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Subscribe to RSSA group of scientists claim they've discovered a subatomic particle that closely matches the description of the fabled Higgs boson. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports.
Scientists say they've discovered a type of particle that's never been seen before — a particle that mostly matches the description of the fabled Higgs boson.
"This is a very, very preliminary result, but we think it's very strong," said Joe Incandela, spokesperson for the CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
Hundreds thronged to an auditorium at the CERN particle-physics center near Geneva to hear the latest from the LHC, and thousands more watched the proceedings on computers and big screens around the world. The timing of today's briefings was most convenient for Europeans as well as researchers attending the International Conference on High-Energy Physics in Australia, but video-viewing parties were organized as well in the middle of the night for scientists and science fans in the United States.
"As a layman, I would now say, I think we have it," CERN Director General Rolf Heuer told the audience in the auditorium. "Do you agree?"
His question sparked wild applause.
Expectations matched
The advance buzz suggested that researchers would report observations of a previously unknown particle that fit the characteristics of the Higgs boson. Last December, the teams behind the LHC's ATLAS and CMS experiments reported seeing "tantalizing hints" of the Higgs, and since then, the experiments have doubled the amount of data collected from hundreds of trillions of proton collisions at higher energies.
The results presented by Incandela were in line with expectations. "We have observed a new boson," he reported. Incandela set the mass level of the new particle at 125.3 billion electron volts, or 125.3 GeV, plus or minus 0.6 GeV.
CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela discusses the new particle in a CERN video.
Results from the ATLAS experiment also pointed to "clear signs of a new particle" in the range of 126.5 GeV, spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti said in a statement. The uncertainty factors were wide enough for one particle to produce both of those reported values. CMS and ATLAS serve as backups for each other, and the fact that the same phenomenon was observed at both detectors added to the solidity of the claims.
Physicists said more data would have to be collected to confirm that the particle was truly the Higgs.
"To say you've discovered the Higgs ... it's a complicated story," CERN theoretical physicist John Ellis said in a video prepared in advance of today's briefings. "It's one thing to see evidence of a new particle, but you have to check whether it has the right properties. And to check whether it has the right properties will actually take quite a bit of extra work."
After today's announcement, Heuer alluded to the job ahead. "We have to find out which kind of Higgs boson this is. ... We have discovered a boson, and now we have to determine what kind of boson it is," he told reporters. Later, he said "we can call it a Higgs boson, but we cannot call it the Higgs boson."
Getting the full picture would take time. "Ask me in three, four years," after the LHC reaches full power, Heuer said.
Fermilab physicist Don Lincoln, who is a member of the CMS research team, agreed that a little caution was in order. "It is definitely a boson, and it looks and smells like the Higgs. But until we do all the senses ... we won't know for sure," he told me.
ATLAS Collaboration
A computer graphic shows a candidate Higgs boson decay in the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector, resulting in four muons. The event was recorded on June 10.
$10 billion effort
Identifying and studying the Higgs boson is the main objective of the $10 billion LHC project. It was the only fundamental subatomic particle predicted by the current theory on the subatomic structure of the cosmos, known as the Standard Model, which had yet to be found. It was hypothesized back in the 1960s, by British physicist Peter Higgs and others, as part of a mechanism to explain why some subatomic particles have mass while others don't.
"If that [Higgs boson] would not exist, then you would not exist," Heuer said.
Heuer called the discovery "the last missing cornerstone" of the Standard Model, but other physicists said there was still a chance that the newfound boson wouldn't mesh with the Standard Model.
"If the new particle is determined to be the Higgs, attention will turn to a new set of important questions," University of California Irvine physicist Andy Lankford, the deputy spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment, said in a statement. "Is this a Standard Model Higgs, or is it a variant that indicates new physics and other new particles?"
In that scenario, studying the Higgs could open the way for explorations of the weirder corners of physics, such as the idea that our universe has six or seven extra dimensions, or the claim that there should be an unseen supersymmetric partner for every one of the subatomic particles that have been detected, or the nature of the stuff that mysterious dark matter is made of.
In a CERN Bulletin interview, theoretical physicist Ignatios Antoniadis said the discovery could rule out some of the options for theories on the nature of the universe: "Because of its low mass, such a Higgs boson would allow us to rule out theories known as 'Technicolor' and some of the theoretical models used in supersymmetry. However, other supersymmetric-or-not scenarios could still apply, as well as extradimensional theories."
CERN
British physicist Peter Higgs accepts a round of applause during the CERN seminar at which researchers announced the discovery of a particle with the characteristics he predicted.
The discovery also could send Peter Higgs, who is still active in the field at the age of 83, to the top of the line for a Nobel Prize in physics. Higgs, a professor emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, and several other physicists who were involved in formulating the theory attended today's CERN briefing.
After the announcement, Higgs offered his congratulations to everyone involved in the LHC experiments. "To me, it's really an incredible thing that it's happened in my lifetime," he said before choking up with emotion.
Metrics for a discovery
To claim a formal discovery, the results from the LHC had to reach a confidence level of 5 sigma, which means there'd be just one chance in 3 million that the findings are a statistical fluke. Earlier this week, researchers at Fermilab in Illinois shared what they said were their final results from the Tevatron collider, which has been eclipsed by the LHC and was shut down last year. The results of their Higgs quest came up to a level of only 2.5 sigma — not enough to count as a true discovery.
Today, Incandela announced that the results from the CMS detector in one of the expected decay modes for the Higgs boson had a "combined significance of 5 standard deviations." Word of that measurement was greeted with applause in the CERN auditorium.
"It's nice to be at 5," Incandela said.
Other results from CMS, however, fell just short of the 5-sigma standard — and in at least one decay mode, the expected signs of the Higgs were not present at all. That could be just a fluke in the data, but Incandela said the analysis would continue with more readings. When all the results were combined, the confidence level for CMS was set at 4.9 sigma, he said.
Gianotti, meanwhile, said the combined results from the ATLAS experiment reached 5 sigma, signaling a discovery. That revelation, too, drew applause. In at least one of the decay modes, the readings from ATLAS were much higher that what would be expected for the Standard Model Higgs — but it's too early to tell whether that is merely a statistical anomaly or the sign of an unexpected twist that theorists will have to wrestle with.
"This is just the beginning," Gianotti said. "There is more to come."
In a news release, CERN said the results would be published in a scientific journal around the end of the month, and more data would lead to firmer conclusions by the end of the year.
