E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSMsnbc's Thomas Roberts talks with astronomer Derrick Pitts about the Higgs boson.
The latest results from Europe's Large Hadron Collider have raised hopes among particle physicists that the elusive Higgs boson — also known as the "God Particle" — may be coming to light at last.
Sure, we've heard that before: Rumors about a possible detection at Fermilab's Tevatron, a particle collider near Chicago, have been circulating since last year, and just in the past few months there's been a rise and fall in expectations that the Higgs would turn up in the Tevatron's data.
Now the potential signature of the Higgs boson has turned up in an avalanche of data from both of the Higgs-hunting detectors at the Large Hadron Collider. The signature is not yet clear enough to constitute a discovery, but it suggests that the $10 billion particle collider, arguably the biggest and costliest science experiment on Earth, just might be on the right track.
"We cannot say anything today, but clearly it's intriguing," Fabiola Gianotti, spokeswoman for the science team behind the LHC's ATLAS detector, told The Guardian. Similarly intriguing results were reported by the team for the other detector, the Compact Muon Solenoid or CMS.
The two sets of findings were reported independently on Friday at the Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics in Grenoble, France, one of the world's biggest particle-physics forums. The ATLAS and CMS teams have been sorting through billions upon billions of data points from proton collisions at the LHC, looking for the statistical signs that suggest Higgs bosons are being shaken free for tiny fractions of a second.
The newly reported analyses suggest that the type of Higgs boson predicted by Standard Model of particle physics could be turning up around the mass-energy level of 140 billion electron volts, or 140 GeV. That's about the same level reported by one of the Tevatron's research teams.
When it comes to statistical significance, the results are not yet solid enough to constitute a confirmed discovery. But the fact that multiple detectors at two colliders are coming up with similar "bumps" in their data is nevertheless generating excitement.
"No reputable scientist is going to tell you anything more than 'this is very, very interesting and we'll keep an eye on it.' But it is indeed very, very interesting," Fermilab's Donald Lincoln, a member of the CMS collaboration at the LHC as well as the Tevatron's DZero collaboration, told me in an email.
Some are not yet convinced. The University of Padua's Tommaso Dorigo, who is part of the CMS team as well as the Tevatron's CDF team, said he doesn't see "anything compelling" in regards to the Higgs' potential detection. Rather, he sees the results as more significant for identifying energy levels where the Standard Model Higgs almost certainly won't be found. But everyone who's in the know pretty much agrees that it won't be long before physicists can say definitively whether the kind of Higgs particle they've been looking for does or does not exist.
"While I'd hate to predict an exact date, it's pretty clear from the performance seen thus and the expected near future that the Higgs will be found or ruled out on a time scale of months or perhaps a year," said Lincoln, author of the book "The Quantum Frontier."
What's so big about the Higgs?
Detecting the Higgs boson would be a big deal: It's the main reason why the Large Hadron Collider was built in the first place.
The LHC circulates protons around a 17-mile-round (27-kilometer-round) underground tunnel on the French-Swiss border to nearly the speed of light, and smashes them together within the giant ATLAS and LHC detectors as well as other special-purpose detectors distributed around the collider ring.
The more exotic products of those collisions almost instantly decay into more common subatomic particles, but by analyzing the distributions, directions and velocities of those particles, physicists can theoretically untangle big mysteries ranging from the origins of the universe to the nature of dark matter and the potential existence of extra dimensions in the cosmos.
The Higgs boson, and its associated field, is one of those big mysteries. Back in the 1960s, British physicist Peter Higgs and others proposed the boson's existence as the answer to a theoretical question about the nature of particle mass.
It's long been known that some particles (such as the quarks and leptons that make up matter) have mass, while others (such as the photon) are massless. But there was no solid explanation for the difference.
Higgs and his colleagues suggested that a type of field — analogous to a magnetic field — affected different particles in different ways, imparting mass to some particles but not to others.
In particle physics, fields are associated with force-carrying particles, which are put in a category of particles known as bosons. The particle associated with the Higgs field came to be known as the Higgs boson. Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman nicknamed it the "God Particle" because it played a central but subtle role in our conception of the cosmos. (Higgs and many other physicists hate the nickname.)
Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson.
A video provided by Chris Mann explains the Higgs boson and its connection to mass.
If the Higgs boson is found, and if it behaves in a manner consistent with the Standard Model, that would serve as an exciting validation of our current view of the structure of the cosmos. If the Higgs isn't found, or if it behaves in a non-standard way, that could be even more exciting. Physicists would have to go back to the drawing board and modify their explanation for the workings of the universe.
It's hard to predict how going back to the drawing board might affect the scientific world, or our everyday lives ... but the last time this sort of thing happened was a little more than a century ago, when quantum mechanics and relativity had to be invented to explain phenomena that just seemed weird to 19th-century physicists. These scientific paradigm shifts opened the way to innovations ranging from atom bombs and nuclear power to microwave ovens and lasers. So who knows where post-Standard Model physics might lead?
The details of discovery
Here's one more important thing to keep in mind: Discovering the Higgs won't be like discovering a new continent. Lots of numbers have to be crunched, and lots of statistics have to be analyzed to tease out the evidence for a previously undetected particle.
"It's much more like walking toward people in the fog, and waiting for the moment when you recognize the person you're looking for," Lincoln told me. The process that's playing out right now is probably the way discoveries work in 21st-century physics: First there are hints that something interesting might be going on, then more data are deciphered to confirm a discovery, and then physicists finally figure out how that knowledge can be put to use.
