But will there be a funeral mass?
Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
61–70 of 111 posts
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
My parents had a hard time explaining my dad's job to me, so they just told me he was a scientist because he had a masters in physics (he was a diplomat). Like any little kid, my parents were my heroes, so of course this led me to becoming obsessed with scientists and reading up on science stuff, eg trying to read my sister's university textbooks. I developed a hobby of reading up on and sharing factoids I found onli…
how is ndt a fake/fraud?
Some of the concerns are documented here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#63It was a success for particle physics that they found the Higgs, but it was also a tragedy. Discovering the Higgs and nothing else new was the nightmare scenario for the LHC, and so it has come to pass.
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Discovery can happen in a purely mathematical/theoretical context, too.
I think it's fair to say the 'discovery' that this boson exists came with the LHC experiments. But Higgs did discover in 1964 that the Higgs boson could explain why particles have mass. His paper couldn't say "this is definitely the way the universe is", but rather "if the universe plays by the rules we think it does, this is a relatively simple way to explain this thing we see". And in my mind, both of those achieve…
Exactly. Give the countless engineers behind LHC some of the credit as well!
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#65The story of how Higgs predicted his mechanism was part of what got me into physics as a kid. It fit 10 year old me's obsession with the 'soft-spoken genius' archetype perfectly and formed a pillar in my belief that 'genius' was made through hard work (and some amount of luck) rather than being born with it. The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was…
What makes you think he wasn't born with it? I can see in own kids that each one is built differently, with different inmate propensities despite similar environment.
I think the point is that if one aspires to be a figure like Higgs, one can't just coast on "innate propensities". It requires fiendishly hard work.
That really resonates with me. When I was a kid I got complimented a lot for being smart, especially when I did something quickly and easily. This trained me pretty well in seeming smart, but really discouraged me from things that required hard work or persistence through failure. It took me years to get over that.
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#66It was a success for particle physics that they found the Higgs, but it was also a tragedy. Discovering the Higgs and nothing else new was the nightmare scenario for the LHC, and so it has come to pass.
It really damaged string theory which is by far the greatest thing to happen with the LHC.
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#67It was a success for particle physics that they found the Higgs, but it was also a tragedy. Discovering the Higgs and nothing else new was the nightmare scenario for the LHC, and so it has come to pass.
It really damaged string theory which is by far the greatest thing to happen with the LHC.
Ah, a glass is half full person! :)
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#68The story of how Higgs predicted his mechanism was part of what got me into physics as a kid. It fit 10 year old me's obsession with the 'soft-spoken genius' archetype perfectly and formed a pillar in my belief that 'genius' was made through hard work (and some amount of luck) rather than being born with it. The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was…
With a layperson in mind, curious about physics, do you recommend any resource (hopefully not too math-intensive) to learn how the higgs boson actually "gives mass" to stuff?
Sean Carroll's pandemic era youtube series "The Biggest Ideas in the Universe"[1] goes into scalar fields and some gauge theory, but I don't remember if he covers the Higgs mechanism. Might be in one of the Q&A videos.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrxfgDEc2NxZJcWcrxH3j...
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#69Massive in his field.
this is the kind of strong interaction I like to see on this website
Re: Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
#70He didn't discover the Higgs, but he formulated it (along with other people) in 1964. Its discovery was not until 2012.
Precisely, he predicted it.