Reactions to the particle discovery:
- Physicist Stephen Hawking, in an interview with the BBC's Pallab Ghosh: "The results at Fermilab in America, and CERN in Switzerland, strongly suggest that we have found the Higgs particle — the particle that gives mass to other particles. If the decay and other interactions of this particle are as we expect, that will be strong evidence for the so-called Standard Model of particle physics, the theory that explains all our experiments so far. This is an important result, and should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel Prize. But it is a pity, in a way, because the great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn't expect. For this reason, I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the Higgs particle wouldn't be found. It seems I have just lost $100."
- CERN Director General Rolf Heuer: "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature. The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.”
- CERN research director Sergio Bertolucci: "It’s hard not to get excited by these results. We stated last year that in 2012 we would either find a new Higgs-like particle or exclude the existence of the Standard Model Higgs. With all the necessary caution, it looks to me that we are at a branching point: the observation of this new particle indicates the path for the future towards a more detailed understanding of what we’re seeing in the data."
- Energy Secretary Steven Chu:"I congratulate the thousands of scientists around the globe for their outstanding work in searching for the Higgs boson. Today's announcement on the latest results of this search shows the benefits of sustained investments in basic science by governments around the world. Scientists have been looking for the Higgs particle for more than two decades; these results help validate the Standard Model used by scientists to explain the nature of matter."
- Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada's TRIUMF particle physics lab: "With ATLAS and the LHC, we set sail in the direction toward what we thought was the land of the Higgs. Last December, we saw a smudge on the horizon and knew we could be getting close to land. With these latest results, we've seen the shoreline! We know we’ll make it to dry land, but the ship is not in to shore just yet."
- Peter Knight, president of the Institute of Physics: "This is the physics version of the discovery of DNA. It sets the course for a brand new adventure in our efforts to understand the fabric of our universe. ... Akin to a moon mission, one of the most remarkable things about the hunt for the Higgs is how the effort has caught the public imagination. Not since the Apollo missions 40 years ago has there been such a sense of popular excitement around scientific discovery. Long may this continue to inspire the next generation of scientists."
Previous episodes in the Higgs hunt:
- Video: Michio Kaku on the discovery
- Theorist Peter Higgs lives to see his boson
- PhotoBlog: Subatomic snoozing
- The Higgs boson made simple
- Leaked video says Higgs-like particle observed
- Has Higgs been found? Almost
- How the Higgs gives things mass
- Higgs boson hits new highs
- Ups and downs for Higgs boson buzz
- Cartoons visualize the Higgs boson
- Can physicists crack the big puzzle?
- Flash graphic: Inside the Big Bang Machine
- Flash graphic: Michio Kaku on LHC nightmares and dreams
- Msnbc.com's special report on the Large Hadron Collider
Some of the (other) blogs with Higgs boson updates:
- ViXra.org: Physicist Philip Gibbs blogs about boson buzz.
- Not Even Wrong: Columbia physicist Peter Woit's blog.
- Resonaances: Adam Falkowski counts down to H-Hour.
- Cosmic Variance: Sean Carroll and company weigh in.
- Quantum Diaries: Aidan Randle-Conde tracks Higgs hunt.
- A Quantum Diaries Survivor: Tommaso Dorigo on the case.
- Of Particular Significance: Reality check from Matt Strassler.
- The Guardian: Live-blogging the CERN announcement.
Last updated 9 p.m. ET July 4.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Smaller and smaller do they search for what reason. They need only look at themselves ... man is the smallest particle on the planet.
Uh...
...I'll have what he's having, Alan!
what's wrong with you?
This could be the answer to flimsy particle board.
don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls don't feed the trolls please...
Are their any horns growing out of his head?
Damn you MAYAAansss!
Cheers
It's a testiment to the Standard Model's ability to predict energy releases at quantifiable levels. It doesn't really prove anything yet, and is only a discovery by inference. Much like the elusive Graviton, it is a ghost particle, and still can't be linked directly to imparting mass to other particles.
I applaud their efforts, but we'll need a different approach to prove that a particle found at 125 GeV does what they think it may do.
That's the problem with using math to define reality instead of what it was designed for: to describe reality. It pushes the human construct of math to limits that is really can't be expected to perform at.
In short, it's theoretically for me to take my hammer, and beat down a mountain, but I can make a pretty good prediction, simply based on common sense: the hammer is going to break before the mountain falls, because that tool is not designed for the use to which I'm putting it.
Theoretical physics, partical theory, and many other interesting math games are very interesting, but it's really hard to prove that they predict what we think they do when we use them to find things by inference.
Before I rant... I will agree with BooCoo... It is exciting. The cause of my rant I see on this blog a lot of "conservative" reaction... This is great news. I guess I expected more excitement and enthusiasm. (Full disclosure I'm a Creationist, Right wing, Ultra-conservative Christian) I can see the awesome potential of this "potential" discovery: If the Higgs "field" exist then the logical branch of research will be can it be "manipulated" or at least "stimulated" by artificial means.
Imagine (if you will) a Boson Field Generator... It would be able to "impart" mass or "cancel" it out. According to the article. The Higgs Boson makes up the Higgs field which imparts (or negates) mass on a subatomic level. So in essence (stay with me) you could have a massive ship that would take kilotons of "thrust to overcome gravity. (the main reason why we would have to build in space) However if you could affect it's mass (and everything withing equally) you could "cancel" its mass where it would take little if any energy to "thrust" it into space. Effectively cancelling out gravity.
I know that sounds "lofty" (excuse the pun, then again don't) but my prediction is that we (if THE Higgs Boson) will find that field is just like gravity. Gravity being a constant cannot be "changed" We over come gravity or "change" it's nature by the material gravity acts on (please note that the "floating, Super-cooled" experiments use magnetic field theory), we "overcome" gravity by mass, thrust, aerodynamics, magnetism, distance from gravity source... etc. but gravity itself remains unchanged and constant. Ergo... the Higgs Field maybe a Un modifiable "constant" but (as the article suggest) the "Fields" existence maybe less critical than the "how" particles interact with the field and maybe that is the Key.
"I believe in God, I believe in Science.... There is no conflict."
bet that gave them a good Large Hadron
@theCavalier - I think, in this case, math was used to predict reality rather than defining it. That is the domain of theoretical math/physics, prediction and theoretical speculation. Furthermore, what distinction do you make between "defining" and "describing?"
@Flame77_7 - I think you are confusing mass and gravitational force. The boson "discovery" may be the structural particle that gives matter mass; the theoretical glue that holds stuff together. This has little to do with gravitational force and inertial mass.