With that in mind, here's how Lincoln explains the slight "bump" seen in the newly reported data from the Compact Muon Solenoid:
M. Krammer et al. / CMS / CERN
This chart shows how data from the Large Hadron Collider's Compact Muon Solenoid may suggest the existence (or non-existence) of the Higgs boson at particular mass-energy levels (on the horizontal axis, in terms of giga electron volts, or GeV).
"Take a look at the image above. There are a couple of important things. First, there's a horizontal red line. This is the Standard Model. If the black or blue line goes below the red line, the Standard Model version of the Higgs boson is ruled out for that mass. So, except for some wiggles, the Standard Model Higgs is ruled out from about 150 billion electron volts, or 150 GeV, to 460 or so.
"The thing that is getting people a little excited is the second feature. The dashed black line is how well we expect to do if the Standard Model is right, but the Higgs boson doesn't exist. When the blue and black lines start to drift away from the dashed black line, it means that we expect we can rule out more than we did. For instance, in this case, we expected to be able to rule out from about 125 GeV and up. But since the blue and black lines don't dip below the red lines until 145 or 150 or so, this could mean that we have more events than physicists would expect to see from the Standard Model without the Higgs. So that could mean there are some Higgs events floating around. The difference is biggest around 145 GeV or so.
"Now we get a reality check. The green and yellow bands indicate our uncertainty in our expectations. So we see that the black and blue lines are at the edge of our uncertainty. Further, even in the region we are excluding (near 160 GeV), there is an excess (observed above expectation).
"This means (to me at least, and at this point it's all a matter of judgment) that it could be that the discrepancy reflects an imperfect understanding of the detector and algorithms.
"Still, all of the experiments sees an excess at some level, suggesting that either our theory has been implemented incorrectly or maybe something is going on. No reputable scientist is going to tell you anything more than 'this is very, very interesting and we'll keep an eye on it.' But it is indeed very, very, interesting.
"At the Lepton/Photon conference to be held in a month in Mumbai, the ATLAS and CMS experiments will hopefully combine their results, effectively doubling the amount of beam being used."
Now that you've gotten the hang of reading the data, here's the corresponding chart from the ATLAS detector.
The bracketed areas indicate mass-energy regions where the Standard Model Higgs has been excluded: 155 to 190 GeV and 295 to 450 GeV.
If you look ever so closely at the chart, you'll notice a slight elevation of the black line above the yellow zone of uncertainty at about 140 GeV, the same area where the CMS team detected the potential signature of a Standard Model Higgs boson:
K. Cranmer / NYU / ATLAS / CERN
This plot shows readings from the ATLAS detector that hint at mass-energy levels where the Standard Model Higgs boson might (and cannot) be found. The brackets indicate exclusion zones from roughly 155 to 190 GeV and from 295 to 450 GeV.
The bottom line? Something interesting may be going on in the world of physics, although there's still a chance that results or theories are being misinterpreted. Within the next year or so, we should know whether we're in the midst of a cosmic discovery. Stay tuned ...
Update for 6:05 p.m. ET July 25: The director general of the organization that hosts the LHC — known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN — says he expects the question of the Higgs boson's existence to be solved by the end of 2012. "I would say we can settle the question, the Shakespearean question — 'to be or not to be' — end of next year," Director General Rolf Heuer told reporters at the Grenoble conference.
Correction for 11:10 a.m. ET July 26: I've corrected the name of the ATLAS collaboration's spokeswoman, which I scrambled up as I was writing this item. Mi dispiace!
More about particle physics and the LHC:
- Interactive: Inside the Big Bang Machine
- Interactive: Nightmares and dreams at the LHC
- What's a hadron? Your guide to the particle zoo
- Special Report: The Big Bang Machine
For more about the findings presented in Grenoble:
- CMS press release about the results
- CMS slide presentation
- CMS: "Search for Standard Model Higgs Boson in pp Collisions at √ s = 7 TeV"
- ATLAS: "Combined ATLAS Standard Model Higgs Search With 1 fb-1 of Data at 7 TeV"
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also add me to your Google+ circle, and check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
No collision 'on earth' can bring out Higgs. I literally mean 'on earth', because these are not the condition which can take us back to the so-called big bang. Further, Higgs is theory. In practice gravity is due to particles whose spin is of course 0, but the rest is not so definitive as being thought in the SM. My site gives a chronology of the developments in my research efforts; don't be too much disappointed by the absence of details (it's a blog really), the details shall be published with the publication of my US patent application.
Hey boss, that's interesting, but what do you say we let the scientists work it out anyway? :) Cheers.
It's quite a shame that this research at Fermilab will be stopping soon, and the US has completely lost any edge at particle physics research. How can you fix it? Have say $10b in change? IMO we need a PPSA (particle physics survey agency) just as we have NASA, but with far bigger budgets. Of course this is just a huge circular pipe dream.
1) The Higgs has nothing to do with the big bang. (Nor, really, does the LHC, except inasmuch as it has the energy to produce particles that haven't been able to exist in thermal equilibrium since very shortly after the big bang.)
2) The Higgs has nothing to do with gravity. Gravity (per Einstein) couples to all sources of mass, energy, or momentum. The Higgs mechanism is simply related to the masses of fundamental particles. It doesn't couple to other sorts of energy, such as the kinetic energy of a photon or (more importantly) the QCD potential energy that makes up most of the mass of a proton.
