I'm just waiting for the inevitable posts from people that can't even spell "boson" but are just ABSOLUTELY convinced that their tax dollars are being wasted here.

I roomed with Higgs Boson III at Yale. Never thought he would amount to anything.

Good to see I was wrong.

Just reading the article has given me a headache. Comprehending? I'm just lost, so I'll take your word for it Alan. The visual side of my brain is pretty well developed. The abstract thought side? Not so much. I am very impressed with the theoretical capabilities of these guys.

What is all this fuss about Mary Ellen Higgs's bosom?

Whats all this about bison?

In layman's terms: "We are still searching for the elusive missing particle that proves our current speculations regarding physics are correct."

The collective "sigma" at Newsvine is about 1.3 - if people start saying this proves that a god exists, we will have to recalculate that to about 0.5.

blondeness; the same could be said about all the beauty products women buy.

I don't know what's sadder: blondeness' post or the people who voted for it.

They could have also used the time and money to build desalination plants and pipelines to bring water to drought ridden areas. They could have built schools and/or hospitals

They could have found out who 'Card member services' is and stopped them from calling my house............and then they could have made those dirty SOBs ride bicycles 24/7 to supply electricity to a hospital in Zimbabwe until they all died a horrible death............but.......that's not going to happen I guess............sooooo..............higgs bosun it is. But it is nice to dream isn't it?

Sounds like this info is a "last, best guess".

There's plenty of other money available to spend on suffering human beings. Non-suffering humans decided not to do it, that's all. Don't blame scientists.

blondeness032...........men are really idiots.....or did you just notice? They scatch their ba&&s, pick their noses, start useless wars, waste money.........CAUSE more human suffering than they will ever, ever end....

it's our constitutional right to higg boson...now higg like a boson...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b839Gb1c2zg

This is from another website about the benefits of this LHC.

www.lhc.ac.uk/About+the+LHC/11837.aspx

The LHC is not primarily about building a better world. Rather, it allows us to test theories and ideas about how the Universe works, its origins and evolution.

I put that up there in reference to this post

Junicon

I'm just waiting for the inevitable posts from people that can't even spell "boson" but are just ABSOLUTELY convinced that their tax dollars are being wasted here.

I hope there is more to come of this than what I just read. To me that is a waste of tax paying dollars, to give an example of how the universe could have come into being.

Reminder, this doesnt prove how our universe came into being, it just shows their experiment

blondeness, the ironic part about your little rant is that research like this is what pushes mankind into understanding and providing new technology. I bet if you were around 150 years ago, you would piss and moan about the money spent on equipping steam boats with the first desalination boilers to provide fresh water, complaining that the funds could be better spent on something else. People such as you do not see to potential for research such as this, that its why you condemn it. Let me ask this, what have you done in the past 5 years that has significantly affected mankind in a positive light. No, donating clothes to Goodwill does not count.

@ blondeness032 what Knife104 said. I must add that it is the political power enjoyed by ignoramuses of your ilk that causes so much of the poverty, hunger, illness and war that torments the people of this planet. Since this includes most of the presidents, premiers, princes, and other puffed up putzes (sorry, my right brainedness had to jump in) misleading most of the nations are among that number I am going to assume that in your case it is the result of misguidance and reflects no lack of intelligence or virtue on your part. For the lackwit lusterless leaders (there goes that intuitive artistic side of the brain again) referred to in the previous sentence my judgment is somewhat less generous.

I'll add one more point, if you're wondering about the possible benefits, read through the lower posts and see that people make good references to the fact that electricity had the same complaints when research was first performed.

Blondeness, we will not reduce human suffering until we find a way to reduce the birth rate. There is severe poverty in the world because people keep having children that they cannot afford to take care of properly. All the desalinization plants, water pipelines, schools, and hospitals in the world isn't going to change that. Think about the immense amount of money and effort that has been made through the years to reduce or eliminate poverty. Yet, today there are more desperately poor people in the world than ever before in our history, and population experts predict that the world population will grow by another billion in the next 12 to 13 years. How's that for a cheery thought. I say, let the scientists make their discoveries while we still have that luxury.

If you are seeking the only real God I suggest you go to a Christian church. If your trying to justify your liberal, immoral UNGODLY behavior than go worship your particle. I encourage you to enjoy yourself for your short time on earth. It's amazing to me that people would spend billions trying to prove God does not exist only just to justify allowing millions of people to starve..........

@ lee-936758 If the "God Particle" exists it is part of the True God's creation. Discovering, studying, and explaining this particle and it's role in how Creation works is all part of the Great Song of Praise that is all worthy human endeavor. Using this knowledge to make our existence better is part of the Prayer of Thanks we owe Him. An the misuse of this knowledge is part of the great sin we must repent.

I see your fundamentalism and raise it with my mysticism.

To all those who see no value in "pure science", take it easy. Just as research into the mating habits of bugs has led to insecticides that preserve food for starving people, all over the world, instead of having it eaten by insects, so any pure science may turn into technology at any moment. Just because you lack the imagination to see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

There is also the more indirect possibility that a more complete understanding of the universe may lead to some individuals adopting religious views that are more harmonious with their neighbors' views, or at least less confrontational, and bring about an easing of tensions between groups, and directly result in fewer lives being taken in military conflict.

No one knows what practical results may result from ANYTHING (whether from attempted good works, or from physicists asking apparently purely theoretical questions). You might as well ask, "What good is a baby?"

The Higgs is, from everything I've read, the basis of mass in our universe.

Understanding it, would unlock potential in so many areas it's not even funny. Imagine being able to cancel out the mass of an object . . . if the Higgs could be controlled somehow. HG Wells' Cavorite could become a reality, maybe.

In any interpretation, even one as ill-informed as mine, it seems to be a very, freaking, big deal. On par with E=mc2.

blondeness; the same could be said about all the beauty products women buy.

I'll second (or third, or fourth) that. Vanity, which is what women's beauty products are all about, should be the eighth deadly sin! I've known women who are gorgeous without "beauty" products (Crazy Anne, although she used to wear her share), and I've known some who are butt ugly no matter how much they trowel on (and take off with Janitor In A Drum)(Godzilla).

Hey drainbramage...what's happenin'? What did you do during your suspension?

I am a little late in getting in on this discussion but I need to let people know some thing. There is a problem in thinking there are any other particles other then just the ones we know of to be the neutron, the proton and the electron. These particles are moving when in the atom. The electrons and the nucleus are moving at light speed. So they are heavier. This is added weight. And then there is the weight of the "bounds" between neutrons and the "bounds" between protons. This is not yet in your equation. Plus the weight of the bounds moving at light speed. This adds weight. In conclusion there are no Quarks even no other particles after you have done the math right. After you have broken the atom up, then the atom brakes into it seems regular predicable subatomic particles other then the ones we all ready knew of.

@Junicon, I know what you mean. Far too often, even if the studies were DONE BY ANOTHER COUNTRY, all the time I hear some moron, who knows nothing about the subject (or It's possible benefits), complain about their tax dollars.

Gee, randomperson, maybe you and junicon would be so kind as to get together and share how it feels to be so superior to the rest of us!

Science cannot prove the existence of God because the personal experience of God and our savior from sin, Jesus cannot be duplicated. It is about personal faith and prayer in the moment. This cannot be duplicated.

It is reality.

God Bless ESPN

Steve

Does ever occur to the short sighted and shallow thinking that the reason they are capable of sending their thoughts to thousands of people across the globe in a matter of seconds is due to discoveries that, at their infances, had their blondeness pissing and moaning every step of the way? Everything that makes us capable of even caring on a global scale, instead of wondering if we are going to eat tomorrow locally, is ALL thanks to novel discoveries. Do you think anybody gave a @!$%# when the electron was introduced to the public? Do you think we could feed and water a population this big today without it?

I was kind of hoping the standard model would fall flat on its face with this one. It would be far more exciting than finding the Higgs at this point.

If you are going to add up the weights of the subatomic particles, You do have to take into account the weights of bounds in the nucleus of the atoms. Bounds weigh some thing and when they are moving at light speed they weigh even more. The other subatomic particles are moving at light speed and of course weigh more too.

