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How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

quantamagazine.org

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Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#101

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

criddell wrote: post #58
halyconWays wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while QFT fields like higgs are not physical at all Phew, I feel better now. Non-physical scalar and tensor fields permeating all of expanding spacetime in a non-physical manner give rise to physical behavior via local nonphysical wavefunction collapse that we call excitations.

That's why the mathematical universe hypothesis (everything is built from mathematical structures) seems likely to me.

It seems incredibly unlikely to me.

It's more likely all physics is argument by analogy from limited human experiences, and math is just a culturally consistent subset of that.

What look like genius predictions are mostly (Einstein aside...) generations of post docs throwing equations at their whiteboards to see what sticks.

A few happen to be confirmed by experiment. Most are quietly forgotten.

I strongly suspect we literally can't begin to imagine what's really going on.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#102

Post by wyager »

cryptonector wrote: post #74
wyager wrote: post #5

I studied wave mechanics in college, but the origin of mass didn't click for me until several years later (and in fact I don't believe it was every brought up in the context of wave mechanics, which seems like a problem in retrospect). The conceptualization that worked for me is this: The normal wave equation is (ignoring constant factors like mass and propagation velocity): d^2/dt^2 f(x,t) = d^2/dx^2 f(x,t) = This s…

This is beautiful. Thanks for this. Is the choice of `M` for "the strength of the restoring force" intended to resemble `m` for mass?

Exactly. Didn't want to confuse it with the normal lowercase `m` that might show up in a wave equation derivation for masses-on-a-string or whatever

Should probably have mentioned - the final equation in my derivation is the Klein-Gordon equation, which is a relativistic equation for the behavior of spinless particles (and maybe bosons in general? I forget)

To get an equation that describes fermion behavior, you need to do another step, which I believe Dirac was the first to do; try very hard to take the square root of both sides of this equation, so you only have first-order derivatives. Dirac really dislike the idea of having a second-order equation, because it leaves an extra initial condition you have to specify. If you expand the p^u p_u term, you can see that it's impossible to take the square root of both sides using normal algebra, because you're trying to take the square root of the sum of multiple terms (d^2/dt^2 - d^2/dx^2 - d^2/dy^2 - d^2/dz^2) . You have to introduce gamma matrices or clifford algebras (IMO the better option) to do it, which seems like a weird and non-physically-motivated approach, but if you do it, spin up and spin down states miraculously fall out of the equation. Eigenchris on youtube has a video that helped me to figure out what was going on there

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#103

Post by wyager »

oytuntez wrote: post #70
wyager wrote: post #5

I studied wave mechanics in college, but the origin of mass didn't click for me until several years later (and in fact I don't believe it was every brought up in the context of wave mechanics, which seems like a problem in retrospect). The conceptualization that worked for me is this: The normal wave equation is (ignoring constant factors like mass and propagation velocity): d^2/dt^2 f(x,t) = d^2/dx^2 f(x,t) = This s…

chatgpt convo to understand "temporal frequency" better: https://chatgpt.com/share/f8601523-2d3f-4497-a9b4-071d6a8778...

Looks correct to me, and I like that it pointed out that my final equation I wrote is the klein-gordon eqn. Forgot to mention that in the original post

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#104

Post by mr_toad »

LegitShady wrote: post #43
emblaegh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware when mixing quantum field theory (Higgs) with gravity (attraction). We don’t have any idea how these two relate to each other.

the entire theory of the higgs field and its discovery came from understanding that the model without it lacked sufficient gravity to match the world around us. So I understand what you're saying, I disagree that we don't know how these to relate to each other. The reason Peter Higgs theorized the higgs field is because we have some idea of it.Maybe it gets more complicated than we understand currently, but we unders…

> the model without it lacked sufficient gravity to match the world around us

True, but 99% of the rest mass of a Proton comes from the gluon field, not the Higgs mechanism. The universe wouldn’t fly apart without the Higgs field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chromodynamics_binding...

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#105

Post by pantulis »

TexanFeller wrote: post #89
programd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can also add this set of articles from Matt Strassler which explains it all with surprisingly simple math. It really is quite understandable and I wish more pop-sci discussions of the subject threw in a few equations now and then to explain such stuff. https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-ph...

Sean Carroll produces a great deal of content for people that want a bit more rigorous explanation rather than the leaky metaphors of most popsci. He often delves into equations and technical details, but keeps it at a level mostly understandable for someone who has basic scientific understanding, but isn't a professional/academic. I spend many hours every month listening to him and recommend his content every chance…

Carroll's latest book "Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe" is about all this quantum field theory, and I think it perfectly covers the gap between pop-sci and academic material for people with some math exposure.