That type of energy field "analogous to a magnetic field" may be another undiscovered cosmic force. Einstein defined energy and mass, now we need definitions of time and gravity. It's almost annoying: living in such a nascent era before postulation of a Unified Field Theory.
So much to learn, in a cosmos which doesn't lend itself readily to casual observation.
Full disclosure... I'm a "armchair" scientist... who just keeps up with the latest news in Part Phys, Astronomy, Archeo...ect. And (most important) I'm NOT a Troll But A Christian... I believe that true science points to God.. so here is my question/comment.
I do realize the significance of the Study however the Article seem to suggest that if The Higgs is ruled out then the elusive "God particle" is none exhistant and the Big bang is null and void.... back to the drawing board as the article stated? can some give a "uneducated" blogger a leg up?
Flame77_7, the elimination of the Higgs boson, or the Higgs field would not eliminate the Big Bang, but it would require some adjust or reevaluation of the Standard Model. I am not quite sure what all of this has to do with God or gods, unless you define god(s) as the sum of the laws of physics that allow the known universe to operate the way it does (not a bad definition, really)
Whatever the outcome of the research, it is great to see science - prediction, experimentation, observation, reevaluation - at work. It is also to see a comment thread where discussion is, for the most part, polite and reasonable. But that is the way of science and all those who follow scientific research.
If the Higgs exists or time travel is possible? I would believe everything we have thought to be true will be proven incorrect or simply a partial truth.
We are within a universe that is contained within WHAT?
1, 1+1, 1+1+1, 1 is the question? Nothing comes from Nothing.
Personally I think Big Bang theory and Black holes are figments of some very big imaginations.
seems the discussion now should involve luminosity >137GeV which is suppose to be any day now.
I don't see where ruling out the higgs boson invalidates the origin of the expansion of the universe and the cosmic background radiation. (It'd be great if we didn't have these awful soundbite names like "big bang' and "god particle", but the non-science world likes cute names that are easy to remember).
The universe is expanding at an increasing rate. It definitely is expanding from some point in time when everything was closer together and some massive force had to cause the expansion. Whether it was a zero point singularity or a plank length size collection of strings and branes or something else can only be assumed, but the math of reversing that expansion is the most reliable explanation that we have.
Perhaps we'll find out that the universe is actually a multiverse (as some believe) and the Higgs field does act as believed but is not made of Higgs bosons at all, but that the shadow particles of parallel universes which are thought not to interact with our universe at all, do constitute a force that behaves exactly like the proposed Higgs field.
That would mean that all the matter in our universe was also acting as one of others as shadow particles in one of those parallel universes.
the luminosity will bring a greater understanding with a direct perception of that which generates, operates, and designs/directs, or the g-o-d particle, resulting in an unmeasurable universe whose very definition will be semi permeable, a continuous, plasmatic wave.
Mike,
I've had the same basic thoughts about that possibility.
There are many interesting possibilities if the larger Multiverse is comprised of 10, 11, or as many as 26 dimensions.
While humanity has come pretty far over the past millennium, we are still at the very beginning stage of attaining a higher understanding of about the nature of everything around us.
GendoIkari,
Yes, and at the string level for each universe there are still three large dimensions and the rest are all at the plank length level, except they are not the same three for all universes. Our would have none in common with any of the others, but perhaps there are some parallel universes that do share one or two of the large dimensions with some very strange effects. A tear in the fabric of space might also cause some odd interactions until it closes.
Yes, that is much the way I've thought about it.
One dimension of our construct (universe) may be shared with another combination of dimensions that form another construct. Some constructs may have more dimensions than others than ours appears to. There may be some with less. Perhaps ours even has a dimension or two that we are simply failing to perceive. The interwoven possibilities there are seemingly endless.
Hello again Anadish, how are you, are you getting closer with your patent?
I am somewhat surprised in your over simplification of the SM, "Higgs, ... gravity (due to particles whose spin is of course 0) ...and the rest"?
If this is the approach (mind set) you took in your research and patent application I am afraid you may have problem getting it approved..
My point is one does not and cannot converge to unified theory by over simplification to a small set of conjectures that can be solved by narrow conceptualizations. On the contrary, one must place all the pieces in the puzzle before making any conclusions of what he is looking at.
By your comment, "Higgs is theory. In practice gravity is due to particles whose spin is of course 0" are you implying that Higgs field is equivalent and can be replaced by a gravitational field to explain gravity?
@Oaktree
Thanks for your inquiry and suggestions. You are right about your last guess. Unfortunately, chat rooms have become more of provocateur stuff than serious dialogue. O spin is a bit of oversimplification, I agree. Only when my work is out in full, can we discuss the entire findings and all the questions. Intriguingly, although, my work sets straight the question of gravity, it raises a new field full of new possibilities with other questions. However, surely, it is going to be a very complex universe, more than big bang, more than quantum particles. More like universes within universes. Seems, Lewis Carrol was more on mark than Einstein!
I think they got it narrowed down now, It will be neat if they someday isolate a bunch of higgs particles and do some neato experiments by bombarding them into (insert your favorite particles here). I suppose by then they will look back at these posts and wonder what all the fuss was about and why billions of anything were spent to find so obvious a particle.....on the other hand, we gotta wait and see if they really do find any higgs bosons...how about a list of the known bosons they (meaning this team at cern) have already confirmed as being detected during the experiments, that data set can also be an interesting clue to what is yet to be seen.
