# LHC Already Beginning to Rule Out Higgs Bosun?



## RJM Corbet (Aug 23, 2011)

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1030987

Nice link, hey?


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## Metryq (Aug 23, 2011)

Tell officer Higgs that his job is secure; the LHC has no authority to fire him. But advise him that any sub-atomic particles should be turned in before leaving port.


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## RJM Corbet (Aug 24, 2011)

They're doing their best to take it well, but ... it's pretty devastating


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## Nik (Aug 27, 2011)

IMHO, a lot of very technical bets have just been lost.

Still, they've apparently excluded the least Higgs' from the mid-range. It's either a bit higher or lower on the energy scale.

Nature's version of 'Hunt the Thimble'...

What happens when the elusive Higgs' runs out of hiding places within reach is going to be expensive...


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## alchemist (Aug 27, 2011)

A Higgs boson walks into a church.

"You can't come in here," the priest says. "You're only a sub-atomic particle."

"You have to let me in," the particle says. "Without me, you have no Mass."


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## Vertigo (Aug 27, 2011)

Nik said:


> IMHO, a lot of very technical bets have just been lost.
> 
> Still, they've apparently excluded the least Higgs' from the mid-range. It's either a bit higher or lower on the energy scale.
> 
> ...


 
Not necessarily; a year or so back when they were just about getting to turn the LHC on, a number of scientists said that *not* finding the Higgs could be the most interesting result, requiring a lot of re-thinking and, in their terms, a lot of exciting new thinking to be done.


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## RJM Corbet (Aug 27, 2011)

Vertigo said:


> Not necessarily; a year or so back when they were just about getting to turn the LHC on, a number of scientists said that *not* finding the Higgs could be the most interesting result, requiring a lot of re-thinking and, in their terms, a lot of exciting new thinking to be done.



I don't think they're going to find it


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## Vertigo (Mar 20, 2012)

For anyone interested in the on-going search for the Higgs Boson particle there was an Interview by Jim al-Kahlili with Tejinder Virdee this morning on BBC Radio 4. You can download the podcast here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/tls

Although the interview series mainly focuses on the 'scientific life' of its guests, there was inevitably some discussion of their current work.

Tejinder Virdee is the lead scientist on the CMS particle detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. He stated (as I have seen elsewhere) that they should have a definitive answer on the Higgs Boson by December this year. He still seems moderately confident that they will find it. 

One interesting bit was his description of the CMS detector as essentially a 100 megapixel 3D camera that takes 40 million images every second. How's that for high speed photography!


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## mosaix (Mar 20, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> essentially a 100 megapixel 3D camera that takes 40 million images every second. How's that for high speed photography!



You sound like a salesman in Dixons. 

I wonder if the LHC comes with an Extended Warranty?


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## Vertigo (Mar 20, 2012)

Only if you pay extra... a lot extra!


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## RJM Corbet (Mar 24, 2012)

Here's a good link to the LHC:

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1030987

You open on the page and then go to the bottom and select the link you want: ATLAS, CMS etc, then click 'status'.  

Or click back to the 'interactions' homepage. 

All the details on a daily basis. Very scientific, but some is slightly understandable.

It shows the LHC's offline till 6th April.


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## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2012)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18702455

They're not saying it *is* the Higgs boson (yet) but just something very very like it. It will take more time to be certain. On the radio this morning they said that scientists at the LHC are 99.9997% (I may have missed or added a 9 in there but it is about as good as you get with these things) certain that they have found a new particle.

Although this needs to be studied further it does seem to display all the characteristics expected of the Higgs Boson in the Standard Model. The problem is that some other theories also predict a particle with very similar characteristics to the Higgs boson which this could _conceivably_ be. However the buzz (and celebrations) at the LHC is that they are pretty sure they have got the Higgs boson.

Finally...maybe...


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## Metryq (Jul 4, 2012)

If Higgs is responsible for mass, isn't it a little odd that it's so hard to find? Y'know, like "dark matter" making up most of the universe, yet it has never been found. Of course, the spooky theories that require these things _couldn't_ be wrong...


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 4, 2012)

Well I haven't been following all the ins- and outs- but, 

1) I'm glad they've finally found something of note that resembles a Higgs boson (justifies that 10 Bn Euro we spent on the the LHC ) 
2) Fingers crossed they find something about it that all the standard models say isn't right - 'cause then we will get pressure to change the models we've been using the past 40 years, which could be an extremely exciting time.


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## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2012)

Well from what they have been saying they seem pretty confident that it does match the standard models. They also went on to say they expect a whole raft of new particles to be found now on the back of the knowledge gained from this. So I think it will still be pretty exciting either way!


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 4, 2012)

Yes I agree, Vertigo. I've just got that itch for something a little bit unusual, just to make it a challenge for everyone to rethink everything anew. (or some new understanding that can in 10 years make a stargate to another star!!!) 

On a related note. I do wish they would stop calling it the 'God particle'. 

Might be good journalistic patter but I really can't see why it's god-like.


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## Shane Enochs (Jul 4, 2012)

From my understanding, no one really even knows what the Higgs is.  Kinda like dark matter.