@Martha seeing as Gravity affects mass I believe I got it right. Understanding Higgs as the Glue.. affecting that field WILL affect mass. cause a "massive" object to be light or move @ the speed of light..... Some scientist agree with me:
//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48087875/ns/technology_and_science-science/
Thrilling, to say the least!
I suppose, but I've always found it difficult to get excited about Feynman diagrams. The little embedded video was very informative and interesting though.
I'm glad that their efforts are producing exciting results.
But, being a non-scientist, I don't really know what it means, practically. Is there something cool they will be able to do/invent now?
Concerned, it takes a bit of time for such things to make it to your local Target, but make no mistake ... they will.The beauty is that no one (or at least no one we know about) knows what those things will be yet ... but odds are that there is some 14 year old kid who already has the outline in his or her head .... because they are young enough that they have not yet learned what is 'impossible'. This will make perfect sense to them.
This is not about how to make a subatomic particle profitable. If is more like finding a missing piece for the Standard Model of how the components of space, energy, time and matter all fit together. Without the HGiggs Bosun, it was a little like having a huge jigsaw puzzle with one p[iece missing. You know what that piece should look like because of the shape of the hole, but you have looked under everything and have yet to find it because it is hidden in a bunch of puzzle pieces from other puzzles.
I'm sorry Stephen Hawking lost his $100.00 bet... as he said experiments turn up results they didn't expect.
My faith of hanging on to the theory of the Higgs Boson has come true today, Yes Yes Yes I Love it. I take my hat off to Dr Peter Higgs, he deserves most of the credit for this major discovery 1000%
Have a good day, Tom And Lyn.
I am sorry but this is a little over the top. The God particle is nothing more than a weight. It is not a particle. What ever observable weight that we can weigh is all ready accounted for. This new God particle is not a weigh-able thing, like the electron or the proton or the neutron or the bond weights of the nucleotides. Moving at light speed these all weigh more and there is no room for this new type of sub-atomic particle like even the Quarks or this now God particle.
This missing peace of the model is only a weight! It is a mass not a matter. No God particle in the atom. Only a weight!! I do have the prof. This does not take a particle accelerator to find out about. It only takes a little multivarible math. No equipment is needed to find what we are looking for. Doing the math we find the atom is all ways in motion, and it is moving at about light speed. So are some of the weights of the atom, that are only bond weights in the nucleotides. Before we smash the atom we don't have any unexplained weights! No Quarks or any Higgins or God particles. There is some mass that is not a matter only a weight! Bond weights between the protons or bond weights between the neutrons. Adding this up with the velocity of towards the speed of light, adding weight, and we don't have any room left for any other sub-atomic particle. Some of the atomic weight, is only a weight, not a mass of matter. We need to weigh these sub-atomic particles too, right. Not just think they are there for no weight involved. These particles at rest and at light speed. Need both weights.
The God particle, just like God, it can't be seen.
But it can be observed through objective, scientific means. Huge difference. Go be psuedointellectual elsewhere.
I was being facetious.
No, santa, just like god cant be seen......... Round 5: Science Vs Religion..Referee about to stop fight due to strikes to the head and religions inability to intelligently defend itself :0
devientgenie - Why, in your world, does it have to be science versus religion. Real scientists aren't out there trying to disprove the existence of God nor the inconsistencies of religion. They are simply trying to understand the universe and how it works. There are all kinds of truth. God may exist, he/she/it may not. We may come someday to understand that God was nothing more than an attempt by earlier civilizations to understand the universe.
Here's the reason why science and religion don't have to and to more logical people don't compete. Science and religion are not asking and are not interested in the same question. Ultimately science is about HOW and religion is about WHY.
And if in turn we can take the unseen power of the universe and channel it into usefull energy all the better. The energy and power of unseen light, the mass that keeps on giving. The energy to heal using visualisation to blast apart cancer cells in sick patients. All very possible, it just needs more research on the human side, and God right in there willing to help man do that very thing. Until know (2012) energy of this sort has just been speculation. Now it's time to focus. It's now time for the holy grail of pure universal light to be brought out as a healing tool. Faith that we can channel the light properly and it will work to it's fullist means. Praise our Creater and God for such a marvelous tool.
GOD is seen everyday in what HE created! US and everything around us!!
It was a major mistake to call the Higgs Boson the "god" particle. Nothing is more of a threat to future funding than to arouse the medieval fear of demonic alchemy in the anti-critical thinking "we have it all figured out already" crowd.
Yes We Can: good point, and accurate definition of the nay-sayers. Luckily, the LHC is in Europe, where cooler, and more intellectual minds, prevail.
The "crowd", as you put it, is right here whining about trivial little tidbits that low mentality, easily brainwashed lemmings pine over 24/7. Research, to them, is a huge waste of their precious "tax dollars", as is the EPA, clean water and air, sewage treatment, health care, education, safe infrastructure, and basically anything short of guided missile technology and (other) nation building.
sweaver: References to God aside, it hadn't occurred to me we could use this Higgs Field as a power source. What an interesting idea, although I have to wonder about things like conservation of energy and the uncertainty principle. Let's hope it exists!
I agree that it is sad that no such discussion is immune to the science vs. religion arguments with name calling galore. Science studies the Universe ... in ancient times, the Universe was seen as 'God' ... they were one and the same to the ancient Philosophers ... at the higher level, it is all the same ... only when such things degenerate to the level of superstition does an issue arise ... Religion only becomes a shackle when it begins to fear knowledge ... the priests of ancient days mapped our Solar system with amazing accuracy at least 3,000 years ago ...
@joemike404
There is no need for a "why" question. The universe was not created for any reason.
Read JK fom PA's comment...it's good.
"Why, in your world, does it have to be science versus religion."
It's a war between religion and our secular society because religious groups are persistently attempting to force their narrow-minded cultish values on the rest of the world. For example, churches continue to put pressure on school districts to force them to add their primitive creation myths to high school science curricula. They are obsessed being the final authority over women's reproductive processes. They want secular law to fall in line with biblical law...and that is true of christians as well as muslims. Church groups rally at libraries to force librarians to remove books from the shelves that offend their self righteous religious sensibilities, such as Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, and the Harry Potter series, to name just a few. And religious groups express outrage when the secular courts refuse to let them display their church's symbols in public buildings, schools, and public property.
It's a war that is being waged by religion against truth, facts, and knowledge and, even though they are fighting hard to force their doctrines and myths upon us, they will ultimately lose. Until then, however, we must resist any and all attempts by churches, mosques, and temples to impose their dark, ignorant, and all-too-frequently violent religious values on our free secular society.
Scientists would not be too bright if they wasted their time trying to prove something doesn't exist since nothing does not leave behind evidence.