Undulating Virgin Condensate...The "God particle," is not a particle. It's a condensate. Einstein was close, when he proposed his Bose, Einstein Condensate Theory, but he couldn't see past his space and time distortions. Einstein was no Einstein. The "Big Bang," never happened. So, you can't duplicate something that never happened. The $10 billion collider, is one of the largest con games in history. Each Galaxy is a Universe unto itself. We live in the Milky Way Galactic Universe. Other than neutrons, protrons and electrons, all other sub-atomic particles are residue from the destruction of particles, not building blocks.
Good thing you're here to set the physics world straight...
Try thinking for yourself, instead of following bad science and wrong conclusions. Until recently, every scientist on the planet admitted that the "Big Bang," didn't happen. But, to get a paycheck, you have to come up with something, even when you know it's wrong. I know what happened the moment and time immemorial, before the "Biggest Bang," and the formation of the Milky Way Galactic Universe. Here's a taste...Our Sun started out as a Blue Super Giant Star, slightly larger than the orbit of Neptune. The accretion of Natural Uranium to a piece of crust, rolling across the surface, was the first planet formed, etc. Then our Sun became a Super Red Giant Star, when more crust formed. After the underlying mass decreased, pressures between the crust and the surface, caused the crust to blow out away from the yellow star mass underneath the crust. This formed the asteroid belt and moons without volcanoes. When our Sun developes enough crust, it will become a red star, this crust will be blown off, leaving a white dwarf star, which will eventually burn out forming a brown dwarf star, and finally a cinder in space, where our solar system used to be. All dead celestial matter eventually gravitates to the galactic center, forming a super dark matter mass, mistaken for a black hole. Light is not emitted, because all usable matter has been turned into energy. All that remains is mostly alpha iron. And so ends our Galaxy. Not enough room to go into detail. Use your imagination.
UncleBen-3793367,
I think you are using your imagination a bit too much. Do you know ANYTHING about star formation/life/death? A star doesn't cool off and go from an "O" type-blue supergiant to a lower mass star. An "O" type star has huge mass, and therefor it has a very high rate of fusion. Because its has such a high rate of fusion, it burns up its energy very quickly. Then, after getting to the point of fusing iron, the star explodes in what is called a supernova. What remains of the star is dependent on the mass of the core. If the mass of the core is greater four solar masses, it will form a black hole. If the mass of the remaining core is fewer than four solar masses, it will become a neutron star. And stars are huge balls of PLASMA, so they wouldn't be able to cool down and form crusts unless fusion slowed or stopped, and if it did, the stars would collapse.
And the idea that the centers of galaxies are just giant clumps of "dead" matter is preposterous and ridden with erroneous logic. First of all, gravity does not care whether matter is "dead" or "alive", so if "dead" matter eventually gravitates toward the center of a galaxy, so does "living" matter, and if that were the case galaxies wouldn't have the shapes that they do. Second of all, a black hole is an infinitely dense object that spins. If supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies did not spin there would be no flat galactic disks or spiral galaxies (a lack of spin would prohibit the orbit of the matter gravitationally bound to the black hole, and with no orbit there is no flattening of the galactic disk and no possibility of the existence of spiral arms), which is what we observe. And, by the way, clumps of "dead" matter wouldn't have any spin.
For "dead" matter to slowly make its way to the center of galaxies, you are insinuating that there is some massive object attracting the "dead" matter to the center of the galaxy, so why can't that massive object be a black hole?
You might want to re-think using your vivid imagination to theorize how things in our universe work and instead use it to write some fiction novels or poetry.
The Universe is converting matter to energy. Scientists think the opposite. Stars are fission reactions not fusion. A gas will expand to fill the container it's in. If all you can create is hydrogen, it will never coaless, to form a star. Scientists say, if you heat hydrogen to 4 million degrees, it will form a plasma, but they don't say where the energy to heat the hydrogen comes from. What they are saying, is you need a star to make a star...A body in motion will remain in motion. Everything in the Universe and pre-Universe (Undulating Virgin Condensate) spins and will continue to spin for eternity. When a stellar nursery stops producing stars, the mass remaining is the core of that Galaxy. Magnetism, from the residule alpha iron brings all cellestial debris toward the center...If a Star was going to explode, it would do so in it's infancy, not after it burned all it's fuel.
Stars convert light elements (hydrogen and helium, mainly), into heavier ones. This is called a fusion reaction.
Unless it's acted upon by an attractive force that prevents it from expanding. Ie a large amount of gravity.
Well maybe that's because they assume that the people reading this have a basic knowledge of the concepts behind it.
Not necessarily. Believe me, the scientists working on the "Big Bang" have definitely thought of how the first star was formed, and you didn't need a star.
Using Newtonian physics to explain the movement of stars and planets is guaranteed to mess you up sometimes, seeing as Newton was wrong.
