name (Score:2)
first off, if this holds out, this is a _very_big_find_
bosons are "force carriers". all particles have a quantized property called "spin". bosons are particles with an integral spin. that is, they all have a spin of 1, 2, 3, or whatever. one boson that you are probably familiar with is the photon, the carrier of the electromagnetic force. there's also gluons that carry the strong force which among other things holds a nucleus together. there's W+, W-, and Z^0 which carry the weak force that causes particle decay. there's also speculation about the "graviton", which would allegedly carry the gravitational force. all the bosons mentioned above have a spin of 1. (as an aside, fermions are particles with half integral spin like 1/2 or 3/2, and they compromise the rest of the particles like electrons and quarks.)
the higgs is interesting as it has a spin of 0. there's a question in physics as to why some particles have this strange property we call mass, and why the mass of some particles is so much different than others. peter higgs postulated the existance of a boson that would interact with massive objects in such a way that they would appear to have mass in various degrees. hence, the higgs boson.
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
make it people who live their lives following your god's teachings without ever questioning those teachings, who I see as 'less worthy of respect', and I'll give you the point. It's not for religion, but for not thinking
//rdj
Re:Something really important... (Score:2)
Higgs bosons are responsible for particles having mass. The inertia of an accelerating particle (supposedly) stems from its interaction with the Higgs field. Imagine if we could control that interaction.
Oh well.. I'm getting tired of work so I'll just render myself massless and get home immediately.
--
Re:I don't understand one bit. (Score:5)
About 30 years ago, particle physicists were trying to explain the way the world worked. Murray Gell-Mann and others developed a basic mathematical structure that could explain why people kept seeing all sorts of new particles every time they went looking. First, there was the electron and the proton. Then, Chadwick found the neutron (in 1932, I think), and the numbers kept growing. Soon, there were hundreds of so-called "elementary" particles and their antiparticles, and that was just more than anybody wanted to deal with.
Gell-Mann, Feynman, and several others soon realized that these could all be brozen down into about a dozen "elementary" particles, if you assumed that some of the ones we were seeing weren't actually elementary, but were actually composed of a small set of other particles, which Gell-Mann named quarks. They found a set of rules that could be applied to the way quarks combined (for the inclined: it's group theory, specifically the SU(3) group) that predicted which particles should exist, and which particles they could decay into.
The theory lacked one thing: an explanation for why things have mass. They could prove the theory worked in many cases, but in certain processes, the predictions for the probability of certain reactions happening were infinite. (Anything outside the range from 0 to 1 is impossible.) This made them very nervous, and was a rather large problem.
Higgs made a suggestion that worked. If there was another particle, which came to be known as the Higgs particle, then there would be other terms in the equation, which exactly matched the existing terms, apart from a negative sign. These extra terms correspond to the mass of a particle, which is why it's said that the Higgs boson is responsible for giving things mass. With this inclusion to the theory, the predictions began to match what was seen in the lab. The only thing that was missing was the Higgs Boson.
There have been various theoretical limits placed on the mass of the Higgs. It's massive enough to be hard to find, but just barely within the reach of some of the current accelerators, such as Fermilab and the LEP. The results reported at CERN may or may not be part of the random background events. Currently, the LEP is supposed ot shut down in late October/early November to make way for the LHC, the new, high-energy collider that should be able to find the Higgs boson, assuming the theories are correct. (Most of the LEP physicists have jobs on the LHC, so those of you writing this off as a reaction to unemployment just don't have all the relevant information.)
Anyway, all the experiments are saying is that the events they've seen may or may not be the evidence needed to support the only theory we have that predicts mass. They need to take another month of data to know for sure.
Re:Making Sense (Score:5)
Actually there are no particles during interaction. Particle is an abstraction. Sea of particles is an abstraction. Even single field is an abstraction, but it is proper math object and we should have some starting point anyway. So while talking about discovering Higgs particle we actually mean discovering Higgs boson field. This field interacts with other fields so, that this fields behave like having mass. This is because of some math and there's nothing more about it.