While other authors just keep shy of equations and thus need to resort to simplified analogies, Carroll is not afraid of throwing a good share of math stuff and explaining the rationale from one equation to the other, while avoiding the really hard parts ("solving this equation tortures undergrad physics students for a year, but we won't be doing that")

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#106

Post by Akronymus »

ISL wrote: post #55
Zondartul wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule #1 of talking about the aether is "don't call it aether". Nowadays it's "spacetime this" and "mass-energy tensor that" and "properties of vacuum something else".... and we still end up with empty space behaving like a funky fluid.

The aether originally suggested a preferred reference frame -- something thoroughly debunked by tests of special relativity. The universe could still have various preferred/interesting frames (the CMB's rest-frame sure is interesting), but it won't have much, if anything, to do with the movement of particles or light.

> The aether originally suggested a preferred reference frame -- something thoroughly debunked by tests of special relativity.

AFAIK, lightspeed could differ based on which direction you go without breakung relativity. And we haven't measured the single direction lightspeed.

Not that I actually think it differs based on direction.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#107

Post by criddell »

halyconWays wrote: post #79
criddell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the mathematical universe hypothesis (everything is built from mathematical structures) seems likely to me.

It's sort of unsatisfying to say that math has the ability to experience itself, though

Is it? That’s basically what a conscious AI would be and I have a hard time coming up with reasons why a software brain couldn’t replace a biological brain.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#108

Post by criddell »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #101
criddell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the mathematical universe hypothesis (everything is built from mathematical structures) seems likely to me.

It seems incredibly unlikely to me. It's more likely all physics is argument by analogy from limited human experiences, and math is just a culturally consistent subset of that. What look like genius predictions are mostly (Einstein aside...) generations of post docs throwing equations at their whiteboards to see what sticks. A few happen to be confirmed by experiment. Most are quietly forgotten. I strongly suspect we…

> I strongly suspect we literally can’t begin to imagine what’s really going on.

I also happen to believe that might be true. In the same way a dog will never understand single variable calculus, there probably are concepts that are out of reach for us.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#109

Post by simiones »

simpaticoder wrote: post #75
Maxatar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ether is a hypothetical medium for light waves to propagate. If that's the extent of your definition then it is not at all inconsistent with Einstein's definition of the ether in the lecture I linked to. >This is a "No True Scotsman" fallacy wherein one redefines the assertion to deal with specific objections. Imagine using your argument to claim that atoms don't exist because atoms were by definition indivisible s…

I think you need to review the site guidelines about tone and purpose. Moreover, I'd suggest you review the history of quantum mechanics, because Einstein did not invent field theory, just as Newton did not invent or understand the Lagrange or Hamiltonian formulations, nor statistical mechanics, even though his theory provided the foundation of them all. I'm not a historian of physics, or a psychologist, so I will bo…

> Moreover, I'd suggest you review the history of quantum mechanics, because Einstein did not invent field theory, just as Newton did not invent or understand the Lagrange or Hamiltonian formulations, nor statistical mechanics, even though his theory provided the foundation of them all.

First of all, physical fields were a concept far before QFT came in the picture, and they are the same concept as QFT's fields. Einstein was definitely familiar with classical field theories, which were prevalent ways of looking at gravitation and electromagnetism far before even quantum mechanics was discovered.

Secondly, Einstein died some time after QFT had become a real theory, so it is very likely that later in life he could have been at least passingly familiar even with some concepts of quantum fields (though of course, not at the time he wrote his GR papers).

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#110

Post by halyconWays »

calf wrote: post #88
halyconWays wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like, particles are how we experience collapsed wave functions, and both are manifestations of excitations in the underlying quantum field.

Last I checked the theory of wave function collapse is still unresolved, with competing explanations. We don't know the answer and should not talk like we pretend we do. Unless you are personally one of those scientists or researchers endorsing one such theory, and even then you have to be clean and transparent and admit the matter is not settled by consensus yet.

What I'm describing is physics 102 and non-controversial. No one is pretending anything.

What you're referring to are competing interpretations for what it means when the superposition of eigenstates collapses into a single state, which we call wave function collapse. The most popular interpretation is the Copenhagen interpretation (observation causes collapse), and the second most probably the many worlds hypothesis (we only observe collapse due to being in one path among all real paths).

Quantum uncertainty doesn't mean you have to approach every topic going "ohh we just don't know! No one can be certain about anything! Leave this to the experts!" These are surface-level descriptions of basic quantum phenomena.

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