UncleBen,
In my opinion, you are simply here to troll on the comments section. I think this because everything you have said is completely wrong. Scientists have shown through lab experiments and spectral analysis that stars fuse hydrogen ions into deuterium and into tritium, and then the deuterium and tritium fuse into helium and release one photon. After fusing all of their hydrogen into helium, they make carbon and oxygen and silicon and all the elements we have today that weren't man-made. Also, you do not need a star to make a star. Protostars become stars when nuclear fusion begins, and there is more than enough kinetic (heat) energy in a huge, dense ball of gravitationally bound hydrogen atoms (it's a fundamental law of chemistry, if you lower volume, you increase pressure, and when you increase pressure, you increase temperature, aka kinetic energy). By your logic, if a star was needed to form a star, there would be no stars (or anything for that matter because the stars synthesize all the natural elements we have today, even the atoms in your body were made in a star) because in the beginning of the universe there were no stars. No stars in the beginning=no stars now or ever, by your fallacious argument. I have all ready explained why a star bows itself up after running out of fuel. When a large star runs out of fuel it loses the force that keeps it from imploding (fusion), so gravity wins the battle and compresses it until it blows up and only the solid core remains, either as a neutron star or a black hole. Smaller stars cannot get to the point of fusing iron, so they begin to expand when they start synthesizing elements larger than helium (they get more energy from this, which causes the expansion). Eventually, they lose their outer layers and become white dwarfs with a surrounding planetary nebula.
Want to know how we know all of this? We know all of this because it has been observed. No scientist has observes the far fetched ideas you have put forth, and the things they have observed show that your ideas are wrong.
By the way, I'm still in high school and i have completely destroyed your logic and statements. This just goes to show how terribly wrong you are and how bad you are at making substantial arguments (you didn't even show any proof to back up your arguments, and proof is the most fundamental and basic part of ANY argument).
Your "dense ball of gravitationally bound hydrogen atoms." Where did it come from? How did it form? Take all the hydrogen you want, but in absolute zero temperatures, it will never coalesce, to produce gravity. In the pre-Universe, Undulating Virgin Condensate, formed basic non-material Neutrons, from Protons and Electrons. These formed non-material elements, until saturated, to become Unstable Undulating Plutonium Condensate. Under the shear volume of UUPC, the pressure caused a Quasar, creating solid matter. Four to nine Neutrons and two each Electrons and Protons, of each UUPC unit were consumed in the Quasar, leaving a stellar nursery of Natural Uranium, which is what all Stars are made of. For centuries, scientists have been trying to build a Universe from a single hydrogen atom. They have everything backwards. After a Galactic Universe is formed, it converts matter to energy, through Nuclear Fission. Everything you are being taught is Theory, and presented as fact, which it's not. When you start with bad imformation, you create problems that don't really exist, and to solve these non-existent problems, scientists have to come up with exotic solutions. My Theories are based on logic, and how things work in the physical world, from my knowledge and observations.
@r34..not bad for high school kiddo...when you get into college - drop the BS shown in your last sentence. "If scientist (people) are productive only because they hope for public reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. Einstein"
Everybody love to quote Einstein and he believed in God. Not some impossible theory of a one time explosion from nothingness that was so huge it formed the universe and never happened again. Oh yeah and is so precise that we can set clocks to teh movement of its contents with amazing accuracy. An explosion, from nothing that is not chaotic but organized and accurate. I'll take a designer who knows infinitely more than we do any day. Einstein did and he's still smarter than any modern day scientist and he's been dead a long time.
Einstein believed in a primary universal force that he experienced in the state of consciousness. The personal God that we as humanity have developed over the eons, is as real as the very notion so makes it.
Voice of "Reason",
Have you ever read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins? You should read it, it is quite a good book and you might learn a thing or two from it (I know I did). In his book, Dawkins shows that Einstein, and other great scientists, were in fact atheists (I read the book quite a while back, so I can't remember his reasoning, but if you read the book you would find out that Einstein and others were in fact atheists).
And by the way, the "Big Bang" was extremely chaotic (what explosion isn't?). There is one fundamental law that you must not know of or that you may have forgotten. The law I'm talking about is Newton's second Law of Thermodynamics, and it basically states that systems will tend to move from disorder to order. So, although the "Big Bang" was extremely chaotic, the Universe had about 13.7 billion years to get a bit more orderly. Another thing that arose from this law of thermodynamics is life. Life as we know it could not have begun had primordial molecules not ordered themselves in the way they did and formed organic matter.
One last thing; I am not here to tell you that "god" doesn't exist or that you are wrong to believe in an omniscient and omnipresent all-powerful being (although, if you look at it, it is quite a far-fetched idea), but I am here to tell you that knowing is better than not knowing. I don't know about you, but I like knowing how things work and why things are the way they are instead of saying "god did it" and never looking at things again. If everyone thought that way, we would have made NO scientific advancements and we would still be living in the Dark Ages (which is when there were the least amount of scientific/architectural advancements and when religion was the power that dominated the Earth. Coincidence? I think not...).
And by the way, Einstein was smarter than most of today's scientists because he was born with part of his brain smaller than it should have been, which allowed his spatial/mathematics area of the brain to grow larger than normal. I also thing that there is at least one person that rivals Einstein, and he would be none other than the professor Steven Hawking, but that's just my opinion.
@R34...your opinion is magazine smart at best kiddo...Hawkins is not and never has equaled the genius of Einstein...your brain mass theory and research on Einstein and atheism is lacking basic and simple research. One rival of Einstein was Hillard...study up or shut up.
I think I've done enough "studying" based on the fact that my 9th grade science teacher made us watch the History Channel's "The Universe" series a billion times, and one of those episodes is almost ENTIRELY about Einstein. I have also read The God Delusion which is more than enough to show me that Einstein was in fact atheist (Dawkins presents both his argument and arguments from religious people, so I am not biased). And there is no research saying he was religious either (the only things examined were quotes, which can be taken either way, but lets face it, a great scientist such as Einstein was most likely not religious because he was a thinker and not a "god did it" kind of person) so how about you show me some proof and, in your own words, study up or shut up.
