Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

quantamagazine.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 111 posts

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#21

Post by LegitShady »

throw0101d wrote: post #19

> Once upon a time, there came into being a universe. Searingly hot, it swarmed with elementary particles. Among its fields was a Higgs field, initially switched off. But as the universe expanded and cooled, the Higgs field suddenly switched on, developing a nonzero strength. Any particular reason/mechanism why the Higgs field suddenly (gradually?) switched on?

If the higgs field did not exist, particles would not have enough mass to attract each other, and the universe as we know it would not exist.

So while I do not know if there is some particular cause of the higgs field, no reality like ours would exist without it, and realities without it would not look like anything we recognize (although maybe scientists could simulate it).

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#22

Post by layer8 »

throw0101d wrote: post #17

> Quantum field theory, the powerful framework of modern particle physics, says the universe is filled with fields. Examples include the electromagnetic field, the gravitational field and the Higgs field itself. For each field, there’s a corresponding type of particle, best understood as a little ripple in that field. The electromagnetic field’s ripples are light waves, and its gentlest ripples are the particles of l…

They aren’t made of anything (other than numbers). Fields are currently the fundamental ontology. They are mathematical objects.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#24

Post by [deleted] »

throw0101d wrote: post #17

> Quantum field theory, the powerful framework of modern particle physics, says the universe is filled with fields. Examples include the electromagnetic field, the gravitational field and the Higgs field itself. For each field, there’s a corresponding type of particle, best understood as a little ripple in that field. The electromagnetic field’s ripples are light waves, and its gentlest ripples are the particles of l…

[deleted]

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#25

Post by cosignal »

throw0101d wrote: post #17

> Quantum field theory, the powerful framework of modern particle physics, says the universe is filled with fields. Examples include the electromagnetic field, the gravitational field and the Higgs field itself. For each field, there’s a corresponding type of particle, best understood as a little ripple in that field. The electromagnetic field’s ripples are light waves, and its gentlest ripples are the particles of l…

I think that’s a tricky question. In one sense, they aren’t made of anything since they are elementary fields. Meaning they don’t have constituent parts. But one could still argue that it’s relevant to say that they are of some kind of substance in a sense. The nature of that substance is the domain of Theories of Everything and some argue that the discussion becomes either purely mathematical or somewhat philosophical in nature, more so than a matter of physics anymore. For example, some argue that the fields are all made of math, so to speak, or likewise that their differences are like geometric variations on the same substrate.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#26

Post by mfworks »

PBS Spacetime has a fantastic video on the Higgs Field that explains it about one level deeper that typical pop science, and answers some of the questions I'm seeing in this thread, include "why did the field switch on suddenly?" and "Why is the Higgs Field different from other fields"

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#27

Post by svachalek »

throw0101d wrote: post #19

> Once upon a time, there came into being a universe. Searingly hot, it swarmed with elementary particles. Among its fields was a Higgs field, initially switched off. But as the universe expanded and cooled, the Higgs field suddenly switched on, developing a nonzero strength. Any particular reason/mechanism why the Higgs field suddenly (gradually?) switched on?

It is believed to be the cooling of the universe. At ridiculously high temperatures, such that have not existed since the first fraction of a second of the universe, the electroweak symmetry was broken and most physics we are familiar with didn't work. Unfortunately the math behind it is way over my head so that's about all I can say on it.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#28

Post by layer8 »

tines wrote: post #14
wyager wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, worth noting that "the EM field" (the thing that shows up in the wave equation) in this case is specifically the EM 4-potential. This doesn't work if you try to treat "the EM field" as the strength of the E and B fields or something - it has to be the 4-potential. I got tripped up by this at one point Second, this isn't pinning the field in space , it's pinning the magnitude of the field to be close to some va…

What trips me up is that we don't think of the field being a real physical thing. But isn't the field really the _true_ physical thing, and the wave is just a concept we overlay on it? Like, water is the real physical thing, and the wave is just an arrangement of the water that we recognize as humans. Isn't it the same with the EM and electron fields etc?

For fields, it’s rather that the wave is the only physical/real thing, and there is no separate “substance” that is waving. “Substance” is a concept that disappears in fundamental physics.

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#29

Post by emblaegh »

LegitShady wrote: post #21
throw0101d wrote: post #19

> Once upon a time, there came into being a universe. Searingly hot, it swarmed with elementary particles. Among its fields was a Higgs field, initially switched off. But as the universe expanded and cooled, the Higgs field suddenly switched on, developing a nonzero strength. Any particular reason/mechanism why the Higgs field suddenly (gradually?) switched on?

If the higgs field did not exist, particles would not have enough mass to attract each other, and the universe as we know it would not exist. So while I do not know if there is some particular cause of the higgs field, no reality like ours would exist without it, and realities without it would not look like anything we recognize (although maybe scientists could simulate it).

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

Re: How the Higgs field gives mass to elementary particles

#30

Post by akomtu »

throw0101d wrote: post #17

> Quantum field theory, the powerful framework of modern particle physics, says the universe is filled with fields. Examples include the electromagnetic field, the gravitational field and the Higgs field itself. For each field, there’s a corresponding type of particle, best understood as a little ripple in that field. The electromagnetic field’s ripples are light waves, and its gentlest ripples are the particles of l…

Afaik, the official answer is that they are made of nothing because they are fundamental. That's how scientists say "we don't know". But when a fridge magnet sticks to a fridge, something holds it there and it's not nothing. It's not photons either. It's the magnetic field itself, the one that's made of "nothing". Photons are like waves in the magnetic field "water", but water isn't made of waves. Equations of magnetic field have a curious similarity with the flow of something in 4 dimensions (I mean that kaluza-klein theory), but nobody has managed to make that theory work yet, so there must be something else. Iirc, Einstein himself spent half of his life on this idea, but didn't succeed.
Post reply on HN