Whoever said it , you are correct; scientists are not at war with religion. HOWEVER, in the United States, religion is at war with science. Religious "leaders" constantly want to deny science in every guise and form. Every form except for weapons, of course. The same science that gives them their nukes (yippee), tells us the Earth is 4+ billion years old (BS!). The same science that gives 'em lasers (yippee!, Star Wars!), tells us that the universe is 15+ billion years old (what junk science!).
Where investment in science is concerned, we are failing. while FERMI Lab is impressive, this country is no longer imaginative enough to invest in something as ambitious as CERN. Those who dream of the possibilities are being crushed by the troglodytes who believe that everything known and knowable is found in an ancient book--whether called the Torah, Bible, or Koran.
Only DARPA receives virtually unlimited funding.
Sailcat, we are not in the least a 'religious' person (though we were raised in the Christian tradition and were culturally influenced by it), but at the same time we are a student of the history of religion back into very ancient times ... an often illuminating quest.
We recall as a child in the 1960's when only a few rather radical zealots had these ideas that somehow science was attempting to 'subvert' their religion. We perceived it then as simply rather pathetic.
Unfortunately for the human race, this movement has grown both here and abroad to the point that it has become a real danger in that almost any advance in knowledge is perceived by them as a 'threat against their faith', as to which faith, take your pick, thus revealing that their particular flavor of faith is not well founded. If it were, there would be no need to fear anything, most certainly knowledge.
We believe that this is putting (falsely) the facade of religion on a much less noble and generalized fear of ... everything. While we have no ill will to persons of faith, we agree that now and always, religion is all too often used as an excuse to subdue both mind and body and to strip a people of the most precious Liberty of all ... the liberty of free thought.
God is in the mist of making a return that is why the finally noticed..
I will not pretend to know my ass from my elbow about the subject. From the bits and pieces i have read and somewhat understood, I think, such a discovery disproves the existence of "nothing" as we perceive such existence. If, in fact, "something" is infinite and "nothing" is non existent, then our perceived finite predicament is probably much improved.
It would seem from the posts following mine at 3.4 that its the science folks that are hankerin' for a fight.
Jim - a "why" question is not necessary only if you have already devoted yourself to your narrow viewpoint, as obviously you have. "Why" do you find it so much easier to believe that everything you see, all the glory and majesty of our universe, is a big old accident, rather than opening your mind to the possibility of something greater than yourself guiding creation? Humankind has been asking the question "why" as long as we have had the intelligence to form the question. Why are we here, what is our purpose, why were we born. We cannot answer those questions without questioning why the universe in which we live exists. If there is no purpose to the universe, then there is no purpose to us. But as some of the scientific types suggest, we might all just be some cosmic teenager's entry in a science fair.
sailcat - I'm one of "them" and I no more want civil law to bend to religious law than you do. The only way we can ensure that the Church is free of the State is to ensure that the State is free of the Church. Bear in mind though, that I do not relinquish my right as a citizen of the United States to make attempts to mold the laws of this nation and engage in the political process just because my ethics are informed by my faith tradition. And yes, there are fringe religious groups that do the things you indicate. They are idiots and do not represent mainstream Christian thought.
Joemike, you are welcome to practice whatever religion you choose as long as it does not impinge upon our secular government, our schools, or our public institutions. The battle against religious interference in our lives occurs far too often and the churches and religious organizations that do so are not "fringe groups". The christian controlled Texas GOP recently announced its platform and they include the following planks: an end to divorce because marriage is a "covenant", banning stem cell research, banning most abortions and making legal to harass people who go into family planning clinics, an affirmation that homosexuality is tearing the fabric of society, it allows the open challenge in classrooms of evolution as a "controversial theory", and it pledges to return to "the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state.".
This is not a "fringe group". It is mainstream christianity hard at work to undermine our schools, our government, and our personal freedoms. Religious interference in our lives must be stopped.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf
sailcat - I'm sorry that democracy is difficult. You cannot support free speech only for those that agree with you and the source of our ethical positions on issues of importance to society is irrelevant. You cannot silence religious groups in the public square unless you are also willing to silence every other group such as NOW, the Susan Komen foundation, unions, and other groups with a more liberal bent. It is a trickly tightrope to walk finding the balance between free speech and the separation of church and state. I would remind you that only one of those principles is actually enshrined in the Constitution. The other is a principle derived from constitutional language and the writings of the nation's framers.
I don't care what religious crack pots say at all. Silencing them is not my purpose. I insist, however, that all religions and their henchmen keep their hands off of our secular government, out of our schools, and away from our bodies. When NOW, the Susan B Komen foundation, unions, and other organizations take up the standard of a religion and claim they operate under the authority of an imaginary deity, they will have to comply with the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state, but until then they are welcome to participate directly. And your vague distinction about the principle being "derived from constitutional language and the writings of the nation's framers" somehow implies it is not quite legitimate. I am sure I don't need to remind you that the principle of the separation of church and state has been upheld by Supreme Court rulings going back to the 19th century, and it is the law of the land in this country. Period.
I asked the question; and God told me God created The Universe so that Humans could discover the Higgs Boson; and very soon afterward the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex shall devise Weapons of Mass Destruction for massive shareholder profit$, based on the newfound pseudo-knowledge. The Human population of The Earth will be destroyed by such weapons, later this year, 2012, because the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex has had a huge head-start on the technology.
Why? Because it is Doomsday Year 2012, don'tcha know. High Time to take those accrued "use it or lose it" vacation hours, and live Life like there's no tomorrow.
Dear NewsVine Hall Monitors: The above comment is NOT DeathWishing. Please do not banish me nor assign Demerits.
I lvoe you. Thank You.
Well.......I was trying to follow along with the webcast, and.....I haven't got a clue as to what this guy was saying.......but I'm impressed.
Mass is, quite simply, a measure of how much stuff an object - a particle, a
molecule, or a Yorkshire terrier - contains. If not for mass, all of the
fundamental particles that make up atoms and terriers would whiz around at light
speed, and the Universe as we know it could not have clumped up into matter. The
Higgs mechanism proposes
that there is a field permeating the Universe - the Higgs field - that allows
particles to obtain their mass. Interactions with the field - with the Higgs
bosons that come from it - are purported to give particles mass. This is not
unlike a field of snow, in which trudging through impedes progress; your shoes
interacting with snow particles slows you down.