Also, I said it was my opinion that Hawking rivals Einstein. There is no need to criticize it because you have different opinions (That's why I'm not attacking you over your opinion of Hillard being one of Einsteins rivals).
hopefully R34 you are still open enough to learn to distance your personal urges from a scientific query. I challange you to read-up on the professional, ethical and genuis relationship between Hillyard and Einstein as you may stand corrected to your beliefs. Your reliance on the book "Delusion" is a delusion...the universe is denser then that...
Talk about a waste of money.The scientists can't even give you a straight answer.They don't have a clue except they get a hefty paycheck each week.They keep the game going by promising maybe,could be and might be.
A large fraction of the scientists who work on the LHC or on related physics are graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. You might want to look up the numbers on grad student and postdoc stipends in physics before making this sort of claim. Hint - they're not pretty. And, in the sciences, there's basically 0 chance of advancing to even the lowest paid faculty jobs before you're old enough to be president of the US.
Yeah, whenever I think of classes of people who are out to make big money quickly, scientists, especially those involved with pure research like particle physicists, do not come to the top of the list. Should I be a hedge fund manager or a particle physicist? How about a defense contractor of particle physicist? How about a televangelist of particle physicist?
What in the hell is wrong with you? I've NEVER met a high paid scientist. And even if they are highly paid, what of it? You do realize that you can write your innane comments on this website because of past theoretical physics work?
Silvereagle: Besides the obviously ignorant "big paycheck comment, you need to take a basic statistics course. Only then might you understand how to look at those graphs in the article and begin to understand what is going on.
What a bunch of pocket physicists! Every one of you has a different argument about the article above...lol
Pocket physicists are infinitely better conversationalists than armchair warriors! (Not to imply anything, of course.)
Someone call Dr. Fleinhardt!
the real problem is the lack of imaginitive theoreticians....they are flogging this incorrect theory to death in the same way the Egyptians flogged the useless practise of mummification to death, for want of a better idea. Its been about 100 years since ANY physicist had an original cosmological notion or a new idea about matter and energy, or space and time. Since the fundamental nature of both matter and energy remain allegorical and metaphorical at their deepest levels there should/ought to be a new encompassing theory every few years...where are they? Maybe somebody can begin constructing a new theory by imagining that the speed of light in a vacuum is not the ultimate highest speed attainable, but is only the highest speed we have examined so far with the available instruments. A $10 billion dollar machine dedicated to exceeding the sppeed of light significantly, would probably yield more useful dsts thsn the dsme money spent lookin gor a Higgs boson.
String theory, anyone?
And the theories of Inflation and General Relativity...
Gee. I guess quantum mechanics is useless too since it was developed in the 20s and 30s.... Certainly less than 100 years ago.
if space itself is a field and not a void then the mathmatics changes and you dont need a new particle , there really is just energy and energy reacting to other energy fields. try the math and see.
Um, what math would that be?
you would have to address the void that the field is in...
WHOOOSH! Right over my head! My tiny monkey/lizard brain simply cannot understand any of this except it may be a big deal and it is "very, very interesting." I got that part.
I'll have to wait for the publication of "Particle Physics for Dummies" before it will make any sense to me.
But congrats all around guys (and gals). Even an ignorant monkey like myself can understand how important this research is and what it could mean to the rest of the monkeys on the planet whether they appreciate it now or not.
Keep up the good work.
When they see the error in Einstein's theories, then, and only then, will they be be able to go forward with their research. For details, check out my video on breaking the speed of light mathematically:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me_m99XVWHo
If you're squeamish about web links, go on YouTube and look for "WTFViewer" and select Light Movie 1.
The other two videos extrapolate from the results of my research, and detail why I did the research. When the other scientists fix the equations, then they'll finally be headed in the right direction, and we'll finally have some breakthroughs in power research (and get off this rock before WW3 begins).
I understand what they're trying to do, at least as well as has been articulated, but it seems to me what they really need is less "data" and more thought before they fire that bad boy up. Think about what they are doing, and instead of expecting to "see" or "not see" one particle of focus, maybe look at the larger picture, and all the other data that is coming out not entirely linked to the Higgs Boson.
Come on, physicists, it's not just about particles. Don't miss the big picture!
-Signed, Theoretical Chemist.
Matt...I believe the new data is expected from luminosity enhancement. Whats this 'suzy' stuff...a new religion?:)
I GOT A BETTER THEORY FOR THIS UNIVERSE...
IN THE BEGINNING GOD...
you guys should check it out... there is wayy more evidence...
Jonathan...are you speaking from your heart or do you wish to grant hidden knowledge to this group of misfits?
there is no evidence for faith...never has and never will be..
Jonathan, ever consider this is exploring "how" he did it? (if not, WHY are you here?)
There is absolutely no evidence proving the existence of God or any supreme being. There's ample evidence of cultures that practiced and documented various religions and types of worship, but that's it.
Faith is the belief in something regardless of the lack of proof or even with evidence against it.
That could also be said for certain mental conditions, but accepted beliefs in our culture fall under the faith category and unaccepted beliefs fall under the mental illness category.
If "god" created the Universe, what/who created "god"?
I'll tell you who created "god"; homo sapiens. So, by this logic, if Humans created "god", and the Universe was created before humans, "god" couldn't have created the Universe and does not exist.
So then the age old question. Is Man a blunder of God's, or is God a blunder of Man's? Just wondering.
