Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson • Hacker News Board

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#51

Post by spinonethird » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 4:49 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #10

Jabbles wrote: post #4

The physics involved is fascinating, although a true appreciation of what a Higgs Boson is would take years (i.e. most of a PhD). The organisation of such a vast data-processing task has surely brought about many discoveries in "big-data" and parallel computing that are not directly related to the discoveries in physics. Much like the research into the magnets that power the accelerator has led to new MRI machines. T…

Part of me is rather skeptical that the giant mound of assumptions about hardware, software, and physics backing this discovery is correct. However, I have a lot more faith in them then I do in most human endeavors and I fundamentally don't understand what's going on. Which I find to be an odd feeling.

The physicist involved are also skeptical of their own experiments. That's why they independently build two experiments, ATLAS and CMS, that measure the decay product of the collisions (in addition, they are also a number of other more specialized detectors).

The design of these detectors are rather different, and they are build by different team, yet are are giving consistent results.

So of course they are common assumptions, but they did do their homework to try to mitigate this.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#52

Post by LilValleyBigEgo » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

> To me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is

Rephrased:

> We're going to milk this for research funding until the end of time.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#53

Post by shardling » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 4:51 PM UTC

randomdrake wrote: post #44

shardling wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're misunderstanding the quoted passage. In either case it would be the Higgs that they were searching for. The uncertainty is about the structure that exists beyond the standard model. Some sort of Higgs is still necessary in almost any extension to this model, which is why everyone was so damn certain it would be found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#Alternative_models

I am not a physicist, only someone who enjoys physics, so I may be. I would love to be enlightened if I did misunderstand. My understanding from the statement is that they know there is the effects of a Higgs has been observed. But that this isn't necessarily the Higgs which fits into the Standard Model. I understand there are other models which may be considered but I thought that there were specific conditions whic…

>this isn't necessarily the Higgs which fits into the Standard Model

We know that the standard model is "wrong" -- it breaks down at high enough energies. But it's valid at lower energies; it works for the stuff we can actually observe. And it requires a Higgs field to make sense.

If they discover a particle that fills this role, that's discovering "the" Higgs. It doesn't matter if it turns out that the Higgs sector is more complicated; the fundamental prediction of the standard model has been vindicated. Even though everyone kind of expected this, its still a big deal!

So if a pop science article says that the Higgs has been discovered, they're not really being sensationalist in their wording. Working physicists would say the same thing.

(They might be a bit off in pointing to this particular announcement as the discovery, of course! The bbc seems to have the most sober coverage of this sort of thing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21785205)

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#54

Post by DougWebb » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 4:58 PM UTC

ichinaski wrote: post #20

Yet still all the newspapers worldwide have a Pope in their frontpage. What a frustrating coincidence.

A new pope can start making a difference in the lives of a lot of people as soon as tomorrow. Proving the existence of a Higgs boson won't matter to nearly everyone for many years, if it ever matters. In the past new physics has eventually lead to new engineering which lead to new products that change peoples lives. In this case I'm not sure that will happen, given the energy needed to reach the new physics. At most the engineering needed to reach those energy levels might spin off new products, but they're not likely to be drastically new, just an extension of existing products.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#55

Post by DougWebb » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

Jabbles wrote: post #4

The physics involved is fascinating, although a true appreciation of what a Higgs Boson is would take years (i.e. most of a PhD). The organisation of such a vast data-processing task has surely brought about many discoveries in "big-data" and parallel computing that are not directly related to the discoveries in physics. Much like the research into the magnets that power the accelerator has led to new MRI machines. T…

Are there any predictions for possible daily-life-affecting spin-offs from the new physics itself, rather than just from the engineering advances made in the search? Or do the energies involved preclude any direct practical uses?

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#56

Post by tomkinstinch » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #38

How do you give the discovery of the Higgs a Nobel prize? Particularly in experimental particle physics, the ability to give a nobel prize (even after discounting grad students :) seems impossible today. The number of people who have to be part of any "discovery" is huge. It seems like the prize would then become the prize for who had the most political (office and governmental) sway on the team.

They can be given to groups, as in the case of the 2007 Peace Prize:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#57

Post by adonisn » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

From the article: 'The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the "God particle."' Calling it the "God particle" is an insult to science, and "Higgs Boson" is definitely the more popular term. Here's the adword keyword analysis for both: http://imgur.com/dsNVbum "Higgs Boson" as a search term is 4.078 times more popular globally and 3.322 times in the US.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#58

Post by Aloisius » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:22 PM UTC

micampe wrote: post #29

berntb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your general point, but your example is doubtful. Gopher existed before WWW and filled the same niche. It wasn't as elegant, but it (or something else) would have grown up without WWW. The reason, in my cynical opinion, why the web took over from Gopher was not that it was technically superior, but that it allowed people to add pictures to their documents.

The most important difference between Gopher and HTTP were not images, it was hyperlinks instead of a hierarchical structure.

Gopher had links. At its core, gopher was links. It was a hierarchical menu system of proto-URLs (host port and path).

The primary benefits of www over gopher at the time were that the web supported text input (you had to use wais just to search gopher and you couldn't build say, a forum) and html which allowed embedded images and formatting.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#59

Post by randomdrake » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

shardling wrote: post #53

randomdrake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a physicist, only someone who enjoys physics, so I may be. I would love to be enlightened if I did misunderstand. My understanding from the statement is that they know there is the effects of a Higgs has been observed. But that this isn't necessarily the Higgs which fits into the Standard Model. I understand there are other models which may be considered but I thought that there were specific conditions whic…

>this isn't necessarily the Higgs which fits into the Standard Model We know that the standard model is "wrong" -- it breaks down at high enough energies. But it's valid at lower energies; it works for the stuff we can actually observe. And it requires a Higgs field to make sense. If they discover a particle that fills this role, that's discovering "the" Higgs. It doesn't matter if it turns out that the Higgs sector…

Thanks! From your explanation, I guess I may have misunderstood the significance of observing a Higgs versus the Higgs when it comes to semantics. Maybe it's a case of me just being too specific and I should cool my jets. However, the swath of results stating "god particle found" across the board, when searching for the source, felt a bit much.

Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson

#60

Post by cshimmin » Thu, Mar 14, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

tomkinstinch wrote: post #56

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #38

How do you give the discovery of the Higgs a Nobel prize? Particularly in experimental particle physics, the ability to give a nobel prize (even after discounting grad students :) seems impossible today. The number of people who have to be part of any "discovery" is huge. It seems like the prize would then become the prize for who had the most political (office and governmental) sway on the team.

They can be given to groups, as in the case of the 2007 Peace Prize: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/

A colleague of mine at CERN once told me that if they ever get a nobel prize, it will be a peace prize. The number of nations and institutions brought together for science is quite amazing!