The standard model of a nucleus and an electron cloud is enough. It is a wast of time looking for unaccounted for weights of an atom. Do the math and we can start to have Plasma Reactors that might work instead of like in France. Spending $3.5 billion to explore subatomic particles is a wast of time. Super high energy would be found if we did some thinking. More subatomics particles in larger Atoms after we tare them apart with magnets in a Plasma Reaction.

Feeding the world from High energy would save tons of money. If these Plasma Reactors cost the same as a partical excelerator we only need to do math to salve the probblem of what goes into matters make up

Reweigh the neutron and you will find there is a new way to think of the atom.

Particle accelerators cost the same as Plasma Reactors. But we get a lot more out of a Plasma Reactor. Having the right idea when using a Plasma Reactor would make for a lot of energy sustainable into our energy future.

Knowing our atom is essential to the secret of how to use our money right. No right understanding of the atom and we wast our precious time(='s money) and resources.

No neutrons under NA, for sure. A duel charged particles neutrons. No small atom has them. This needs to be known.

So, Junicon, you won the race to politicize this. Was that your intent? Jeez, I hope it was just temporary insanity.

This is wonderful stuff, because it's important news whether it is or it isn't, small mass/large mass, everything. Nothing cooler going on anywhere. Nice work guys.

If you are seeking the only real God I suggest you go to a Christian church. If your trying to justify your liberal, immoral UNGODLY behavior than go worship your particle.

Why do so many 'Christians' condemn science? If you look at things from a different, more open perspective, Christianity offers infinite room for acceptance and belief of science.

Chuckx wrote:

There's plenty of other money available to spend on suffering human beings. Non-suffering humans decided not to do it, that's all. Don't blame scientists.

The scientists quoted in this article and in several of the links are profoundly non-suffering; some are ecstatic. By your flawed logic scientists are indeed to blame.... for something unrelated to this article. If you have nothing to contribute, please don't try.

Rene278

If you are seeking the only real God I suggest you go to a Christian church. If your trying to justify your liberal, immoral UNGODLY behavior than go worship your particle.

Why do so many 'Christians' condemn science? If you look at things from a different, more open perspective, Christianity offers infinite room for acceptance and belief of science.

Cant agree more. I have never found any conflict between science and religion. God is the creator of sciences any way, so why would they be in conflict. These guys who come on here may not know better about the particle, the title is misleading.

Now for those who feel this hurts their religion, let me assure you it does not. All this is, are scientists( intelligence ) taking something that already exists ( atoms ) and smashing them together to explain a possible beginning to the universe. Remember guys this is nothing more then an assumption, no one was there to witness any of this, so it will always be nothing more than speculation. I hope the study does show ways to help man kind with energy or something like that, but to spend 10 billion dollars or a piece of metal to me seems silly. TO each their own I guess, it didnt come from my tax dollars, thats all i care about.

Yeah but the 10 billion provided for jobs and wages for hard
working people, we should care enough that we lost out on making the discovery
here. Are accelerator at Fermilab got shut down, so the only real option left
for studying high particle physics requires our bright minds to leave this
country.

James, I'm not sure what you're talking about. What is a
plasma reactor? I built a fusion reactor once, but it was highly inefficient.
Is it like that?

The way I look at it is that they( the world) only spent 10 billion. And the discoveries are likey to pay off big time with things that will provide jobs in the future so people can buy food if they are willing to work. On the other hand Americans alone spent 6.86 billion on halloween last year and the payoff was what?A few dentists made a few bucks after kids got cavities from eating candy.

Really there is no way to judge the applications of pure research on the basis that you "can't think of how it might be useful." Condemning pure research shows a woeful lack of imagination and is largely hypocritical, considering how we rely on these technologies to no end but we fail to recognize this. Here are a few examples.

1. Electricity. This is self-explanatory, but imagine how useless the idea of electrons traveling along a wire must have seemed considering applications.

2. GPS systems. Before all of this, research to verify that special relativity was indeed correct involved putting an atomic clock on a jet and flying all over the place. The difference in time between the reference frames was perhaps on the order of nanoseconds. It's not like Einstein wrote his paper and GPS systems were an obvious application. These satellites only measure one's location so precisely because of small corrections as dictated by special relativity.

3. The internet. Again, this is self-explanatory. A small number of computers sharing information on a network sounds pretty useless for commercial applications, especially at a time when computers could be the size of rooms and there nothing to suggest that computers would be anything smaller or more affordable.

4. Computers. This is a subject so broad that it encompasses many technologies we previously thought chimerical. For example, RAM started off so small that at first only several numbers could be held in memory, and that was a massive achievement. The amount of research required before a technology is developed enough to have commercial applications is massive, if it happens to be successful. Hence research grants come before the applications or utility is evident.

5. Audio cassettes. Sounds odd, but this all started with traveling to the moon. NASA needed to develop better sound reading and recording technologies. The technology was used by the music industry to develop audio cassettes. Audio cassettes may not be used much today, but that is only because they have been replaced by newer technologies that were similarly funded with research grants with unknown applications.

Those are just a few examples. I don't see how anyone can cognizant of these things and not readily admit the value of pure research. To put this into perspective, about 2% of our federal budget is dedicated to science and medical R&D. Counting social security (20%), medicaid/medicare/CHIP (21%), safety net programs (13%), and benefits to veterans and federal retirees (7%), we spend about 30 times more money on helping our own citizens than research. This is why arguments that money is being wasted on pure research when we could be helping people is fatuous. This, of course, is ignoring the fact that scientific discoveries increase the quality of healthcare (MRIs, PET scans, CAT scans, Chemotherapy, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, gene therapy, etc.).

Lastly, keep in mind that funding for scientific research is almost entirely at the federal level (excluding pharmaceuticals). Not the state level, not the local level, not by bored wealthy people with nothing to do with their money. Looking at just the federal budget is not a myopic view of science funding in the US.

blondeness: Those "curable" diseases were once not curable and would still be like that without research.

Man created God in the fertile ground of the human imagination. Knowledge of the Higgs boson is far superior to that. That's why I love the LHC. And for those that moan and wail about their "taxes", you could improve your lives enormously by studying physics, since learning is always better than sitting on your arses bemoaning taxes.

I'll take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. - Douglas Noel Adams (DNA)

Jim-3113262

Man created God in the fertile ground of the human imagination. Knowledge of the Higgs boson is far superior to that. That's why I love the LHC. And for those that moan and wail about their "taxes", you could improve your lives enormously by studying physics, since learning is always better than sitting on your arses bemoaning taxes.

Nice try but we all know that point of view doesnt hold any water.

@ Marmaduke 49

who hu what the .... Jim Had it absolutely correct, sorry if you have been programed buy some sort of cult, or maybe you misunderstood Jim.

when a phenomenon (like life for instance) is explained you have simplified "it"...the idea of a GOD is more complicated then life. therefor cannot be the correct answer

Somebody wrote:

And for those that moan and wail about their "taxes", you could improve your lives enormously by studying physics, since learning is always better than sitting on your arses bemoaning taxes.

Some of us are clever enough to do both, i.e. study physics and whine about taxes. BTW, you've won the tax argument -- they're high and likely to stay so.

blondeness032 -------- I have no idea why your posts would be collapsed other than intolerance by those who hold a different opinion. Pretty shameful censorship.

wade-3708300

@ Marmaduke 49

who hu what the .... Jim Had it absolutely correct, sorry if you have been programed buy some sort of cult, or maybe you misunderstood Jim.

when a phenomenon (like life for instance) is explained you have simplified "it"...the idea of a GOD is more complicated then life. therefor cannot be the correct answer

No one has explained life origins. They have given their opinions, assumptions, but it will be forever something that could never be explained because there would be no way to witness or know for sure if that is how everything came into being.

@marmaduke 49

"No one has explained life origins"

true but the religious people claim it was a God my statement (1.45) merely shows, that can't be the correct answer do to the increased complexity of the initial question

lee - I would find another "Christian" church, the one your going to is teaching you the wrong things.

For all of the "we should be spending money on the starving people", first off, most of those people live in countries that won't allow for humanitarian aid. Next, the LHC was mainly a European venture, the US pays a small fraction of the total cost to give our scientists access to the facility and the data. And lastly, if you are concerned over the starving then I wouldn't vote Republican, they want to cut funding for all social programs.