I thought mass wasn't really about how much stuff an object contained but rather how much it interacted with a Higgs field. Theoretically, you can have two objects with the same amount of "stuff" but if one interacts a lot then it can have much more mass even if they are the same size. Our mass is based on how much we interact with gravitational fields and Higgs fields isn't it? Although objects with more "stuff" in them tend to have higher mass, this doesn't have to be true.
@ Blackbird,
Still confusing what comes first. Is the Higgs giving energy to the proton, or where do the Higgs comes from? It can't exist from nothing.When protons collide, then the Higgs desintegrates giving off energy?
The Higgs boson is purportedly the smallest unit of the Higgs field. It is also reported to be a low mass particle. If other particles get their mass by interacting with the Higgs field, how does the Higgs boson get its mass? And if the Higgs field permeates the entire universe, why is it so hard to find any evidence that it exists? Is it because the fish doesn't really know that it lives in water??
That "fish in water" comment is spot-on... The Washington Post compares the Higgs field (with which Higgs bosons are associated) to the water in which the whole universe swims. It's something of a manifestation of the space-time continuum. Mass and energy is equivalent, so the trick for producing a massive Higgs boson is to smash stuff together with lots of energy. The smashing protons have so much energy that when they're blown to bits and re-form into particles, you can produce a massive particle like the one announced today. But such particles are unstable and almost instantly decay into other particles. This is how the Higgs-like boson was detected, by carefully reviewing the statistical breakdown of how particles popped up as decay products.
Blackbird, if you're not already, you should be the official spokesperson to the laity for this thing. That's the first explanation I of the great unwashed have even approached understanding.
Going out on a limb here...can/could the Higgs Boson particle/field be the answer (w-a-y down the road) to solving the "transporter" (ala Star Trek) question. Since this particle/field pertain to mass & how the universe interacts with matter, is this a valid question?
As per your star trek comment... Your getting more into quantum physics. Really what you would need is a high bandwidth connection lots of power at both ends and one end to scan/remove small bits at a time at what I would assume would have to be absolute zero(to prevent movement). Then send this data(completely flawless) to the second site and reassemble it. Assuming that you can get this to work you could also "store" the data and recreate things at a whim aka replicators. I remember doing research papers on this subject back in high school and college, but it has been a very long time since I have sat down and read the books again, most of it was a fleeting understanding.
I believe every time a Galaxy is born and its been going on since the beginning, it creates another dimension, a way in and a way out.. Time travel.
Lusitania....although its incomprehensible to us mortals, there is no beginning and no end just the continuum. Our universe....yes. There was a "beginning" if you define the big bang as point of origin but prior to that there was "something" and that's what particle physics might eventually answer to some degree. Think an infinite number of multi-verses. There are fanciful ideas that "our universe" in fact came from the implosion of another. Universe might interact with one another over vast amounts of time. Then there is quantum consciousness which adherents (and curiously Scientology types) believe can be altered simply by contemplation. But that's stuff for esoteric believers not fundamental physicists.
.....and to Yes we can....I cannibalized the article from a BBC Q&A about Higgs (the particle not the scientist :-) and thought it to be the best explanation I had read about the topic as I am also one of the great unwashed but thought I'd share the article. Cheers.
Thank you to: Alan, Joemike,And Blackbird, That's the best explanation I've ever read/heard/wrapped my feeble mind around... :)--S--
maybe the needle in a million haystacks disappears then reappears. if it has no mass how can one be sure there is a trail (that is visible at least to our eyes).
The photon is a particle with no mass, yet it is certainly visible to our eyes. In fact, nothing else is visible to our eyes but photons of a certain energy range. (Keep in mind that at the quantum level particles are waves and waves are particles. It is this duality which makes their rather astonishing properties possible.)
But the Higgs has mass, 125 GeV worth of mass. When it decays, other particles, familiar particles, with mass are produced. That's what CERN has observed, the tracks of these familiar particles leaving the scene of the decay in an identifiable way, thus forming a unique fingerprint of the Higgs.
These tracks aren't directly visible to our eyes, of course. We only see photons. But we have instruments at CERN which can detect these tracks and generate photonic patterns we can see. The map is not the territory, and the territory is not the map, but there is a one to one correspondence we can use to help us visualize the things we can't see directly.
ATLAS results still being presented.
CMS showed there's definitely something there at 4.9 sig, maybe slightly anomalous compared to straight-out SM Higgs. Let's see what ATLAS found.
There's the same bump in the ATLAS data also.
I don't suppose they mentioned how long it would take them to analyze more data before they can officially confirm it's a Higgs boson (as opposed to some new particle)? Either way, exciting stuff!
This is what they've been discussing. By the end of the year, they will have the discovery of this boson absolutely nailed in both detectors. They're starting to look into the characteristics of the boson to see how it conforms with what was predicted by the Standard Model for the Higgs boson. It's pretty sure that it's some flavor of Higgs boson, but it could take three or four years to fully determine whether it is totally consistent with the Standard Model, or whether it has qualities that would require tweaking the Standard Model.
Alan, not many writers can approach such heady subject matter in anything approaching a manner which can be conceived by lay persons (including this one). Thank you.
Having a good understanding of physics myself the webcast was rather easy to follow, but it still blew my mind and I was fascinated with the data that was presented as well as the speakers.
It was rather moving especially seeing some of older men getting teary-eyes at how happy they were when the data started to clearly show they had found what they had been looking for in the last 40yrs.
Not being in the field of physics, but I imagine for those who have dedicated their lives to this, this has to be the equivalent of a construction worker putting the flag on the top of the spire of the empire state building. You're not real sure if they'll build a taller building next year, or if the building will still be there 50 years from now, but you know you did something great.
Congratulations to each and every researcher, scientist and woefully underpaid and overworked assistant who helped reach this monumental achievement.
Proving scientific theories does not disprove God, any more than proving how "magic" is done makes a magician less entertaining. IMO, the more we know about the universe and how it works simply demonstrates how truly amazing God is.
Magicians are illusionists, practitioners of delusion. They entertain by lying to their audiences in a convincing way that the laws of Nature are being violated before their very eyes. Of course the laws are not being broken. It is all a scam.
The bigger and more convincing the illusion, the greater the magician, and the more coin he rakes in for his shows. But it is still all a con. As long as we all realize it is just a show, no harm done. But if we begin to believe the con, then we can find ourselves caught in a snare of delusions.
Science requires transcending past beliefs.
Religion requires hanging onto them.
Thanks Alan!
"The bigger and more convincing the illusion, the greater the magician, and the more coin he rakes in for his shows."
That is a very apt description of christianity.
There will be a brain drain from the US now that CERN is the preeminent research facility for high energy physics. The best of US scientists have been bested. Solution? Let's continue to "tolerate" people of faith spoiling the science text books with constant efforts to teach creationism.