I've already seen the Higgs Boson. No, wait. That was Higg's Bison. Sorry.
That's a bunch of Bull,...
To me, it's hard to call anything that only exists for a tiniest fraction of a second, that requires so much energy, that exists only in a laboratory,that requires reams of statistical analysis, a particle ANYTHING! name these things what you will, to me it's hunting for ghosts. Just imagine what we could do in space with all the money and effort these guys use/occupy/do.
Just imagine what we could do on earth with all the technological development that results from the money and effort these guys use/occupy/do. I'm completely surprised by the number of people on this thread who seem to think that getting a better understanding of the fundamental nature of our universe is NOT going to bring us progress. Even the technology demand created by the difficulties of seeing these fleeting particles provides reams of advancement.
If people like you were the only people on the world, we'd still believe that the four elements were water, air, earth, and fire. On the bright side of that universe, though, we'd have no internet and I wouldn't be able to contact people like you.
@Jackie
You have it right.
@Stephan
The Internet, you know the thing we are using right now, came from Cern and it changed the world and continues to change it every day; and it's not even related to particle physics. Once they begin to unlock more of the mysteries surrounding the Higg's Boson and anti-matter we will start seeing the real fruits of their research. Hell we may find a new energy source or a new way to improve the efficiency of combustion materials.
No, Geo, I've been keeping track of all our scientific endevours for about 30 years, as both geology, and physics are my favorite subjects. But I must say again, if you have to use so much energy to create a particle, and it stays in existence for such a short period of time, is it really real? Call me a space nut, I'd rather we concentrate on getting off this rock!!Oh, particle physics did NOT create/cause the internet, semiconductor technology did.
But it was CERN that fueled the need for the technological innovations to create the internet. Necessity is the mother of invention. I still hold that investigating particle physics will bring about new technology.
Stephen...these days your kinda thinking will get you a severance check at any high energy collision lab
Stephen,
You are right, I used the generalized term for it. What Cern created was the World Wide Web, which for all intents and purposes is the Internet.
It started out as a network space where all of Cern's documents from experiments, and pland, and such were put there for the public to view and it was completely open; Cern's own words were that on their version of the WWW that they had created there was no intellectual property; everyone owned the information contained on their servers and could access it freely.
Obviously that has changed a lot since the WWW became commercialize, but it was still born out of Cern and led to the Internet revolution of the late 90's and early 2000's which brought about our current online enviornment; without Cern we might not have a Facebook right now, or a YouTube. These might have come at a later time then they did or not at all.
Back to the Higgs, even if it only exists for fractions of a second, that does not mean it never was there to begin with. The Big Bang happened in less then a nanosecond in terms of the time span of the Universe, does that mean it did not happen? Obviously we do not know if the Big Bang really happened, but assuming that it did was my inflection; although it is a commonly supported theory.
Geo, and Jackie, Thank you for that clarification, I appreciate it. I was unaware of CERN'S role in the development of the www. Driftrat, as much as I don't want those scientists out of a job, I STILL think that kinda money will serve us better developing space technologies/industries, thus creating other jobs.
Stephen...I was being facetious...I think it's a good bet that they're creating the particles.
That's what I was trying to get at. WE'RE MAKING those particles, they probably don't exist/have never existed naturally.
If they find the Higgs Boson particle, the next question is this...what particles make up the Higgs, and what particles make up those particles and so on and so on....
If the Higgs boson is found, and if it behaves in a manner consistent with the Standard Model, that would serve as an exciting validation of our current view of the structure of the cosmos. If the Higgs isn't found, or if it behaves in a non-standard way, that could be even more exciting.
------------
Such is the fallacy of Scientific Theory. If it turns out to be true, it's a fact; if after a while it's proven to be false, it's an advancement in science. The end result is never bad, even if someone dies. And it's no wonder people call scientists a bunch of elitists. :)
but that's how all advancement works. We live in the here and now. What can be proved at this moment is what is fact in today's reality.
Dial-up modems were the fastest way for home computers to communicate in the 90's. That was a fact then. Is that true now? No. But it doesn't mean the approach is flawed though. It just means newer technology/techniques/insight propels things forward. Discarding invalid scientific theories is part of that process. Just as important, though, is validating current theories as well. Enlightenment, understanding and learning is never BAD, you're right about that. But that's how the process works and its not just applied to science. That's a universal process.
lance, the ned result is never bad, because we have still learned something whichever way it goes. Why do you seem to think that is a bad thing?
Ok, so I assume they have filtered out the characteristics of the measuring system before charting the blue and black lines.
I can understanding the interests at about the 140 GeV, but what is going on between 160 - 180 GeV, 250, 360, and 580 GeV?
There is a distinct difference in the readings below 300 GeV (more "wiggles") and above 300 GeV (smoother profile). Is this because the measuring system is more accurate at the lower energy levels or does this indicate a problem in the algorithms?
Now that we see the areas of interest (energy ranges), can this machine give us a higher resolution at these ranges or do we need to build another to go deeper?
Again, I can understanding the interests at about the 140 GeV, but I really like to know what is going on between 160 - 180 GeV? Maybe it's because of my bias background, I have done a lot of random vibration testing and when I see two lower peaks instead of one larger that indicates that something is suppressing the expected event. This a similar characteristic between 120 - 125 GeV.