Now, regarding the Higg's. For the science appreciating folks, I'm predicting that CMS sigma is 4.8 and Atlas is 4.2. Very certain most people, but scientists prefer at least 5.0 sigma. What do you think?

wade-3708300

@marmaduke 49

"No one has explained life origins"

true but the religious people claim it was a God my statement (1.45) merely shows, that can't be the correct answer do to the increased complexity of the initial question

God can be a possibility, its another explanation along side scientists who are tossing out ideas as well. Personally , I side with God, because there has been no science that has satisfied any explanation of the entire process that I stated before some where on here.

Science can not prove nor disprove Gods existence, but because there is existence it gives good support for God. Science can give an explanation from assumptions and presumptions, but no science can explain, existence coming into being, non matter becoming matter, inorganic becoming organic, simple cell forming, DNA coming from nothing, and all that information stored in it coming from nothing. Simple cell turning into complex cells, gaining complex information, cells becoming, simple animals, and then this long process of simple animals, into complex animals into human beings, and then we magically stop at human beings not to turn into some type of new animal.

What you have are scientists who are taking things that already exist and study or do tests to try to figure out the past. Whether your smashing atoms together , they already exist, intelligent life is smashing them together, using a machine they made with intelligence. Then they create their own little big bang, once again intelligence creating something. Also on a side note, even if they can do their best at guessing what happened 15 billion years ago, that does not mean that is the actual event that happened. There is no observational empirical data to back up their assumptions. Same with the Miller Urey experiment, an assumption of chemicals put together that needed that perfect reactions, the lightning had to be just right, the chemical compounds and quantity had to be right, every thing was done with intelligence to make it perfect to form some simple life. No one would be around to know what the primordial earth would have been like . This is all assumptions.
I personally dont have issues with science teaching this view though. I believe science should teach an ex nihilo view, out of nothing , and goo to you macro evolution, BUT along side of that, I also believe that alternate views should be taught also. Im not afraid to allow main stream liberal world view science to be taught, its them that are afraid to be challenged, and cry bloody murder when their uniformitarian views are opposed.

Now you tell me, who needs faith here ? That wild imagination of scientists best guessing billions of years, Or something simple as God did it, and it was so.

@ mamaduke 49

now you have presented your comment as 1 possible theory, so the next step is to come up with a testable prediction to show that your theory is true then it will have some merit ,repeat the test over and over tell it has a high probability factor and we will move it to LAW status.......when you do this you will get a Nobel prise for proving the existence of a God..... that my friend is how the proses works .

what you don't seem to take in to consideration is the highly competitive nature in the field of science you MUST be very close to the correct answer or you will be called on it ......where as in religion your colleges have be reprogrammed to agree with any thing you say if it supports their belief

James - Sorry, but you lost all credibility with this statement,

"In conclusion there are no Quarks even no other particles after you have done the math right."

You do realize that all of the quarks have been identified and proven via the accelerators? And do you even have a clue on the mathematics that is used to theorize these particles?

wade-3708300

@ mamaduke 49

now you have presented your comment as 1 possible theory, so the next step is to come up with a testable prediction to show that your theory is true then it will have some merit ,repeat the test over and over tell it has a high probability factor and we will move it to LAW status.......when you do this you will get a Nobel prise for proving the existence of a God..... that my friend is how the proses works .

what you don't seem to take in to consideration is the highly competitive nature in the field of science you MUST be very close to the correct answer or you will be called on it ......where as in religion your colleges have be reprogrammed to agree with any thing you say if it supports their belief

Sounds like were both in the same boat then since science cant test actual events of the past, only speculate. The main thing I have going for my argument is that Jesus came and died for us

@marmaduke

"The main thing I have going for my argument is that Jesus came and died for us"

that can't be proven ether and if it could it would not mater because the rantings of a "cultist" are meaningless.

the use of your fables are just discrediting the value of your debating skills.

"science cant test actual events of the past, only speculate"

if I set up a experiment with water and salt ,a glass of pure water and a spoon of salt next to it nothing else in the test area but a test subject come back one hour later I can test to see if said subject put salt in the water in the past hour.

this would be a difinative test of what happened in the past.

"The main thing I have going for my argument is that Jesus came and died for us"

that can't be proven ether and if it could it would not mater because the rantings of a "cultist" are meaningless.

Thats funny, there cant be more evidence of such events happening. First hand witnessed, a very precise contextual overview of all the writings of that time to form the bible, by councils and leaders to ensure the exact events of that time and to preserve them. There are plenty of extrabiblical documents from that time that speak of Jesus. You have no right to belittle our history because of some time span from then until now. Should people 2000 years from now scoff at the notion for the events that are happening in our time ? We are here living them now, we are recording events. What gives you any right to say that no one in the past could keep accurate records of the time.

the use of your fables are just discrediting the value of your debating skills.

Nothing is is discredited, if anything its supportive of my case. You cant just say fables like its some powerful debate winning word. I can say science books are fables, does that give me the power to discredit them ? No it doesnt.

"science cant test actual events of the past, only speculate"

if I set up a experiment with water and salt ,a glass of pure water and a spoon of salt next to it nothing else in the test area but a test subject come back one hour later I can test to see if said subject put salt in the water in the past hour.

this would be a difinative test of what happened in the past.

But , since you didnt witness the test subject putting the salt in the water, you in all honesty have no idea how the salt got in the water. You ASSUME that your test subject did it. But I will play along with your analogy, so lets assume that your test subject is in a locked room , and we all are guarding it on all sides, so we know nobody can get in or out. So we know that he had to put the salt in it. Please tell me how this relates to scientists smashing atoms together to explain how we came into existence ?

Remember , even if science shows how something can be done, it does not mean that it happened that exact way, because you would have to be there to wtiness it. Your guy in the room with salt , water spoon and guards, is an observational empirical experiment set up. We know all the variables because we set them up according to your standard. The issue now becomes with this incredibly huge amount of time ago, billions of years, and science trying to explain origins. You can give an assumption, but there is no way what so ever to know that is how it all happened to begin with.

When the braniacs solve the question first on "why women buy thongs, and when they wear them, why do they leave those huge tags on them?", ...then they can get back to me on the particles issues......priorities first!

starsailing

Let's see how much effort there is to answer your so called priority questions and the fundamental question of physics.

Question of thongs: Effort required to get that answer. Ask women that buy thongs. You will have an answer. Cost: Under a dollar or free.

Question of fundamental physics: Effort required to get that answer? 100 years, hundreds of billions of dollars, life's work for many thousands of scientists and a world war.

If we took into account your priority and transpose that to all of humanity, we would not have ANY of the modern conveniences you currently enjoy like, energy, medicine, telecommunications, transportation, the computer of which you used to post and most of all, America.

What you say may or may not be jest or whimsical, it's just not presented in a believable way.

"why women buy thongs, and when they wear them, why do they leave those huge tags on them?",

If you see someone wearing clothes that still have the store tag on them, that's an indication that they plan on returning it after use.

Then they claim that they never wore it, and those highly visible sweat stains are not theirs.

After a week of intense hatred of right and left issues being posted by many of the same people posting on this blog, I thought a little jocularity might not hurt. Besides , I was still basking in the afterglow of the numerous elevated answers posted on earlier blog this week of, "who would better handle an invasion from outer space aliens, Obama or Romney?" I see many of the posters still have not come to terms with, "Taste Great, Less filling." Perhaps we can discuss other topics, like maybe "Strings" or "The three Stooges go to outer space" at another time.

Back to the question of why....?.......It is also a little hint to some women to ....cut off the tag to all sexy undergarments for even a better look! Happy jocularity to all.

If we took into account your priority and transpose that to all of humanity, we would not have ANY of the modern conveniences you currently enjoy like, energy, medicine, telecommunications, transportation, the computer of which you used to post and most of all, America.

Precisely so. I think it was Michael Faraday who when asked what the purpose of his then-obscure research into electricity, he replied "Madam, of what use is a newborn baby?"

Nobody really knows what our discoveries will turn into. That's why pursuing them is important. Even learning that we are wrong about something is of immense value.

Exactly and what will happen when they prove the bible , koran ect wrong OH MY!

