Higgs Boson Found

[MaddMoose]

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... thscience0

Interesting stuff, even if I don't understand most of it.

[Auld]

Apparently it was under the couch the whole time

[Vencha88]

The Higgs is only possibly found. While everything seems to point towards it, we might have just found something very heavy but a fair bit more complex.

[diamondd]

The Higgs is only possibly found. While everything seems to point towards it, we might have just found something very heavy but a fair bit more complex.

technically correct (the best kind of correct...) but a 4.9 sigma signal is basically a confirmed discovery.

interesting article by everyone's favourite cosmologist, Lawrence Krauss: http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... tant_.html

[nudge]

Has there been any definite quotes a long the lines of 'we have found it'? This started as a rumour based on Peter Higg's being flown into a routine meeting which according to the press release was just a general update on the LHC's progress. The internet went wild with misquotes and biased reporting, as tends to be the case when we are flooded with 'journalists' whose research seems to be reading an article then re-wording it for their site.

I gave up trying to find anything definitive a few days ago. The article mentions that it is unverified which is exactly the same as when the LHC was conceived. The math says it is there, it is just verifying it that is a problem.

[Bronze_D]

What they've verified so far it seems is that the particle property is nearly a complete match with the property of a Higgs Boson...

considering we couldn't even observe Higgs boson particle before and verify it, the fact that they managed to observe and detect a particle which shares so many characteristic predicted by Higgs Boson essentially is one step short of de facto confirmation of it.

there's still of course the possibility that it's a new unknown particle that just happens to have so many similarities with Higgs boson, but it seems almost certain now that this is pretty much what we've been looking for all this time..

[nudge]

The LHC will never be able to 'see' a particle. It detects the signature, which I believe is 2 perpendicular hadrons at a specific energy. The particle itself decays instantly. (within a time frame we can't measure in practise) The author who coined the term 'God Particle' has stated he wished he called it the 'God-damn' particle because of the cost that has gone into finding it and its elusive nature. I wish that money had gone into something that has a practical application. On the day that they have prove of the Higgs Boson all that will have been achieved is that we have 'further' evidence that the standard model of an atom is correct. Nothing of ground-breaking importance about that.

[nudge]

Seems easy to double post on the new forums

[MuscularTeeth]

I wish that money had gone into something that has a practical application.

There are so so many discoveries made that at the time had no practical way to harness the knowledge, and no one could see the benefit of, but once that knowledge spreads people find ways to use it.
lasers come to mind.
im trying (unsuccessfully) to find a radio national episode on either "by design" or "the philosophers zone" which discusses this very subject. The point being you really do want to research those purely abstract things because that is what changes the world.

[MuscularTeeth]

woohooo i found the radio broadcast;


"Mike Lazaridis is known as a visionary, an innovator, and an extraordinary engineer. In this address, at the 2012 Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, Mike Lazaridis traces his passion for ideas and knowledge about how things work. He founded Research in Motion, the company which developed the BlackBerry. Lazaridis describes the value of fundamental research and says courage and boldness are required to continue funding research in hard economic times. The rewards can rarely be foreseen. He sites quantum mechanics and relativity as theories which would change the world, but no one at the time knew how. Nor were the benefits of the laser, the semiconductor, the computer, the internet, medical imagery, satellites or the BlackBerry appreciated when these concepts and devices were first developed."

you can download it here; http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/pro ... as/4053180

[MaddMoose]

On the day that they have prove of the Higgs Boson all that will have been achieved is that we have 'further' evidence that the standard model of an atom is correct. Nothing of ground-breaking importance about that.

You've very much undersold it. Proving the existence of Higgs Boson confirms that our current understanding of physics is correct. If it doesn't exist then we basically have to throw out current understanding of particle physics in the bin and start again. Confirmation of the Higgs Boson is, will be the biggest discovery in physics in more than 100 years.

The probability of it being the Higgs Boson is 4.9 standard deviations, or something close to 99.999995% likely to be correct.

[nit3hunt3r]

I wish that money had gone into something that has a practical application. On the day that they have prove of the Higgs Boson all that will have been achieved is that we have 'further' evidence that the standard model of an atom is correct. Nothing of ground-breaking importance about that.

Uh, are you sure you know what you're talking about?

Could you please clarify to me what a Higgs Boson is or represents?

[MaddMoose]

Could you please clarify to me what a Higgs Boson is or represents?

It's meant to be the particle that is what gives other particles mass.

[nudge]

Biggest Discovery in physics for 100 years? LOL overlooking the fact that I don't believe finding something you expect to find is a discovery, without researching what has happened in the last 100years I can name photoelectric effect, quantum mechanics, leaps in nuclear raditation... all much greater and important things then showing that standard model is still correct.

If they fail to find the higgs boson, the standard model of an atom will still be accepted. Some people working on alternative models might end up with more funding and that might lead to ground breaking stuff.

Yes, Higgs Boson is important and could lead to remarkable practical applications, but it is economically beyond us to explore anything other then proving its existence.

[Bronze_D]

This would be correct assuming Standard Model answered everything regarding matter and particle interactions which it does not, which is why we needed additional theories and solution to explain the deficiencies

I mean for what now... half a century? we had to made a good number of assumption and adjust the mass for Higgs since we can't even calculate the mass with Standard Model.