And don't compare mass and weight here: while we believe in General Theory of Relativity, object weight and object resistance to accelerate (mass) is the same thing.
---
Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources
job preservation exercise (Score:2)
Can you say "last gasp Hail Mary gamble for redemption?" Never believe fantastic "initial" results from a project about to be cancelled which need "just a bit" more government money in order to "confirm" them.
I don't think so Tim :-) (Score:2)
I don't think it will have to come to that, the dilemma I mean. After reading the story I get the impression that both devices work on a allmost identical scale yet this one, suddenly, discovers something that may proof to be the upcoming Higgs allthough it can't seem to provide any hard evidence to back up this theory. I allways get an eerie feeling when reading such stories. Sure, its a very random factor we are dealing with, no doubts there. But I do have the impression that their timing on providing us with the "if ... maybe ... money ... close down" news wasn't coincedence in any way. Neither would I be surprised if the upcoming Higgs isn't going to be discovered in this machine between now and December.
Bottom line; it is people we are dealing with and normally people like to keep their jobs. Being a scientist doesn't change this fact. I'm a little disappointed that the article didn't give us any more "inside" information on that subject; what are these scientists going to do when the device shuts down? Any other projects they can work on? Are they going to the States to help these guys out? Or do they get the 'sack' in a "everyone for himself" situation? Once you know the answer to these questions you have a little more insight on the question 'is this for real'. In this case this article is mere decoration IMHO; no real news value.
Re:Hmmmm... Observer bias? (Score:2)
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
Run, then analyse (Score:2)
This is common. In fact, many discoveries are made after an experiment has ceased running. The reason of course is that creating the data and analyzing it are two separate, but very intensive, tasks. We don't have enough people to do both at once. While the thing is running you do particle ID and so on so that you know the thing is doing what it's supposed to. In general, the cycle is design, implement, and analyse, while about 2.5 of these steps running in parallel.
It is amusing that LEP has found Higgs, since that was a large part of LHC's job. But of course there is still a great deal of measurement to be done! Furthermore there is plenty of b and t physics for LHC to look at.
Particle Physicists (Score:2)
A. They smash two of them together at very high speeds and study the bits that fly out.
(some of you have probably heard this
My Opinion. (Score:3)
Having seen only the histograms from a talk given to the cern program advisory committee, I think they're a little bold. The claim for a signal rests on proving that they know precisely each background in each detector (there are four seperate dectors) and that they know how to add these backgrounds together.
I would not be a bit surprised to see the "signal" disappear after more data. That said it is intriguing enough to keep running for the extra time they ask for.
By the way the guys running the experiments do not have to fear for their jobs. There is plenty to do to get the LHC up and running
Since no one else has done it yet, I'll put in an advertisement for CERN:
You would not be reading this website today without CERN. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Burness Lee from CERN and was given its initial boost by Particle Physicists as means to aid their international collaborations.
Just thought you could do with reminding :-)
Martin Sevior
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
The argument that we already have everything that makes life worthwhile has been made at every point in history. (30 years ago we'd have said, we can put a man on the moon but we can't get a bum off the street...)
Worse, in recent times this same argument is taken to its logical conclusion: the neo-Luddite 'return to a pastoral existence'. A pastoral existence in a world where rabies, smallpox, and TB are rife, could be argued to be no worse than the ills of the world now. But today our life expectancy is verging on 80; in pre-industrial societies life expectancy was closer to 50.
While we're on the subject...the arts are actually highly dependant on technology. Changes in painting techniques were largely driven by the availability of appropriate pigments, discovered over time. Film is pure technology. Large scale theatre can't be done with limelights, or sound systems.
Further, science can even BE art.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/jpeg/M16Full.j
Re:The particle myth (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:I don't understand one bit. (Score:2)
Sure.