Keep on !!!!

And thanks Alan Boyle ....

This was another fun one ....

@ bigbenallaskya

it can only be called the "GOD" particle if it dose not exist.....

wade.....agreed! lol

This was a good article Alan.

Very well said! Hell, scientists can't grasp what the rings around Saturn are, let alone how the universe started. Just like creating models based on theories, finding something that is elusive like the boson could make these scientists bosos. I can just imagine how complex the math is to calculate these theories.

Scientists know exactly what the rings around Saturn are. We even have up-close pictures from Cassini.

"Just like creating models based on theories"

Like climate change/global warming, for example

Ben....Shock waves we see in large explosions /slow video , photo, same as sound wave? If same, does that link to Higgs Boson in the way you described? I am stating way simplistic......Ya....but ...in manner of describing an apple falling from a tree style.

Women buy thongs to show off how cute their asses are and they leave the tags on to show off they are paying for "the good stuff." This is to attract men and to communicate to other women "I am the alpha b**** of you." Now ask me why they wear them under opaque clothing where no one can see them when they are not at the beach or swimming pool.

Higgs bosons are much easier to understand than human behavior, that's why people are trying to detect and verify their presence. Besides, no Higgs Bosons, no pretty women in thong bikinis or underwear to make dirty old men's days happier, and no dirty old men to be made happy. Thank the real God for such a wonderful arrangement.

Women dress to hopefully look better than the other women around them, they really don't give a rats ass about whether or not the guy likes it, they just want the other women to hate her for looking so good in it.

Higgs bosons are much easier to understand than human behavior

Care to explain in detail HB? BS

bigbenalaska "

As you see , they are and from many attempts , been looking for the Higgs boson from colliding particles into each other to splatter their bits out from each other for decades to try and detect an elusive particle ....

Like they said , they may have to look somewhere else to find the Higgs boson , the ingredient that creates mass or the God particle ....

I feel that the Higgs boson was created when the first 2 bits of micro particles or bits of matter met , even if they were not symbiotic , but had some type of exchange at a super micro level , beginning an increase in motion or rotation and blossomed from their ....

The big bang would have already contained a Higgs boson , since it already had mass to bang ...."

All leading current theories hold that before the Big Bang, there was NO mass, nothing existed to have mass. At the very instant of the Big Bang, all the particles that eventually condensed into our universe were CREATED and flung away from the center at the speed of light, too fast for these particles to interact with each other. That's a good thing because of the symmetry of the creation, there was an equal amount of mass-less matter particles and mass-less anti-matter particles and if they were able to interact at creation, all the particles would have reacted and been destroyed in the next billionth of a second and this universe wouldn't exist.

A few millionths of a second after the Bang, Higgs Bosons appeared. The Higgs Boson Can't be visualized as a particle, but rather as a field, like a magnetic field or an electrostatic field. As the particles from the Bang entered these fields, the field slows them just enough so that they can react with each other to form matter and/or anti-matter or destroy each other. The particles resistance to being slowed by these fields is what creates mass.

According to theory, Anti-matter particles react differently to Higgs Boson fields than matter particles. The difference in their reactions to Higgs Bosons is what allowed enough matter to be created in the Big Bang to form our universe. Without Higgs Bosons, our universe wouldn't exist.

These scientists are very smart I give them that, but they have no wisdom in their thinking. Just listening to theories is mind numbing when told , things came into being from non being. Before the Big bang, nothing existed.. or things existed after the big bang ect ect .. As if anyone was there to witness any of that to know for sure. Also they all run into the biggest issue of all, is what was there before there was nothing. What made something happen ? Where did the cosmic egg come from, what put it there, and what ever put it there, where did that come from ? Eventually you get into a situation where you have to concede something being eternal that had the power to create.

Maybe thats why richards dawkins slightly believes in a creator now.

Marmaduke49 Dawkins doesn't believe in a creator. Not even slightly. dwit.

Big Ed - Yes, scientists know what the rings of Saturn are made of. Yes, scientists have detected the four standard model bosons, photon, gluon, Z and W. They are approaching %99.9998 certainity on the Higg's. Which leaves the graviton and the LHC may not be powerful enough to detect it. Try reading more science journals.

Greg-2438150

Marmaduke49 Dawkins doesn't believe in a creator. Not even slightly. dwit.

Is that how you talk to people ? Belittle them with your atheistic view ?

There are many in depth articles on the interview with the arch bishop and the debate.

Main point is, dawkins issue is with God , not the idea of a creator. If he believes in God even a .01 % it may as well be 100 %

Ready to take back your crude remarks yet ?

No stay out of science articles with your delusional myth believing sh%t. Yahweh is imaginary.

You know greg i woudl stay out of them. ONLY reason I ever say anything in them, is when I see people saying there is not God, or this or that science PROVES there is no God, or a claim that Goo to you Evolution is Fact.. Thats when truth needs to step in and confront the biased assumptions of poor science.

Marma - Yes, there are people on here that says God doesn't exist or that science disproves God. Its their opinion, as is your view that God is the truth. Right or wrong on God is irrelevant in a science discussion, because science is about understanding the natural universe. God is transendental and above all of this, if God truly exists. Now something that hurts your arguments is this :

or a claim that Goo to you Evolution is Fact

From a science point of view, that statement is saying that you don't understand the concept, thereby reducing any defense you might have with your argument. The goo that you are referring to comes from a theory called abiogenesis, this is the scientific theory of the creation of life. Evolution occurs after life had already started. To say that either of these theories is fact is a misrepresentation. Facts come from experiments and observations, the theories are explanations of the events that match the data. Sometimes that are wrong, but it is usually because the equipment to observe is inadequate. Science didn't know there were galaxies until the Mount Palomar telescope was built in the 1920's and then they had to rewrite the theories. This is how science works. The nice thing about God is, the science can be true and God wouldn't be any less because of it.

Treed, there are no facts of abiogensis. Im not new to any of this stuff. Its all based off of assumptions. Your saying facts come from experiments, please show me what experiment that can be tested to prove abiogenesis ? It surely wont be Observational Empirical data, because one would have to be there when it happened to know exactly what was present and what wasnt. Science , means Knowledge and there is no way to have this of a distant past.

If naturalistic molecules-to-human-life evolution were true, multibillions of links are required to bridge modern humans with the chemicals that once existed in the hypothetical “primitive soup”. This putative soup, assumed by many scientists to have given birth to life over 3.5 billion years ago, was located in the ocean or mud puddles. Others argue that the origin of life could not have been in the sea but rather must have occurred in clay on dry land. Still others conclude that abiogenesis was more likely to have occurred in hot vents. It is widely recognized that major scientific problems exist with all naturalistic origin of life scenarios. This is made clear in the conclusions of many leading origin-of-life researchers. A major aspect of the abiogenesis question is “What is the minimum number of parts necessary for an autotrophic free living organism to live, and could these parts assemble by naturalistic means?” Research shows that at the lowest level this number is in the multimillions, producing an irreducible level of complexity that cannot be bridged by any known natural means.

IM sure your aware of the Miller Urey experiment. Its already world view science to assume that certain chemicals and the right conditions were present for life to happen. So what do scientists do >? They set up an experiment, based off of assumptions of guesses of what they think what was present and how much of it, then zap it, and walla , life.. Biggest issue I have with the science is first, there is no way to know 100 % for sure that the chemicals and lab they set up was that exactly of the past. 3.5 billion years is a long time, there is so much that can happen in that time. We have issues now trying to determine things thousands of years , ie rock samples testing old, but are known as a fact to be young because they were witnessed when they formed.

Also you have Intelligence ( the scientists ) taking something that already exists ( perfect amount of the right chemicals ) using a perfect lab, and the perfect steps to create life. To me that sounds like Intelligent Design, or Creation.. Nothing coming into existence from nothing, no organic life coming about from non life. Its all assumptions Treed. I love science, and thin kits great when used right. So many of our founding fathers of Science didnt have any issues believing in a creator and had no issues with science and a creator. Most of them felt that a creator was essential, because there could be no other way for existence.

So i do say that science by itself can not Prove or disprove God. To me there is no conflict between science and God.