The US used to take pride in its scientific achievements. Now the ilk of Kirk Cameron actually have Washington's ear.
Despicable.
You are an idiot. This has nothing to do with creationism, nor does it disprove or prove faith. This is about what matter is made of.
You don't even know how this project went down do you? United States scientists took part and contributed, often without leaving the States.
This is by everyone, for everyone.
Is it not possible that God created the Higgs boson? Don't get me wrong, I'm not religious in any way, but I'm just saying! You say Big Bang, someone else says God clapped his hands. Either way, there's no way to tell for sure what really happened or how we got here.
I think what Juneau was getting at is that religious belief tends to subvert or overshadow actual science and progress, especially here in the US. As a result, we are falling behind scientifically compared to other nations.
For that to be possible, one must first prove there's a god.
Actually, it was god lighting his farts when his roomate pulled his finger. :D
What I don't get is the contention that science and religion can't co-exist and BOTH be understood to have something to do with the miracles that surround us. Personally, I believe that there must be SOME intelligent design to our universe, and science is helping us primitive creatures that sprang from it to understand its origins and construction. After all, every one of us, and the very atoms and molecules that make up our physical being, came from within a star at some point... In effect, we are all billions of years old, it just took this long for us to coalesce into a conscious entity in the physical world, which we are now trying to comprehend. Who/what set the stage for all this?? THAT IS THE QUESTION!!! Random chance?? I'm not buying that...
God and science are NOT in conflict, people are. I took a baking pan, placed flour, a couple of eggs, yeast, flavoring, milk etc, in it. I placed it in an oven with an m80 at 350 degrees, I blew it up. opened the door and NO CAKE. OMG THERE WAS NO CAKE INSIDE LOL so much for the big bank theory
Well Gordy I wouldn't get so uppity just yet, you haven't proved the existence of the Higgs boson or Higgs field yet either. And its not really necessary to prove the existence of God for it to be possible that He created the boson. Its only necessary to prove the existence of God to prove He created the boson. :)
I would refer you to my earlier post at 3.4 to understand that science and religion are seeking the answers to two different questions and therefore do not need to compete and can peacefully coexist.
Juneau Alaska; You think, and talk like a Republican!, and as predictable you miss the point, pursuing your own ideologies instead of evaluating the information available.
Uppity? How so? I was merely making a simple statement.
I didn't say I did.
That's what I said.
Duly noted. But I was addressing neither question.
Again. Another myth believer not reading or understanding the news. Yes they have found it. Its at 5 sigma. What that means it there is a 1 in 3 million chance that it does not exist. You can't do that with a myth.
Correct. It is not only not necessary but has never been a goal of the project to introduce a myth.
The only evidence you will ever find is in your deluded mind.
Science to under stand nature and religion.... will I'm not sure what a myth could seek. If your god is a personal god then I would think you are trying to resolve the constant conflicts with it and nature.
Yes keep your religion to yourself.
Dale, I believe Juneau was bashing the "right".
Maybe the very things that are being discovered now are what were thought to be God so many centuries ago. Could that be?
Idiot, this neither proves nor disaproves that there is a God, as a matter of fact it cannot disaprove anything, the gazillion dollar question, if there is a "god particle" who created it. Evolution and Creation and co-exist. In Genesis is says God created man from the dust of the earth and if you know anything about the science of man then you know that he has every mineral and substance inside of him that is in the soil, plus a lot of things that the so called genius cannot even begin to explain. If this is private money being spent then I do not care about any of this except to say what a waste of resources. If it is my tax dollars being used then I demand that it end now, I prefer my money to be spent on providing a better life for humanity in the here and now.
JKFrom PA; Juneau Alaska; To me was spewing nonsense, and misguided view points. trying to push an ideological position , based on her way of seeing things.
What does it[matter; ]who discovers the higgs boson? When it is discovered we all benefit by the discovery, [no matter]
If you are a US citizen, you have to deal with the TSA. If you are not a US citizen and want to enter the US, you have to deal with the TSA AND you have to deal with the hassles of USCIS which are 10 times worse.
ITER is in Europe..CERN's stuff is in Europe. We are being sidestepped because we can't get along with the rest of the world.
Gordy,
No, actually, you said this:
NOT the same.
Juneau Alaska claims,
That's the truth; in fact the brain drain started 10 years ago when Bush eliminated stem cell research in the US. There are 2 issues involved: 1) government funding has been slashed for science and 2) restrictions have been placed on which areas are allowed to be researched.
Both issues are the direct result of the rise of insane religious fundamentalists in the USA. These domestic "idea terrorists" will not stop until science is completely destroyed. But other countries aren't hampered by these radical lunatic young-Earth creationists, so they will discover the new frontiers of knowledge in the future.
Oh, for Pete's sake, JohnDoh.
It is totally impossible for a non-existent god to have created anything at all.
You must prove the existence of a god before you can assert that he/she/it created things which are known to definitely exist.
Oh for Pete's sake, Jim-3113262:
And? This doesn't contradict or conflict with anything I wrote...or believe.
Again, not telling me anything I don't already know.
Reread all the pertinent posts, then immediately come back and apologize for YOUR foolish haste.
Jerry,
Every benefit you have in the "here and now" came from previous discoveries. Those who enlisted the labor and funds rarely reaped the immediate and full rewards but, thankfully, they continued. And, of course, they had derived the benefit of those who acted similarly before them. Think of it as the ultimate "pay it forward."
As for your demand that tax dollars cease towards this effort at knowledge, well, I urge them to continue. Such learning is not without cost, this is true, but as throughout life, one cannot consider cost without balancing benefit. Knowledge is power and it is derived from a process akin to construction, brick upon individual brick, until ultimately, the whole is complete and then will the entire reward be realized. Each discovery stands upon the shoulders of those preceding it and while we may opine where it all will lead and the final fruits are yet to be revealed, knowledge is never a waste. One may deride a misapplication of knowledge, but overall, learning is always a boon.
Re: Juneau's comment:
Science isn't a nationalist endeavor. At one time, there was a "Space Race" and a "Nuclear Arms Race", but those with those two Cold War relics aside, science isn't an Olympic event.
And while there won't be a great brain drain creating hordes of ex-pat physicists, the comment does have some merit, at least regarding particle physics - if anyone remembers what happened to SSC - 40TeV - because we didn't want to spend $12 billion. That was almost 20 years ago. Can you imagine...
It's people like Jerry who hinder man's progress.
"Light does not enter into, nor emanate from, a closed mind."
