Particles - higgs boson

Kaltxì, Guest! Why don't you join our community?

Paul Frommer's
Language Workbook

[Tsanten Eywa 'eveng]

You will never believe this, CERN have found a new particle, possible the universe smallest "building block". They call it too "God's particle"


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16074411

[Txur’Itan]

You will never believe this, CERN have found a new particle, possible the universe smallest "building block". They call it too "God's particle"


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16074411

I am actually thrilled by the potential discovery.

I think this deserves its own thread.

[Kamean]

It's really awesome!

[hemmond]

Yes! I knew it! I knew it all the time! Something had to be like that... Now they had provided me an evidence! But really... Wou! They did a great job.

[Lance R. Casey]

CERN have found a new particle

They haven't, really.

"Let’s put it this way: if we were testing a theory that everyone thought was wrong, rather than one that everyone thinks is right, nobody would take these results as strong indications that the idea was correct. We have a strong theoretical bias that the Higgs exists and is somewhere close to this mass range, so it’s completely reasonable to think that we are seeing hints (tantalizing ones!) that it’s there, but wait-and-see is still the right attitude."
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/12/13/science-it-marches-on/

[Txur’Itan]

CERN have found a new particle

They haven't, really.

"Let’s put it this way: if we were testing a theory that everyone thought was wrong, rather than one that everyone thinks is right, nobody would take these results as strong indications that the idea was correct. We have a strong theoretical bias that the Higgs exists and is somewhere close to this mass range, so it’s completely reasonable to think that we are seeing hints (tantalizing ones!) that it’s there, but wait-and-see is still the right attitude."
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/12/13/science-it-marches-on/

LOL @ Image...

Yes, they are at 1.9 sigma from the data still...

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

A paper I recently stumbled across from 1997, before a single proton had seen the inside of the LHC, suggested that the Higgs particles' mass was at the low end of the possible range. This has been the general feeling of other scientists as well. So, no surprises that hints of Higgs are showing up in the low mass end of the possible range of masses. (The masses in the middle have now been excluded, from work earlier this year.)

In September, it was reported that scientists were observing a 'excess of energy' in the mass range where the Higgs particle is expected to be hiding. They said at tha time that they 'would know by the end of the year if the Higgs particle existed'. Well, it looks like we are indeed seeing evidence of that. But considering how fast massive particles decay, I bet it will be a while before someone can say 'beyond a reasonable doubt, there's a signature of a Higgs boson'. we may not even really know what the signature of this particle looks like. These giant machines are always teaching us something new.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the particle scale, an experiment demonstrated the existence of the 'dynamical Kasimir effect', an 'artifact' of the fact that even vacuum has a finite energy associated with it, and photons are popping up and disappearing-- everywhere, all the time. We cannot normally measure this energy because its overall vector sum adds to zero. But disturb the vacuum energy in just the right way (with a superconducting microwave resonator in this case, which allowed some electrons to be accelerated to relativistic speeds), and some of these photons become displaced from where they are, and become measurable. These two very different discoveries (Higgs and the Dynamical Kasimir Effect) interlock, and they relate to things like the 'lamb shift', 'renormalization' and the 'fine structure constant'. This may even be our first glimpse of dark matter.

[Txur’Itan]

Dark matter presumably could be in its own thread.

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Dark matter presumably could be in its own thread.

Or it could BE it's own thread

[Human No More]

You will never believe this, CERN have found a new particle, possible the universe smallest "building block". They call it too "God's particle"


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16074411

No, they don't. Nice try... 

It was dubbed the 'god particle' by some simply as a reference to it being the element that ties understanding of physics (well, the standard model, at any rate) together (so, a misnomer), and its discovery makes no claims about mythology.

...it also hasn't been confirmed yet, it's just that results are expected

[Lance R. Casey]

Increased probabilities of discovery:
http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-signal-gains-strength-1.9992
http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/atlas_and_cms_publish_2011_higgs_results-86735

However:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/02/04/a-3-8-sigma-anomaly/

Further experiments come spring will likely settle the question.

[Niwantaw]

I was told the reason for it being called the God particle is nothing to do with any God...

...It was because they were so goddamned hard to find.


This was from a science teacher though :l

[Kamean]

Increased probabilities of discovery:
http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-signal-gains-strength-1.9992
http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/atlas_and_cms_publish_2011_higgs_results-86735

However:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/02/04/a-3-8-sigma-anomaly/

Further experiments come spring will likely settle the question.

Interesting. 

[Txur’Itan]

Increased probabilities of discovery:
http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-signal-gains-strength-1.9992
http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/atlas_and_cms_publish_2011_higgs_results-86735

However:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2012/02/04/a-3-8-sigma-anomaly/

Further experiments come spring will likely settle the question.

Interesting. 

From: http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-signal-gains-strength-1.9992

Taken together with data from the other detector, ATLAS, Higgs’ overall signal now unofficially stands at about 4.3 sigma. In other words, if statistics are to be believed, then this signal has about a 99.996% chance of being right.

I wonder if that is an assertion; an agreed upon statistical analysis result that will occur?

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

They call the Higgs boson the 'God particle' because it is believed responsible for giving mass to all other particles. Mass as we experience it has been described as a kind of 'friction' that all particles 'feel' from the Higgs field. The more they 'feel' this field, the more mass the particle appears to have. It is interesting that the Higgs particle itself is quite massive.

I'll have to read all of these articles, but this sounds like very good news!

When I checked yesterday, all but three of the eight sectors of the machine were cooled down to about 10 K. Two of the three others were around 40 K, and the remaining one was being actively cooled down. So, they are getting ready to put the machine back on line after the Christmas break.