Marma - I would say that we are somewhat in agreement, a few of our views may different and that's okay. Some disagreement makes for more interesting conversation. I have included a couple of links on current abiogenesis research, if you are interested. I'm not saying all of this is true, but is an interesting idea.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/mx33n82301666825/

http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5042.

Thanks for the links Treed, Ill read them before I go into work tonight. Need to get some sleep first.

Hello Anadish ... how are you? any success with your pending patent?

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How about this …

1. We live in a 3D universe because three are the minimum dimensions required to create massive particles.

Why …

2. I believe there is no such condition as a rest state (zero motion), every joules of energy is in motion (in transition). So when any point of energy expands (high density to low density or visa verse) whether it is the Big Bang or electron-positron annihilation, the process is not spontaneous, as Dirac theorized, put occurs in a finite time intervals, Planck's time, tp, (or lower?). The energy-time uncertainty principle, Delta-E x Delta-t ~ h, also points to this time interval mechanism, i.e. the time in the energy-time uncertainty is the time interval the quantum state remains the same, unchanged. …

So …

If the time interval is not zero then there will be an expansion of "space", Delta-X ~ Delta-t, i.e. motion and hence velocity. I speculate that c is the velocity that "came out of the wash" at the Big Bang, i.e. proportional to the initial conditions at t = 0. Hence if space (variable energy densities) is expanding at a finite velocity, c, then the distances between the isothermal "rays" will increase and hence create normal rays, the radiation is no longer collimated. It is this mechanism that creates vortices, "rotation" and hence oscillatory waves that lead to standing waves and "massive" particles.

So …

If I can further my speculation a bit more, I would say as we have seen so far through the SM, quanta, repetitive ans stable states of energy, will exist for the first fundamental "particle" created by the expansion, Higg's boson.

Hence, my question to you, Sir. Could the Higg's boson = Dirac's particulate aether?

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How close am I in my interpretation of a "particle"?

In the standing spherical wave concept, the energy in that sphere (packet) is E = h * c / lambda. where h is Planck's constant, c is the speed the peak moves in the sphere and lambda is 2r (r is the spacial radius of the sphere).

It takes the "peak" energy (density?) 720 degrees to make one cycle around the sphere (oscillating 90 degrees at a time from the center to the "surface" (amplitude?) of the sphere and back to the center).

The spin is the intrinsic rotation of the peak around an axis to complete one cycle (through x, y and z, i.e. 720 degrees). This intrinsic rotation is what gives the "particle's angular momentum.

The electric charge is a measure of the effect by the "electric" field created by the peak oscillating between the center of the sphere to the "surface". The electric field is the gradient of energy created in a grid of all the particles in the universe.

The mass is the measure of the momentum transferable from one particle to another and is created by oscillatory motion of the peak confined in a spherical space (quantum confinement, quanta space).

Speculations from my interpretation:

1) The radius of the sphere for any type of particle is derived by the principle of least action, the resultant effects of all the fields acting on the particle.

2) The attraction force, quantum gravity, is created by the oscillatory nature of the "wave" within the spherical space. When the peak moves to the surface it creates a negative pressure (tending towards "empty" space in the center) and by the principle of least action must return to the center. Like all other fields, gravity likewise is the summation of these (quanta) negative pressures by all the particles in the universe. hence, the gravity "wells" are greatest where there is a dense coalescing of particles, galaxies, stars, planets, etc.

3) These oscillations that some have coalesced to "particles" (standing waves) where created by the expansion of the energy, space, and time system. The expansion of the universe (energy and space) could not be done isotropically because of the time factor, i.e. instantaneity is not possible and hence energy expanded in a non-uniform densities. These variations in energy densities patterns grow more and more complex leading to the "coalescing" of space, (formation of "particles").

4) The fields and particles have a duality in the sense that all the particles create the fields and each particle effects another through these fields.

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Fields Particles

Are fields the interaction of particles of the same characteristics (quantum numbers)?

In reality the universe is a collection of different particles at different densities and arrays. The fundamental being either the Higgs (or similar) or the graviton (or similar). In other words, as the universe cooled down the first array of particles (and hence filed) were (was) created (coalesced), (Higgs, graviton, something else). As the temperature further dropped more type particles were create (coalesced at different quantum numbers), some interacted with the fundamental field and some did not (reasons could be coincidence of Nature and nothing to do about meeting human's math).

So, I ask the question, if everything is made of energy at different densities, then what is energy?

PS; What is energy?

I would like to quote Narendra Katkar in one of his papers, "The Speed of Light, A Fundamental Retrospection to Prospection"

"The Universe is a process of Absolute transformation,
from Cosmic Primal Energy, CPE to Quantum to
Radiation and back to CPE Vacuum State.
CPE → QE → RE→ CPE
Energy is never created neither lost.
"Everything essentially is Energy"
What is Energy? …!!! "

http://www.jofamericanscience.org/journals/am-sci/am0705/18_4719am0705_113_127.pdf

Hello. Thanks for remembering. You can find an update on my site.

What is energy? You ask a question whose answer will take away the secret I am sitting on!

At last! The photon is an 'open' wave and suffers refraction passing great Mass, e.g. the Sun.

Particles are closed waves and again are refracted by adjacent Mass. i.e. gravitational 'pull'.

E equals M.C Squared. This can ONLY mean matter is Energy. Not an equivalent----just Energy.

What secret? That we as matter are in a constant state of motion and cannot measure or experience something that does not have any motion or spin. A non-moving particle still exists and takes up space, but since it has no "energy" or motion it disappears from our existence. The idea of sterile neutrinos is not new, I have paper almost 3 years old myself (just look up my old papers), and I might not be the first person either.

The time that energy experiences is constant while the time the matter experiences is determined by the velocity and motion of energy. The electrons that compose the matter in your body spin faster without the presence of gravity. As their velocity slows in the presence of gravity so does our measure of time. There are two dimensions of time is all, and I know that I am not the first to think of "two dimensions of time".

God sees time differently then man does (hint hint).

I just love this place!

Indeed Francis ... given any system one can write an equation in the form E = f(fundamental parameters of the system), and everyone knows and can visualize the right hand side of these equations. But what is E? How do you describe the left hand side? Hence Narendra Katkar question, what is energy?

On your post on closed and open waves ...

A simple experiment … A hermetically sealed box, fill it with the same diameter ball bearings (very precise spheres at maximum packed lattice with sufficient depth), emit collimated light at one end and monitor the light exiting at a certain radius area on the other end.

a) What do you think the pattern would be?

b) Is it valid to say that the ball bearings represent the fermions, closed waves, and the cavities between the ball bearings as the bosons, open waves?

c) Do you believe this simple experiment describes Dirac's particulate aether?

"to discredit the word of god, There is no proof." You demand proof when your own thoroughly discredited philosophy demands "faith", the very definition of blind and unquestioning acceptance?

Oh wait, I see now that you were trolling for Christians? Never mind...

If the Higgs is confirmed, Republicans will move to repeal it.

The Republican-led House is already drafting a statement of outrage that if we give legitimacy to Higgs bosons, then it will lead to all other sub-atomic particles wanting the same rights of recognition to continue their immoral sub-atomic lifestyles.

mj.... doing good... I would add something along the lines of... mumblemumblemumble... NOBAMA... mumblemumblemumble.... TAKING AWAY MY RIGHTS... mumblegrumblemumble... John 3:16... grumblemumblegrumble... We will find this if God wills it so!... mumblegrumble... something about homosexuals and sin... and... toss in some illegal aliens and you have a solid christian fundie posting.

..Oh wait, I see now that you were trolling for Christians? Never mind...

No, it was not for just Christians... Never mind...

Chuckx

If the Higgs is confirmed, Republicans will move to repeal it.

If Higgs is confirmed, Democrats will move to make sure everyone has one, or pay additional taxes.

Just rename it the Obosun particle and the GOP will try to make sure it doesn't get credit for anything.

Chuckx

If the Higgs is confirmed, Republicans will move to repeal it.

Denver Bill:

If Higgs is confirmed, Democrats will move to make sure everyone has one, or pay additional taxes.