Though the fact remains there's not a shred of empirical evidence for any supernatural "god".
"My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it." ~ Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
You missed the implication.
Gordy,
I missed nothing. Instead, I responded to what you actually wrote, and not what you wished, but failed, to express...assuming yours wasn't simply an egregious flaw in logic...which I'm still not convinced it wasn't.
my apologies then if I wasn't clear.
Progress, progress. They are making huge leaps in their findings. Always a great thing.
Great for whom?
Great for you kids , grand kids etc, duhhhhhh
What is it about being broke that you do not understand, America has no money, every dime paid in taxes is spent already, and paying interest on borrowed money that can never be repaid.My kids and grand kids and great grand kids and yours will be paying for this stupid waste of money for generations. Stop this nonsense and and stop spending money that we do not have. Good Lord, this has to be the dumbest generation of humanity. The energy shortage is a conspiracy, a energy source has been created for years that would solve the energy problem, but powerful people with billions of dollars will never let it see the light of day.
Yes...that's why all the interesting stuff is now happening in Europe. CERN is in Europe. Half in France, too, which is rather interesting, given some of the things we have been saying about them.
"Bla Bla Bla", Jerry types into his home computer or cell phone to be sent as a digital signal that is transmitted through a worldwide digital communications network that includes satellites orbiting the planet, allowing his message of "Bla Bla Bla" to be received anywhere in the world in less than 0.425 seconds.
Yeah, science is the "stupid waste of money". Gotcha, buddy.
A great deal of the technology we enjoy as civilians evolved out of our military....the internet for one. But, I could swear I've read counteless posts and/or articles pointing out all the money wasted in the Military Industrial Complex. But, build a giant hot wheel track in Switzerland for $6 Billion and 'it's money well spent'. Not that I'm against the LHC....it's just the hypocrisy.
The LHC complex was neither built nor funded by the US Military.
The first packet switching network, ARPANET, was indeed funded by the DoD, but contrary to popular myth, it was not designed to be a military command and control network that would survive and function after a nuclear attack, and it was never used as such. It was designed to enable university researchers to connect and utilize super-computers, which were few (4), and at seperate universities (UCLA, UCSB, Utah, and Stanford).
Initially, the net was just these 4, but spread to other universities in the US, and eventually, internationally. From the beginning, in 1969, until 1975, it was not used by the military. However, in 1975, the military claimed control of the ARPA project because the original funding was from DoD.
The academics balked at this, of course, and the compromise reached was that the military would get their own network, MILNET, separate from ARPANET.
So, although the original funding for ARPANET was from the DoD, it was not designed for a military use and was not used by the military - although the military did utilize that network technology some years later. It was designed by civilians for civilian use, and was used exclusively by civilians until 1975.
However, ARPANET did not become 'the internet'. What we know as 'the internet' started with CSNET, a network designed in 1981 for universities, and was funded entirely by the NSF. CSNET evolved into NSFNET, which became the 'backbone' of the internet, and remains that now.
But to the point:
1) The majority of science funding in the US is done through private funds (about 64%), the remainder (about 31%) is funded through the federal government. Most government funding of science is through the NSF and NASA, not the DoD, although the DoD does fund some university research.
2) The complaints about military waste are generally about REAL waste and graft, and specific to vendor overcharge (the ubiquitous $400 hammer & $800 toilet seat), funding for hardware that is known to be outdated or outmoded, and other boondoggle, pork type spending. None of which has anything to do with scientific research.
So -
The LHC was not designed , built, or funded by the US Military.
The internet did not evolve from the military.
The military does not significantly fund science in the US.
The corruption and wasteful spending of the Pentagon has nothing to do with science or science funding.
Did I say, or even insuate that the LHC was funded by the military? Hmmmm....Nope, never did that. At any rate, the miltary, with all of it's excessive spending, DOES provide invention. The old saying "Necessity is the mother of all invention" comes to mind. A person or organiziation is more likely to meet "necessity" through the strains of combat rather than sitting in a dorm, wouldn't you say? The internet DID ORIGINATE with ARPANET.....which was a military funded program. NO, ARPANET was and is not the internet, but it had to start somewhere. I mean, you wouldn't have a Dodge Viper if it weren't for the model T....right?
And, based on the recent news that, if the new LHC findings are as useful as they purport to be, it will take 150 years to realize the usefullness. I am 100% in favor of more research in this area. However, I am also in favor of our military spending in order to maintain our superiority in the world and utilzing the "necessity" advance further.
Did I say, or even insuate that the LHC was funded by the military?
Yes. That's the entire premise of your comment.
A person or organiziation is more likely to meet "necessity" through the strains of combat rather than sitting in a dorm
Scientific research is not 'sitting in a dorm room'', and combat soldiers are engaged in neither scientific research nor invention.
... evolved out of our military....the internet for one. The internet DID ORIGINATE with ARPANET.
The internet evolved from CSNET, not ARPANET. Although, ARPANET represents an important advancement in networking, specifically, internetworking, and so has an important place in CS history, the internet evolved from CSNET.
ARPANET was not designed for nor used by the military. The project was a product of research in computer science, not combat - by computer scientists, not soldiers - at universities, not on battlefields - and in cooperation with an international CS community, not in competition for 'superiority'. ARPANET was created by eggheads "sitting in a dorm room".
There it is. 5 sig. I think we've got it.
One chance in 3 million that the findings are a statistical fluke. Yes you could say that.
I wonder how Peter Higgs feels right now, sitting there.
Maybe he went to take a dump.
Happy that he is $100 richer. I bet Hawking took it like a good sport though.
Wonderful international effort, in the best spirit of science.
The suspense has been tolerable...
Hot damn, what an exciting time for science these last hundred, hundred and fifty years have been! Congratulations Scientists of Earth, you've done a service to humanity and science itself, and contributed immensely in ways we don't even know yet. I can't wait to find out what implications this discovery has and where research will take us next.
We still have the Curiosity lander in August (I hope). What a summer for science!
The problem with the standard model is it fails to explain both gravity and the other forces together, or to connect relativity with quantum physics.
Let us assume that space is simply an expanded un-resolved probability field. And that time is what happens when probability waves collapse into particles in a particular space segment.
In that case, entropy becomes the random collapse of probability outcomes throughout space.
These collapses occur in the present, and produce matter (the past, collapsed space-probability outcomes) and energy. The future is simply un-collapsed space-probability outcomes.
Matter (the past) imbued with energy as a result of the the collapse of its probability field, pushes forward into the future. This effect creates mass.
