Somewhere there is another parallel universe where scientists are excited they have found normal matter after digging through all their higgs bosons.
Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#82With big science news like this, it's always best to go to the source[0] to avoid sensationalism. Of note, is the following statement which isn't getting repeated much in the mainstream news sources: " It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model.…
Ugh, I hate the "god particle" name. I wonder if people called the atom that at first also.
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#83"The particle's existence helps confirm the theory that objects gain their size and shape when particles interact in an energy field with a key particle, the Higgs boson. The more they attract, so the theory goes, the bigger their mass will be." So does this mean that an ether really does permeate space?
I couldn't find that quote in the article, but it's very popular in google http://www.google.com/#hl=en&output=search&sclient=p... . I suppose that it appeared in a previous version and it was redacted.
A very important thing is that the Higgs Boson is totally unrelated to the shape and size of the object. It's related only to the mass. (I can even tolerate "weight" with scare quotes in a divulgation article.)
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Science is pretty boring to most people, who aren't interested in science per se but only want news bites for use in casual conversation. Media distorts scientific claims in order to appeal to a wider audience and make more money. God Particle Found! News at eleventy eleven!eleventy!
I'm wondering whether some (or rather, how many) people will now conclude that there's a proof God exists, since scientists have found "God particle".
I predict roughly everyone who already believes in god and follows this kind of news (only half-jokingly).
In my experience most people don't form their opinions based on the totality of current knowledge and keep adjusting them in some Bayesian fashion as more info becomes known. Rather they make up their minds based on something (could be their knowledge of currently accepted facts, could be what they were taught growing up, could be just what they think makes sense, etc..) and then simply scan for confirmatory data, or simply don't pay any attention because they already have it 'figured out'.
Thus if you already believe in god and heard that scientists had discovered the 'god particle' you would likely say 'see, I knew it!', if you didn't believe in god and saw the same thing you would say 'I am skeptical, let me read this article', and you would walk away saying 'that is just a name, it has nothing to do with god, who still doesn't exist'. So really I guess both sides win, and we all lose, or maybe I am just too cynical.
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#85Question about the menagerie of particles:
At what point do we stop giving names to particles? Are we there yet?
In other fields I see a pattern of trying to categorize things into relatively short lists that a human can comprehend. E.g. phonemes for speech. It turns out that phonemes don't work, but by using a much finer-grained classification you get a system that does work.
So for particles, charm quark or top quark are not particularly descriptive. The names are really no better than "excitation 112" and "excitation 236b". Perhaps a bit more memorable, but not more descriptive of the physics.
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#86El Psy Congroo.
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
To those who forgot, the web as we know it was also pretty much invented at CERN [1] so anyone who is against "science for science's sake" is indeed missing a major point. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_World_Wide_Web#1...
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.
You're actually strengthening his point:
1. Gopher was developed at the University of Minnesota, so it comes from academia as well
2. Part of what killed it off was the University trying to make money from it through licensing fees
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#88just for the record, in order to warn any non-western members:
"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]
source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report
ISBN: 9290831693 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of related question, which may sound a bit rubbish since I don't really know the physics or their scientific method at that scale, but were they doing enough experiments that they'd have eventually said it couldn't exist if they never found it for some amount of time? Or was it always something that could only be proven, not disproven?
The scientific method applies at all scales. While it not possible to disprove the existence, of, say, unicorns. It is possible to say "I've searched the length and breadth of Central Park, looking for unicorns with 99.9% detection probability for each square meter of the park. I found no unicorns." Whether you find this sufficient to reasonably exclude any unicorn hypotheses is up to you and will depend upon whateve…
All scientists should take philosophy of science, IMHO, to avoid the misunderstanding of te scientific method that comes from dogmatic belief in it. I would guess most scientists don't know the difference between an inductive and deductive proof, both of which are crucial for scientific progress.
Re: Physicists Say They Have Found A Higgs Boson
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The energies themselves aren’t that high, the problem is that the energy densities are high - the Planck mass, for example, which is usually taken as the highest possible energy in particle physics beyond which we have to take gravity into account, is equivalent to a mere 21 μg. However, ‘practical’ uses of these physics are not immediately obvious in the way special relativity is necessary to get decent GPS[0]. Neve…
I figured as much, I was just wondering if anyone knew of any potential predictions. As a counter-point to your examples, Tesla had lots of visions for the possible uses of his research and inventions that were years ahead of his time, many of which have come to be and some of which are still ahead of our time. So it's possible to predict possible uses for cutting-edge science, even if it's rare.
Understanding the origins of mass in the universe is directly tied to how gravity works. All of which feeds into any hope we might have of one-day figuring out how to step-around it's particular limitations, or find some suitable negative-space time curvature to build Alcubierre drives with.