Duh, if the Higgs is confirmed, everybody will already have trillions of them.

the only "proof" that God exists is for Him to come up and start a conversation with you, that is, to detect His presence with your senses. I understand that people reporting this and similar phenomena get to enjoy the effects of large doses of Prozac, Thorazine, lithium carbonate and other interesting chemicals while conversing with truly concerned individuals in a tranquil rural setting.

Searching for God particles is much safer.

One for all, and all for one - I say.

G-Dog...

Ha! Ha! LMAO! Have to remember your "muons" for work. My co-workers already look at me funny when I ask if they've had their "Neutrinos"..Breakfast of Champions....OR... if they would like sub-atomic particles (croutons) for their salads. Big science can be big fun, too.

Can't wait for this announcement..no matter what it is.

Protons, electrons, neutrons, fig neutrons, Leprechauns and muons (morons).... what's next?

congrats denver bill... you may be living proof that at least one child did get left behind. Way to go George W... you screwed up again

PRober,

Since you are obviously comedically challenged, allow me to introduce you to a definition from the world of humor:

buffoon: n. Someone who is ridiculous and amusing, such as a clown, or a court jester.

You almost qualify. As soon as you learn to be amusing, I think you'll be there.

You'll know that the Higgs Boson and the Standard Model are accepted when an image of the Higgs shows as an image in burn marks on a fried pancake in Guatemala, from the cookstove of a Catholic nunnery!

Isis, -- 'funny stuff' man! Love your 'name' - since I have adapted a little saying lately "What Is is".

As long as the "Big Bang Theory" coincides with the Word then I would be more than happy to agree with it. The only understanding I need for creation is that my Lord created it. The Bible is God's devine word and what it says in it is the truth. Now I already know that there are going to be a bunch of you that think I'm stupid and some of you may even say so on here, but it's okay. Christians face opposition because God reassured us of this happening, it simple means that I am doing a good job spreading His Good Word even if people won't accept it.

Bongoman, just because we cannot find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that the model is wrong. Pluto was the theoretical child of Pervical Lowell for decades before anyone saw it and it's relatively large compared to the microscopic particle that the Higgs boson would have to be.

If god knows everything that has and will happen, why didn't he tell us in the bible 'Buyeth Google stock wheneth it debutith'????? Now that would be a 'word' I could agree with.

elizabeth........an edited 2nd revision penned by man...the word of god......yea...ok. funny how religions are the only groups that "hear" the word of god and not everybody......tell your god to not play the shell game with the truth and then i will believe him/her/it/they. until then...keep your stories to yourself.

God said "BANG' and it was.... Alan-962575

Elizabeth posts yet another example of a Christian choosing ignorance over real knowledge. That attitude would be one of the big reasons that American is so far behind the rest of the world in science and math knowledge. These people choose to believe in some mythical god to explain everything, a god for which there is no evidence at all, but we are all supposed to have faith that it's there and created everything. What a sad state of affairs for this country.

What a sad state of affairs for this country.

What's sad is that you (all) have so much disrespect for Elizabeth and people who think differently than you. I happen to be more in the line of an atheist but it doesn't matter. Just because this is a very important science article, you don't have the right to act like a gang of bullies unless you are.

Grow up!

Kyle1967

Elizabeth posts yet another example of a Christian choosing ignorance over real knowledge. That attitude would be one of the big reasons that American is so far behind the rest of the world in science and math knowledge. These people choose to believe in some mythical god to explain everything, a god for which there is no evidence at all, but we are all supposed to have faith that it's there and created everything. What a sad state of affairs for this country.

There is nothing mythical about believing in God. Even Richard Dawkins, finally gives a notion of believing in a God, but he still states that the chance is very small but that is saying alot coming from him. His issue is with God, he has a lot of hatred toward the God of the bible. Most atheists have a hatred toward any notion of God.

The unexplainable becomes very explainable when God is considered.

Your are right about one thing, Science can not prove nor disprove Gods existence, but because there is existence give good support for God. Science can give an explanation from assumptions and presumptions, but not science can explain, existence coming into being, non matter becoming matter, inorganic becoming organic, simple cell forming, DNA coming from nothing, and all that information stored in it coming from nothing. Simple cell turning into complex cells, gaining complex information, cells becoming, simple animals, and then this long process of simple animals, into complex animals into human beings, and then we magically stop at human beings not to turn into some type of new animal.

Now you tell me, who needs faith here ? That wild imagination of scientists bet guessing billions of years, Or something simple as God did it, and it was so.

Science deals with the real world. To simply say "god did it" is to not use your brain. What you believe in is a myth.

A better understanding of how the universe works will almost certainly pay out dividends eventually even if they aren't immediately apparent. Just think of how useful electricity seemed to most people upon its discovery.

Thank you for your input. Eventually everyone will be dead. The importance seems overwhelming since there are 40 posts on this discovery. The dividends will probably be for the very few. It's not like landing on Mars and finding life or a cure for cancer. Who knows. 200 years from now it could make the World a better place to live in for Everyone. I just do not see it as a discovery to make 99.999% of the people a better way of life, peace and prosperity.

Strange, no one ever complains about the money they spent 50 years ago to get us where we are today (all the advances in technology & medicine that have saved millions of lives), just complain about the money we're spending now. I guess there was no "hatred, bigotry, racism, poverty, losing their jobs" back then.

Understanding our world and materials, is how we got to here. All science is useful, and gives you and I something for our dollars. This particular (no pun intended) science may unlock all kinds of amazing possibilities. We still dont understand gravity fully, this may help with that. Who knows.

In the end, knowing is always better then not knowing.

It would have been nice if this had been carried out by private enterprise. I understand governments object to this. Of course if it does produce anything useful it will be regulated, taxed, and classified to the point where no one really benefits.

As long as tax dollars are paying, it should be public. Or there will be money lost to profiteers. No thanks. If private enterprise wants to foot the bill, and fly to the moon, go for it.

I remember when the same things were said of the space program (dating myself here.) It would be a very different world if we did not pursue knowledge without first establishing the immediate value to ourselves. I for one am grateful for so many in the preceding generations throughout history who did not abate their efforts for such reasoning.

One might suggest reasonably that the best strategy for finding the Higgs boson is for the project leaders at the Large Hadron Colllider to enlist the stellar services of the Zhejiang province police department personnel who created the definitive geometric roadmap for finding the elusive Shanghai Metro Subway beaver, as reported this week on MSNBC.com, really . . .

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/120627_china_sex_harrassment_diagram.photoblog600.jpg

Really! :-o

Bubblegum . . .

Remember Emperor's New Clothes, eh?

@Frank:

The way it works is that physicists with help from mathematicians determine the rules, and then once the rules have been determined the engineers and entrepreneurs take over; get venture capital; and start building stuff . . .

And at present, building some of the advanced stuff only is practical when a few more vastly important primal rules have been determined, which is the high-level perspective with respect to the grand scheme of everything . . .

From a different but equally important perspective, the engineers and entrepreneurs need something indisputable to take to the bank so that they can get some money, and the way it works at the dawn of the early-21st century is that bankers are not going to unlock the bank vault based on anything less than indisputable facts, where for example if the existence of Mirror Matter Popcorn™ is a prerequisite for designing and building a Hilbert Space Hopper Drive™, then the best way to get funding is for someone to prove that Mirror Matter Popcorn exists, really . . .

Really! :-)

Research like this always pays off. If you don't think physics research is money well spent, then you should turn off and throw away your computer, stop using any electronics. Stop using modern automobiles for that matter. Because they were all made possible by physics research that is not worth while. ( Stop using your electricity too- some of that is probably generated at a nuclear power plant.)

It's not your billions, so quit whining.

Ever heard of things like Digital Radiography? You can thank particle physicists for the radiation sensors in there.

Also, do you like the idea of radiation therapy for cancer? Ditto.

Like the ability to detect and track nuclear weapons that might be smuggled into the US? Same thing here.

You may use a massively parallel computing cluster, but soon you will be using medicines developed using them.... thank particle physicists for that, too.

Do you like your web browser? Thank particle physicists at CERN.... which, is the same institution where the LHC is located.... coincidence?????

I doubt it will have any use in the basic necessities in life. Will it feed us, cloth us, shelter us, or provide us with clean air or water ?

I fact, I believe we will develope a weapon from it, before anything else. A definite non-survival purpose.

