The God Particle, or, When Particles Collide!
- Thread starter McZiderRed
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Exciting news today, shame it happened only a month after I left!! There's still a lot of work to be done to check that it is a Higgs boson and if it is what sort of Higgs boson it is (there are various theories). I think some people in the science community are a bit disappointed and worried about how 'normal' this suspected Higgs looks. It makes it more difficult to accommodate it in to theories beyond the standard model, which can't explain several phenomenon (e.g. gravity).
FB There is a subtle distinction - the Higgs boson is not what gives everything mass, it is the Higgs field. Everything moves through the Higgs field and the mass of a particle depends on how much it interacts with this field. For example, it's a bit like the difference between walking through the air and walking through a swimming pool, you feel 'heavier' moving through the pool (although this analogy isn't particularly helpful as we have changed the "field" from air to water, whereas it is the particles that change to give different masses). The Higgs boson is a predicted by-product caused by the Higgs field interacting with itself.
You always come unstuck in the end if you ask questions like what is matter made of though, why the fuck does anything exist? I have no idea. Sure we can talk about the big bang, but why the hell should that tiny dense point of matter have existed in the first place? At that point you probably have to abandon science and start talking about religion...
FB There is a subtle distinction - the Higgs boson is not what gives everything mass, it is the Higgs field. Everything moves through the Higgs field and the mass of a particle depends on how much it interacts with this field. For example, it's a bit like the difference between walking through the air and walking through a swimming pool, you feel 'heavier' moving through the pool (although this analogy isn't particularly helpful as we have changed the "field" from air to water, whereas it is the particles that change to give different masses). The Higgs boson is a predicted by-product caused by the Higgs field interacting with itself.
You always come unstuck in the end if you ask questions like what is matter made of though, why the fuck does anything exist? I have no idea. Sure we can talk about the big bang, but why the hell should that tiny dense point of matter have existed in the first place? At that point you probably have to abandon science and start talking about religion...
It has been announced that the higgs boson is now almost certain to exist.
From the BBC
The Higgs boson-like particle whose discovery was announced on 4 July looks significantly more certain to exist.
The particle has been the subject of a decades-long hunt as the last missing piece of physics' Standard Model, explaining why matter has mass.
Now Higgs-hunting teams at the Large Hadron Collider report more than "5.8 sigma" levels of certainty it exists.
That equates to a one-in-300 million chance that the Higgs does not exist and the results are statistical flukes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19076355
From the BBC
The Higgs boson-like particle whose discovery was announced on 4 July looks significantly more certain to exist.
The particle has been the subject of a decades-long hunt as the last missing piece of physics' Standard Model, explaining why matter has mass.
Now Higgs-hunting teams at the Large Hadron Collider report more than "5.8 sigma" levels of certainty it exists.
That equates to a one-in-300 million chance that the Higgs does not exist and the results are statistical flukes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19076355
The key part is:
It's definitely a new particle in the region where a Higgs was expected, but there's more work that needs to be done before it can be shown that it's actually a Higgs boson and not some other new particle.
It's definitely a new particle in the region where a Higgs was expected, but there's more work that needs to be done before it can be shown that it's actually a Higgs boson and not some other new particle.
The LHC is being switched off for two years so they can fix the magnets and get it all working at full power as designed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21421460
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21421460
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