Gravity is the consequence of a reduction in the resistance of the future (un-collapsed probability fields) as the presence of larger and closer clusters of matter (the past) distort space (un-collapsed probability fields, the future).
The mass of an atom is greater than the mass of its component sub-atomic particles because of the effect of the uncollapsed space/probability waves accompanying the collapsed sub-particles, all of them imbued with the energy created at the time of the collapse of the sub-particles.
The mass of a photon (combined mass at rest and virtual mass caused by its motion), is less than that of a quark, because a quark is composed of sub-quark collapsed space as well as un-collapsed space, whereas a photon is only un-collapsed space, imbued with energy by the collapse of nearby space/probability fields.
Since time is not localized, separate particles, if paired in time, can transmit information between them instantaneously.
Dark matter is thus fully collapsed space, with no longer any imbued energy or accompanying space/probability waves, and thus no collapsing waves, and thus no energy creation, and thus no pushing of un-collapsed space, and thus no light.
I kinda liked the trudging thru snow analogy better
I liked the water analogy better. I'm sitting next to a reef tank looking at the fish, imagining them suddenly discovering water.
Imagine Alejandro telling that story to the science wunderkinds that make up the Congress of the United States and then asking them for a couple of billion dollars to build a big circular thingy that makes particles bump into each other. Unfortunately, if we cannot make science understandable to the people with the money (and to the people who send them the money) theoretical science "stuff" doesn't get funded. Our politicians cannot see past the next budget cycle or election so cannot comprehend the potential in findings such as these. And since the scientists cannot describe the unknown (potential for financial return) other priorities rise to the surface. (See silver's comment at 20.1)
joemike404, indeed. Carl Sagan had said that the scientists could have done a much better job at informing Congress of why particle physics is important. It's not too late. There are many colliders still left to be built, including the linear and muonic colliders that Fermilab is planning for.
This must be such a pivotal moment for those that have invested years working on Higgs Boson project to reach this point.I almost can't phantom so much labor by so many. It's exciting to realize what the results can mean for providing answers to so many questions while opening up new areas we have been looking for as well as provocative possibilities. Including how our universe potentially exists next to other universes.
so they spend billions of dollars just to find a tiny little thing so what, whats the big deal? will it feed the hungry people of the world? No will it stop all the wars? No will it heal the sick? No billions wasted so sad that they care nothing for human kind.................................
"You wasted HOW much time playing with electricity? What a waste, it will never be more than a parlour toy."
You wasted HOW much time playing with collimated light (lasers)? It will never be of any use outside of the lab!!"
I could go on, because you see, @silver, you are not the first short-sighted person to make such comments.
Whilst sitting in your air conditioned home.
Whilst banging away on your computer.
Let us know when you slap your forehead when you realize, "oh, yea, I get it now."
Silver, evidently you are not aware of the fact that linear accelerators and cyclotrons have uses in the medical field. Please refrain from making such statements until you have acquired enough knowledge to do so.
I've been waiting for the moment we discover the Higgs since I was in Grade 5. Hopefully, the wait will not be too much longer.
Careful cyborg, your science nerd is showing:)
Silver, you should get together with Jerry. You're both closed minded dolts.
Yep. They sure did. They went and spent billions on a tiny little particle. Those folks with their pesky search for knowledge greater than humanity itself.
I guess spending Trillions on invading other countries is a far better way to show how much you care for humanity.
Besides, we don't want to feed hungry people. That would just create a never ending dependency (as it already has in our inner cities). We want them to get off their lazy asses and feed themselves. Of course that would require them to learn something and do something, rather than just sit and whine to their Gawd for salvation.
Oh, please. Do you live in a decent home with furniture and drive a nice car, JohnCarter? Yes? In that case, why aren't you living in a smaller, cheaper place and taking public transportation and giving all of your extra income to feed the hungry? The obvious answer is you don't because you are a hypocrite and your post is, therefore, meaningless.
Fail.
As a layman I can't help but be impressed by this, and I'm hoping really hard that this is in fact the Higgs boson. Let's get Mr. Higgs that Nobel prize boys, let's do this!
Thrilling. Unfortunately, only a few eggheads will ever understand any of this mumbo-jumbo, assuming it even makes actual sense. The rest of humanity is reduced to hearing explanations via patronizing, condescending analogies, which most often don't even offer any real insight into the physics. Chances are that this is simply the wrong way to explain the inner workings of the universe.
What do you expect if you aren't smart enough to read the math and physics books yourself? The analogies aren't patronizing - they're genuine. And just what are you talking about with regard to insight? The Higgs Boson offers the biggest insight into physics, telling us about mass. Right or wrong - just how do you expect to find out without experimentation?
It's a poor analogy, yes. But when you just have a minute to explain it, maybe that's the best you can do. A news website isn't the best place to learn about it. Go google it instead. 10 minutes of reading on another website would probably make this seem a lot less mysterious.
As far as I know, no one ever told you that you couldn't study physics. I'm not a physicist, but I am blessed with am inquiring mind, so I take the time to read and try to understand these things at an elemental level, as opposed to those who just pooh pooh it.
Even those "smart enough" need to devote their entire lives to this if they hope to have a full understanding. I'm sure we'll see something like "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Higgs Boson." These books are aptly titled and never claim to attempt to rectify the situation, but the target audience doesn't seem to realize this.
So, when do we get our anti-gravity air-cars?
Will this make it easier for me to lose some weight?
Of course! In just a few years, you'll be able to buy a set of physics books, sit down in your chair, open them up and THINK the pounds off!
This is great news for the entire scientific community!
Just think: in a few years, scientists working 'round the clock in laboratories all over the world might come up with something that can find a particle as small as George W. Bush's brain.
Thanks Warren, someone had to say it... truly LOL...
I did not know that anyone even found Bush's brain.
What this discovery means is that you won't have to lose weight. Science will learn how to manipulate the Higgs field so that you will have less mass. You'll still be fat, of course. It will just be fat with less mass.
Well they better look at Solid, Liquid and Gas.. something that small i would say there no such thing as Solid...Capt. to bridge, Scotty beam me up!
" This opens up the exploration of the wierder sides of physics: Like the universe may have 6 or 7 dimensions" Try wrapping your head around that. Try showing that in a physical model we can look at. (this is like Spock on acid)
topology helps a lot with that
SRM, topology is only 3 dimensions
Super Strings theory I believe has 11 dimensions!
Greg, now your getting over my head. But I do believe physicists will soon find out that our concept of time is flawed. Flawed beyond Einstien's theory of reletivity. (I think the future has already happened)
Knew there was a 7th heaven somewhere.