Frank thanks for your input. I will click No Value now.

World hunger? Easy. Give everyone anorexia nervosa. Problem solved!

So... who gets custody of the boson?

Yeah I know. Worlds greatest discovery which will help .00001% of the Worlds population a less attraction then Tom Cruise.....Come on Man!

A fair point, but if we wanted to use those billions to help people we would have already. So far we have been spending them mostly on weapons and video games. I'll take knowledge any day.

What if people had said that when we were trying to create nuclear fission?

See post 12.2 to answer your question.

And on the other hand it was never *our* money to begin with. The LHC gets the largest part of its funding from CERN, the US does contribute less than 6% of the total cost. Other sources of funding come from UK, France, Japan, Russia, Canada plus a number of private contributers.

And He probably told you to ease up on the ganga.

CERN may be in Switzerland, but the physicists working there are from all over the globe. I love the United States as much as any other proud American, but when it comes to science I think it's necessary to think more globally.

It's funny, at the advant of "the space age", the thinking was very much different within the US. When NASA was first formed, we weren't trailing wrt space exploration, getting man to the moon, or scientific progression. And the result was a lot of the technology which has come out of those earlier achievements.

Today, some would rather close up shop, and ignore it altogether. Sure enough we do have budget considerations, but and tbh, addressing them would take something I don't seem comming from the halls of Congress or the political parties. Something along the lines of an enlightened leadership, that far from playing to partisan politics and all concerned about their sacred cows, can exercise a bit of wisdom when it comes to formulating a solution, addressing problems, or making decisions. In either case, much of the technological progress which was made during the time of the cold war, did help create the world we now have. Witout it, would we necessarily be sitting at our computers, conversing over the Internet? Well, and after all, arpa-net was the brain child of DARPA, and considerations of getting a system which would allow various military bases to communicate which would also be hardened against the prospects of being shut down (in part why TCP/IP, DNS, and the like are designed to be resistent to this sort of thing)....

again see post 12.2 to show you why it is important.

Well, if physics can help us reconcile our destructive behavior with the behavior of all matter in the universe, then at least we'll better understand why we're doing it. And they actually have discovered cures to many diseases. I guess the hungry kids will just have to tough it out, though....

That's a very narrow-minded view. This research could lead to leaps and bounds in the understanding of energy and lead to new ways of producing it. We pour billions upon billions into disaster and famine relief every year--much more than your average physicist ever sees. If we halted all scientific progress until hunger and disease don't exist anymore, we will never have scientific progress. Hunger is rarely about resources anyway...it's about the inequality of their distribution, which requires political reforms, not bags of money.

Go find a hungry child and feed her Susan, or just shut up.

Wally makes a good point. Susan should not be "wasting" her time reading articles and posting comments when she could be using her time to alleviate suffering in the world. Unless of course, there is some benefit to gaining knowledge (by reading articles or doing scientific research) in addition to helping others.

So let me ask you, if at some time in the future an asteroid (along the lines of the one that struck 65 million years ago) were on a collision course to Earth, would this lack of scientific progress "until we have fed anyone" help alleviate the sort of suffering that would result from a massive building sized (say the size of the empire state building) rock comes crashing into the Earth's cust somewhere? And yet this self same science which might be bemoaned for receiving any dollars, might have just the solution to deal with the asteroid, or allow mankind to colonize elsewhere so we don't have all our eggs in one basket.

Besides, is mere survival really enough? Or would people rather look to the future towards something better. Taking care of our own is an important endevor, but life should be lived towards something more then mere subsistance as well. Progression itself is a worthy endevor, as humanity is afforded an opportunity to evolve (and in this I mean social evolution) towards the future....

So they can tax...subatomic particles? What? I think you posted to the wrong story.

No Ryan, Brad is a political spin troll. Easy to identify. They post one sided political comments in a science article. a.k.a POS.

Blah is right...sounds a lot like the climate change mythology

Wait.. It's not really getting warmer outside year after year?

Trolls

If only we could get Him to make some God particles come out of His Noodly Appendage, it would be case closed...

Clearly deluded.

God is nothing but a persons use of their imagination to explain something that is a "mystery" to them and others. When one person decides their explanation is the correct explanation, that belief is then used to persuade others that the originator of that thought (explanation of the mystery) is above everyone elses thought. Thus elevating that person in his/her mind to a higher status , first to themselves then to others, in order to hold sway over the opinion of others. it is the creation of power over at first one person and then others. With power comes special privileges in many forms. Gift giving freely, gift giving for special treatment of taking away mysteries( evil spirits). Sacrifices which release ones own self worth and transferring it to another person. Religions in primitive form show evidence of the scheme to take away objects such as food and clothing in return for special treatment /proection/good hunting/fertility /etc. Creating cures in simple incantations and then actually stumbling across real cures with the use of plants and minerals and up the chain to modern medicine.

Science explains, while religion goes all the way back to the origin of ...one persons imagination creating the myth of a god that satifies their need for explanation.

I've studied the history of Dakota Native Americans for 26 years from the 1860's and further back. There was a white missionary named Sam Pond who lived among them most of his life. He had the time to ask all medicine men and women of the tribe, of numerous band, of numerous villages of the Dakota , their thoughts of Dakota religion. The only common consistent thread he found was each person had their own story, and to that story they were all sticking to it!

The whole world is one tribe, and broken down into the hundreds of millions of religions, each one thinks theirs is the true religion..........and by god...they are sticking to it.

starsailing

God is nothing but a persons use of their imagination to explain something that is a "mystery" to them and others. When one person decides their explanation is the correct explanation, that belief is then used to persuade others that the originator of that thought (explanation of the mystery) is above everyone elses thought. Thus elevating that person in his/her mind to a higher status , first to themselves then to others, in order to hold sway over the opinion of others. it is the creation of power over at first one person and then others. With power comes special privileges in many forms. Gift giving freely, gift giving for special treatment of taking away mysteries( evil spirits). Sacrifices which release ones own self worth and transferring it to another person. Religions in primitive form show evidence of the scheme to take away objects such as food and clothing in return for special treatment /proection/good hunting/fertility /etc. Creating cures in simple incantations and then actually stumbling across real cures with the use of plants and minerals and up the chain to modern medicine.

Science explains, while religion goes all the way back to the origin of ...one persons imagination creating the myth of a god that satifies their need for explanation.

Science can explain somethings , but not everything. Its the scientists wild imaginations and assumptions and presumptions that do most of the explaining. I can just as easily say is mans imagination to think of some even that happened 15 BILLION years ago !! How wild of an now you want to talk about imaginations, how about that one ? To take a guess at what could have happened, but not actually know 100 % for sure. So in essence it is also a faith based science since its not empirical observational science. Then toss in the flaws of trying to explain being from non being, along with trying to explain the step by step process of in organic to organic, non life to life, no dna to dna, simple cell, then complex cell gaining info, then magically gaining so much info that it some how becomes an animal of some kind, then more complex animal, with everything developing with purpose, and into more complex animals, and then into humans, and then the brakes magically stop at humans and no more turning into anything. Ya I like keeping it simple and real. God said, and it was so.

Its the scientists wild imaginations and assumptions and presumptions that do most of the explaining.

Wrong. That's now how science works. Go read your myth book and stay out of science articles. While you're at it unplug the computer that science has given us.

I said it before and I will say it again.......

Religion is a brain virus (much like a computer virus) you get it from other infected people and it makes you try to infect others .....the ONLY anti virus is knowledge the best protection is stay away from the infected cult members..... (any religion is a cult)

Unplug that computer and put it in basket I pass along to you. While you are at it, drop in a little cash, say.....a buck two eighty oughta do.

Almost have my WAYBACK machine built, just need a picture tube from a 1953 Zenith Deluxe TV. Anybody have one they don't need? I need it by 9pm as I am taking Calvin and Hobbes with me to the beginning of creation to find out who or what and how everything was created. We have to be back by 10Pm. Calvin's bedtime.

Imagination...imagine that, who would have thunk?

One of my Math teachers said everything can be explained with math. Mary Hanson sat in front of me.....I studied her math.

Moody Blues...I think therefore I am.......

Siddhartha.......everything changes......

