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CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

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Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#41

Post by wpietri »

molmalo wrote: post #40
wpietri wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, they are not trying to convince anyone here. They are trying to prove something. And that's the impressive part. Finding this out cost circa $10 billion. To get that dough, they had to convince a lot of politicians (and hundreds of millions of taxpayers) that this was worth it. To the general public, a clear result is much more satisfying than, "Well, gosh, the data is ambiguous; we need another $10 billion t…

They had to convince those politicians that this is worth studying. Not to convince them about the results, that could have been any of the two possible shakespearean outcomes: to exist or not to exist...

I agree that politicians shouldn't care about dramatic results. But I still think they do.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#42

Post by ieureur »

Xion wrote: post #18
pessimist wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, they are not trying to convince anyone here. They are trying to prove something. A nobel prize is at stake! If ATLAS only had the results and not CMS, they would have lost the nobel. For them to put aside personal glory for science is impressive.

Even without the question of ATLAS vs. CMS, awarding a Nobel Prize for this will be rather challenging. At most three people can share it according to the rules, and there were literally hundreds of scientists involved in this discovery. This is probably yet another argument in favor of the claim that Nobel Prize in its current form is antiquated and not matching the reality of modern science (especially particle phy…

"At most three people can share it according to the rules"

This is wrong. It's just conventional, nothing in Nobel's will mentions this.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#43

Post by ieureur »

mrpollo wrote: post #33

Can someone please explain to me what would the immediate technological advancement be if this is true?, what applications would this have? (Already watched the video and read the FAQ, still a lot that is not clear to me)

None in the foreseeable future.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#44

Post by SoftwareMaven »

mkr-hn wrote: post #29

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/04/hi... This is a great comment: "Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re at the target range, and the Lone Ranger is shooting at clay pidgins right nearby. Obviously you’ll want to know if he’s shooting silver bullets, right? But you can’t look at them while they’re still tied up in the gun. You can’t look at them after they’ve hit the pidgin. And they’re tra…

It's even harder than that, because it turns out full metal jackets will cause the pigeons to blow apart into the same pieces, so it's not just the pieces, but things like the direction and velocity of those pieces.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#45

Post by SoftwareMaven »

mrpollo wrote: post #33

Can someone please explain to me what would the immediate technological advancement be if this is true?, what applications would this have? (Already watched the video and read the FAQ, still a lot that is not clear to me)

My science-fiction addled brain can't help but be taken to things like anti-gravity when we start talking about understanding the particle the causes mass. If we could alter the field, we could make things much less massive, making Michael J Fox's hover board that much closer to a reality.

Of course, this is baseless conjecture and, even if true someday, will be nothing like immediate. However, without understanding the field, we won't be able to affect the field (we may never be able to affect the field when we do understand it).

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#46

Post by CamperBob2 »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #35
sdiwakar wrote: post #2

Amazing, I wonder what this means for creationists and more importantly - our understanding of our universe?

The anti-creationists have become a religion unto themselves, complete with persecutions and indulgences. "I'm about fifty-fifty on believing in God" - Steve Jobs

This is true only if creationists' bullshit is as valid as our reality.

So, no.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ygmelnikova wrote: post #35
sdiwakar wrote: post #2

Amazing, I wonder what this means for creationists and more importantly - our understanding of our universe?

The anti-creationists have become a religion unto themselves, complete with persecutions and indulgences. "I'm about fifty-fifty on believing in God" - Steve Jobs

[deleted]

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#48

Post by yaix »

mrpollo wrote: post #33

Can someone please explain to me what would the immediate technological advancement be if this is true?, what applications would this have? (Already watched the video and read the FAQ, still a lot that is not clear to me)

Immediate probably none, but we now know that the Standard Model is not wrong with regards to the Higgs, and the Standard Model is the basis of all kinds of real-world calculations.

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#49

Post by esusatyo »

So, will we get more understanding about the shape of the universe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_of_the_universe

Can we now conclude what'll happen if we go right to the edge of the universe with speed of light? Without any further debates?

Re: CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson

#50

Post by fungi »

mkr-hn wrote: post #25

I'm going to summarize this based on my limited understanding, and hopefully someone can confirm or deny. This is important because it confirmed the accuracy of the way we conceptualize the structure of the universe. That means both the people who start and fund projects know that the basis of modern physics is sound. So the time and money won't be wasted by a surprise "nope, Higgs-boson isn't there" in the middle of…

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120501.html
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