I also find it really interesting that the predicted and observed numbers vary WILDLY at other points on the track. Tantalyzing forecoursers of the searches to come? :D
If you notice, the expected sensitivity there also has some pretty striking features. This is because that is a mass range where some of the most easily identified possible Higgs signals become possible. In particular, if the Higgs has a mass of over about 161 GeV, it can (and will, preferentially) decay to a pair of W bosons (the force carriers of one aspect of the weak force). The signals from the decays of the Ws are pretty easy to identify, making identification of the Higgs much simpler than if its mass is lower.
could you suppose the 'suppression' is a form of scaffolding? if this is some kind of observer collapse/emergence how could a scientist be able a explain such a metaphysical event?
@driftrat
That is exactly the point, previous experiments found no Higgs signals in the 160-180 GeV region,
see http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/9712/9712283v1.pdf
however, the chart shown here, assuming these are results from LHC, show something going on outside the SM version of the Higgs boson.
So, the question is can this machine supply data in a form that we can use to do the necessary adjustments to the SM theory?
There is something definitely going on at this range and it may not be the Higgs but could it be gluon-gluon generation/decay not necessarily from the Higgs but some other mechanism we are not aware of?
(By the way, gluon-gluon signals is where my money is on, lol)
Oak...a mechanism that may not necessarily be Higgs however... may reflect 'mediation'? preciate the simplest theory of course. is suzy some kind of new religion? thanks :)
driftrat...about "suzy" this is the best (worst) I can find, sorry :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjVaZ0keA80&feature=related
oak...sorry bout the TO..."The Supersymmetry (SUSY) theory provides a symmetry between matter and forces, and predicts that for each known particle there is a 'supersymmetric' partner. SUSY quarks, or squarks, are ruled out by CMS up to 1.2 TeV for a large range of SUSY parameters in the models tested "[SUS-11-003].
figured this was right up your alley...
oak...try this...
New CMS Results for the EPS 2011 Conference
driftrat, it is not looking good, I am beginning to feel that 7 TeV will not be sufficient to give a good sample for the Higgs nor any fourth generation particles.
I believe for us to finally get the full picture (photograph) we will need enough fire power to witness these jets in a good dosage (background) of quark-gluon plasma. (We are talking extreme temperatures and pressures!)
One thing that struck me going through some of the released data is, how stable are the W-/+ and Z bosons anyway? We have a mass with a certain degree of accuracy for both at present but how stable is this state for these bosons? Could they be drifting and we just don't have enough change in the evolution operator to detect any change to the resonances of the two bosons?
My point being, we may be measuring a snap shoot in nature which is changing due to the continuous change in the ratio between matter and antimatter. Is the visible mass constant or is it changing at such a slow rate that makes us assume W and Z boson are constants too?
If the resonances are varying then do we need the Higgs mechanism to complete the explanation for the transition for massless (particles/waves) to massive particle ("gluonic" condensates)?
thanks for the reply..
I'm also hearing that at this level the labcoat is now an unavoidable inclusion to the data.
It occured to me when someone said that we are just specks in the universe...that in fact the smallest particle would consider us extremly large.
Ah yes, but there is a limit to space itself. Thank "God" for multidimensional space, it means we can pass through a point and therefore it exist. The question is what is occupying that point, a single particle (very unlikely) or the simplest of all oscillators (flex-tubes) that permeate all of space?
The concept of flew-tubes as the fundamental mechanism is what keeping God still in the picture, contrary to what Mr Steven Hawking proclaimed a few months ago. Where is the energy to keep these oscillators going coming from? Is it the dark energy we are searching for and what is the fundamental wavelength?
I would like to live long enough when we finally figure out how to "see" (construct a sensor that can probe into such dimensions). We can going on adjusting our math and physics but I just want a glimpse at the "hand of God".
Flux-tubes
Sorry for my spelling, should always check read.
thanks for the correction -seems to me flux-tubes is an approach to understanding and reflect fields that may exist like Higgs.
Fascinating stuff. I do wish, though, that someone would come up with an alternative to the tired phrase, "the elusive Higgs boson."
The volume on the video was not loud enough for me to hear what was said, but the picture I see in the article looks an awful lot like what I just pulled out of my bellybutton.
Sorry. Double post.
As an arm chair observer I'm cheering the researchers on. I've benefited all my life from research that has gone before. I would love to see where things are in a 100 years but I won't be around (unless that funky action at a distance thing keeps me going).
There are people that fear creation of the 'Frankenstein' that ends it all or will cost them money they could have spent on the fruits of earlier discoveries. After we are gone, maybe what we learn will be out there for another intelligent life to pick up on and keep going. Only what we learn can give us any real significance in the universe as a whole and that is questionable. I do like carrying my phone around in my pocket though. I'm 59 yrs old and that is so weird to me.
I just wish they wouldn't call it a god particle. I just don't understand that.
So these are the guys that will destroy the world on dec 12 2012 , hmmmmm
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein
It seems as though all we hear of the LHC is the scientists' quest for the Higgs boson.
What else are they doing of value with this massive machine?
Hi my name is Cindy, and I'm 500lbs of pure unadulterated woman. I just want some love so click <here> to see me get busy with my donkey George. Or if you want cheap meds direct from Mexico or Canada click <here> or if you want to grow your penis at least six feet in five minutes click <here> oh and click <here> to recieve your own free prize.
Sorry this forum was just getting too serious, and there isn't any spam so... ya...
Love and a big box of doughnuts,
-Cindy
big cindy...I’m gonna ride you like a bus to Atlantic City.