You'll understand when you're older. Now go and play with your toys!
Re:Not shutdown, replaced (Score:2)
Oh come on, stop with the childish rivalry. Both projects offer advancement for various areas of science, in two opposite ends. A laboratory to onfirm theoretical particle physics ideas, in the case of the SSC, and a laboratory to perform various experiments in the microgravity environment, for the space station. One may be more theoretical whilst one may be more empirical, but your biased definition of "actual science" is childish and unwarranted. At the other end of the spectrum, I've heard many people claim that the SSC wouldn't contribute to "useful science" but we both know that's total bogus, too.
And this is coming from someone that has also worked on the SSC (worked with electronic event discriminator detectors for the straw-tracker arrays). The ATLAS detector at CERN will also have a straw-tracker, so similar ASICS will be used there.
Yes, it's unfortunate that Congress cut the SSC project. From what I understand, the new LHC at CERN should be able to do just about everything SSC could have, and more. So if you're really interested in the "actual science" instead of a pissing contest, your efforts could be directed in a more constructive direction.
Nothing ironic (Score:5)
The reason for all this is, of course, the desperate search for the Higgs particle. Now they *might* have evidence for it - thats great. Whether or not they have found it, the LEP has proved to be worth of the investment.
The reason for the dismantling of LEP is that they want to start installing the parts for the forthcoming LHC accelerator (that will collide protons and anti-protons) - which is due to start operation in 2005, so its not like they are retiring LEP for no reason at all.
Making Sense (Score:4)
The idea that mass is the drag of particles through a sea of Higgs boson actually makes some sense if you think about it.
In a way, it's a similar idea to an object having weight because of the Earth's gravity acting on the mass of the object. It's the kind of idea that makes you change your perspective on physics. This idea of mass being the drag acting on particles moving through Higgs bosons is one that never occured to me before. Is mass then only a perceptual value or is it really a matter of (pardon the pun) how much stuff?
Also, I think people tend to confuse mass and weight because they think weight is how much stuff is in the object but it's actually mass. I mean, you feel the weight of something you hold in your hand because of gravity and the only reason the object remains stationary in your hand is because the muscles that force your hand and the object upwards is the same as the gravitational force downwards.
Although it does give one the impression that we are all underwater in a sea of Higgs bosons. Is it possible for one to drown?
Self Bias Resistor
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."
Re:I don't understand one bit. (Score:2)
The main reason people have faith in the current theories is that they can predict experimental results that haven't been seen yet, that later pan out. That's why it's still around. There have been several dozen alternatives (at least), but they were all defeated by experiment. Well, most of them. There are extensions to the current theory, which do not contradict the Standard Model, but which can't be tested with current accelerators. (There are theories that can't be tested by accelerators that fit on earth, but most experimentalists pay little attention to those.)
With the Higgs boson, there is a chance the boson itself can be produced and directly observed. (This is not the same situation as quarks; they are identified by their decay products, ie what they make when they fall apart.) Physicists go by more than what is formed in these decays, though. Continuing the recipe analogy, it's like identifying a loaf of bread by its ingredients. If we see all the right ingredients (particles), in all the right proportions (with the right energy/momentum), we think we know which loaf that will make. If we can get the ingredients together (in an accelerator) at just the right temperature (energy), we can hope to make the loaf itself.
Unfortunately, many loaves aren't stable, and revert back to their ingredients quickly. Quarks are never seen as a loaf, but the Higgs can be. This is common with bosons. Others, like the W and Z bosons, were predicted before they were seen by the interactions of other particles. Their masses were predicted by looking at reactions which did not actually involve any Z or W bosons! Eventully, we found the right "oven temperature" to make the loaf show up, and stay around long enough to be seen as a loaf.
My diet ends now! (Score:2)
"No, I don't way that much, there are just way too many Higgs bosons in the bathroom where I keep my scale and that's increasing my mass!"