Mr. Wizaard......Trizzle trazzle trizzle trome, time for this one to come home...

So many paths towards truth......What....would.....William...Shatner........DO!

Sorry Ms, not one single study even shows that god exists, let alone that it is the 'head' of anything. And science's job is not to show the link between god and anything else. It's not even the job of science to prove or disprove god so, thanks for playing.

The observation could not be reproduced. Any such finding that contradicts common sense will surely find many attempting to confirm it, or disprove it. Such is the way of science. If only climate change/global warming research were treated so vigorously and honestly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17560379

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/06/once-again-physicists-debunk.html

G Srinivasan,you have made some fundemental flaws and misunderstand some things. First,disproving the "standard model" is every physicists dream. If you do it,you win a nobel prize,which in science,is like being a rockstar. As such,there is every reason to disprove it.

You speak as if there is some sort of organization of physicists who act with a singular purpose and cohesion. It does not work like that. The research being done is spread out over universities all over the world. Various groups of scientists have access to the data and are analyzing it. The whole reason for going so slow and methodically about it is that they dont want to be wrong. It would be disasterous for their career. In fact,the same research is being done by several unrelated groups who dont know what the others have.

If there was some sort of fraud,it WOULD be found out. The scientists involved WOULD have their entire careers destroyed,and end up teaching basic physics part time at a community college.

The problem with fraud is,if the higgs is now confirmed,and we can see them in a particle collider,it does not mean the research is over. It means its just beginning. Now,we can start doing experiments to verify its properties.We will recreate the experiments,and then tweak them to see if it acts as expected. If the discovery is really fraudulent,it will quickly become apperant.

In fact,scientific fraud never works by the vast conspiracies you sugget. It usually comes from two sources. One source is simple desperation. Sometimes an experiment is rather tricky and hard to get to work and the results are murkey. You of course fiddle with it and by changing it around with intuition guided by your scientific understanding of the phenomena,you get to work and there the data is,you have something you can publish. Anyone else coming along can take your data and reproduce your work. Thats good science.

As an example,suppose you know that if you put a vial of something in a NMR spectrometer and irradiate it with a particular set of radio frequency pulses,you can make certain things happen. You know the approximate frequencies,and then you sit there for weeks on end fine tuning it. The EXACT frequencies needed are dependant upon the exact configuration and magnetic fields of your instrument and the exact concentration of the solution you put in the vial. After a few weeks of tweaking,you get it to work. Its not perfect,but it clearly shows what your trying to demonstrate. Its good enough,now you can write your paper. (or write your thesis and finish your PhD)

When fraud usually happens however is when someone spends months or years trying to get it to work and they just cant,and there is some sort of time pressure. Maybe they have to show results to get their grant renewed. Maybe there are others working on it as well and they are worried someone else will get it to work first and their work will be for nothing. Maybe their employer requires them to publish some minimum number of papers per year and they have already managed to squeeze out as many as they can from the work in progress and really NEED this paper to meet that quota.

In any event,they either look at the data they have stand back and squint,and convince themselves that the data really indicates that the phenomena they are trying to demonstrate is there even though the data is really noisy,or just take a leap of faith and decide that the phenomena MUST be legitimate,and that they just cant show it,yet. They then make a little "white lie" and fake their data,just like students do in a high school chemistry or physics class.

Im not going to say most people have done this,becuase I hope they have not,but we all probably know someone who has. A student didnt do the lab,or could not get the experiment to come out right. He did however read next chapter of the book. What was supposed to happen was,the student does the lab,demonstrates the phenomena,then the next chapter studies in detail why that works and what the mathematics that describe it are. The student,who now understands HOW the experiment works then goes ahead and fakes all the data from the lab. Its common enough that chemists refer to it sarcasticly as "dry labbing" the results.

The thing is,in the science class,your supposed to see the phenomena,then learn how it works,but the book and the teacher already KNOW how it works,so if the student does it right,it will probably go undetected,becuase hes going to ahve the right answers.

In the REAL world,the whole reason the experiment is being done is because no one is certain of the answer. What probably happened was some theoratician came up with some interesting result when making a mathematical model of something. He noticed something like, "wait a second,if this equals that,and this becomes very close to zero,then something very very interesting happens" and he published a paper. Other scientists who are less theoretically inclined,but good at the hands on experimentation but together whatever equipment was needed and tried to see if that interesting thing really happened. Often,those "interesting things" are counter intuitive. For instance,the idea that time slows down when you move really fast,or that electrons,at very small length scales, can jump between insolated wires without acutally crossing over the insulated region between. Thats what makes them interesting,becuase its one of those "that cant possibly happen,but the math says it does,so maybe there is some new science here" sort of things.

The problem is,the scientist read all the theoretical papers,and came up with a clever experiment to demonstrate it. After spending a year on it,and getting unclear results,he looks at it,thinks "Well,that MIGHT be what I was looking for,but its not clear enough to make the conclusion it is,and publish,but its CONSISTENT with what Im looking for" So he throws out half the data points where he DIDNT get the right result. Now the average shows a definite trend. It looks like it worked. He figures,other scientists will start where he left off,blame their difficulties the fact that it really IS a difficult experiment,but ultimately fine tune things enough to get it to work reliably. In short,hes CERTAIN it will work,hes just convinced himself that he needs more time.

These people get caught. Their careers are rightfully destroyed. The whole process of scientific discovery is very robust against this sort of fraud. What happens is that a bunch of scientists see that work,and thing,well,this should be an easy paper. Ill take what he did ,reproduce it and pulbish the results. After all ,the paper addresses most of the difficulties he had. Of course it does not work,because it didnt work for the first guy. Those scientists contact him and ask all sorts of questions and verify their setup is just like his. Still mixed results. So they try tweaking things a bit or maybe notice something about the aparatus that does not make sense,so they fix it. Maybe they get the result,or maybe they dont. Eventally all the scientist trying to replicate come to one of two conclusions. Maybe they figure out what the other scientist was doing wrong. They ask various questions of him. They ask,did you ever think of trying X. The fraudster says "No,ive never done that" Well,there it is,fraud,becuase the other scientists KNOWS it wont work without it for a very subtle but provable reason. He gets ANOTHER paper under HIS belt,and all the credit for fixing a slightly flawed theory,while the fraudster loses everything. Either this just does not work,and maybe some clever guy figures out,the theorists missed something subtle and it simply cant work. Once again,it has to be fraud,theres no other explanation.

Those people who think that there is massive and rampant amounts of high profile scientific fraud going on out there make a lot of simply wrong assumptions. They assume that since many of these theories are very difficult to understand for them,they are difficult to understand for other scientists. They think that people are just 'going along' because they dont understand it. Thats not the case,other scientists understand it,and if there is fraud,its very very likely they will catch it. Scientists almost universally are disgusted by scientific fraud. They wont keep it secret. They will blow the whistle.

There was a big incident a few years ago at a national lab. SOmeone claimed to have made the next heaviest element. He obviously THOUGHT his idea of how to do it would work,otherwise why would he have published it,immediatley EVERYONE tried it,and it didnt work. He was under pressure becuase there were dozens of groups around the world trying to do it,and he didnt want them to beat him to it. Once he published the result,all those people tried to do it,using his technique. They all failed. Soon they realized,it would not work. His career is over.

Remember,scientists dont stick together. They dont defend each other. They dont cover up each others mistakes. They dont "not want to see the truth" and most assuredly they dont "Want to prove the current theories are true" They want to prove each other wrong. They want to prove the current theories are wrong. The most exciting phrase in scientists vocabulary is "thats odd,that shouldnt have happened"

Wally-1853299 Science works the same in the field of climatology. Wow we have a lot of freaks in here today. AGW is real and a fact.

MichaelM..........Well said and totally understandable. Thank you. Quite a few bright people on this blog, and many do know a lot of information. The trouble is, they can write complex statements down, but when they try to explain the subject in a base simplistic way for most people to comprehend, they are unable to do it for whatever reason. Some do it to try and show their superiority, some to share knowledge.

I had a genius boss I worked with, couldn't write for beans, he was dyslexic, but he could explain whatever the subject, perfectly, and tailored to the type of audience he was teaching.

Anywho, thanks.....enjoyed your comment!