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## Vertigo (Jul 4, 2012)

Venusian Broon said:


> Yes I agree, Vertigo. I've just got that itch for something a little bit unusual, just to make it a challenge for everyone to rethink everything anew. (or some new understanding that can in 10 years make a stargate to another star!!!)
> 
> On a related note. I do wish they would stop calling it the 'God particle'.
> 
> Might be good journalistic patter but I really can't see why it's god-like.


 
Agree with the God Particle bit. And have to say it would be fun if it turned out to blow everything apart instead of unify it. SF writers would all be on the edge of their seats.



Shane Enochs said:


> From my understanding, no one really even knows what the Higgs is. Kinda like dark matter.


I thought they had a pretty good idea of its properties (or I should still say its supposed properties). Since it is a predicted particle and without knowing its properties surely they couldn't even be able to begin to look for it.


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## Venusian Broon (Jul 4, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> I thought they had a pretty good idea of its properties (or I should still say its supposed properties). Since it is a predicted particle and without knowing its properties surely they couldn't even be able to begin to look for it.


 
Precisely Vertigo, the reason they've found what they've found is because they know more or less where to look for it. (Or at least the best places for it.) It's a wild, wild universe out there, and actually with the LHC you could look in all sorts of places. 

As for it being dark matter (IF DARK MATTER ACTUALLY EXISTS*), the Higgs is the proposed mechanism for giving all particles mass, so it's not a biggy on that particular cosmological front! 


* Sorry for shouting that, I do feel that dark matter is a bit of fudge that needs serious experimental evidence that so far hasn't really come through.


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## Moonbat (Jul 4, 2012)

As far as I understand it, they have found a new particle and they think it is the Higgs-Boson but they are not certain yet that it is.
I can't imagine a new discovery blowing everything apart, it might add to it, it might even lead to a new theory that sits on-top of the current theories and gives more accuracy at certain levels/times but it won't make Newton or Einstien wrong.


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## Vertigo (Jul 6, 2012)

Moonbat said:


> As far as I understand it, they have found a new particle and they think it is the Higgs-Boson but they are not certain yet that it is.


Yes that was exactly my understanding from both the radio report and the news article.



Moonbat said:


> I can't imagine a new discovery blowing everything apart, it might add to it, it might even lead to a new theory that sits on-top of the current theories and gives more accuracy at certain levels/times but it won't make Newton or Einstien wrong.


 
I agree with that completely Moonbat, but you must admit it would be fun if everything did get turned on it's head


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## Metryq (Jul 6, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> you must admit it would be fun if everything did get turned on it's head



Won't happen. Physics has stagnated for much of the 20th century. When a model is threatened, ad hoc patches are applied. Theories don't get challenged or overturned, they just get weirder.


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## Vertigo (Jul 6, 2012)

Metryq said:


> Won't happen. Physics has stagnated for much of the 20th century. When a model is threatened, ad hoc patches are applied. Theories don't get challenged or overturned, they just get weirder.


 
Hmm, I'm afraid I would have to disagree with that Metryq. Just because something hasn't changed it doesn't mean it's not right. We still have a lot of holes to fill but just because they are there does not mean the theories are wrong; they just need to be refined. I think to call that stagnation is doing a disservice to the truly incredible discoveries and advances in science that have occurred throughout the 20th Century.


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## Metryq (Jul 7, 2012)

Vertigo said:


> We still have a lot of holes to fill but just because they are there does not mean the theories are wrong; they just need to be refined.



Yes, I'm being very pessimistic; given enough time, everything changes. However, the above statement sounds like the opinions of Lord Kelvin, Albert Michelson and many other physicists around the turn of the 20th century. They believed that all of science was complete, except for further refinement of details.

Today there are researchers just as certain that there is a Grand Unified Theory—a set of equations that will explain everything. That and the certainty that the current consensus _must_ be correct is a recipe for stagnation. "All those scientists can't be wrong." 

One can be on a wrong path, yet still headed in the correct general direction, but that won't help when the path dead-ends. Just as an example, the incompatibility between Einsteinian Relativity and Quantum Mechanics suggests that one or perhaps even both models are incorrect. We have lots of observations and measurements; are they being interpreted correctly?


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## Gary Compton (Jul 7, 2012)

alchemist said:


> A Higgs boson walks into a church.
> 
> "You can't come in here," the priest says. "You're only a sub-atomic particle."
> 
> "You have to let me in," the particle says. "Without me, you have no Mass."



Brilliant!! I only see the funny stuff.


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## Alex The G and T (Jul 7, 2012)

For a random insight into what the general public understands about this; I quote the local small-market, dingbat news anchor:

"Scientists have announced that they may have finally discovered the Higg's Bos'n; using the giant, underground Hadron Colander." 

(They don't know whether to mend sails, or drain pasta.)


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## RJM Corbet (Jul 7, 2012)

I'm sure they've found it!!
These guys know what they're doing.

How do you find a needle in a haystack?
Burn the haystack then go through the ash with a magnet.
There's a way to (almost) everything.

This was a truly huge collaboration of the top scientists on earth.
There can't be much doubt ...


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## Boneman (Jul 7, 2012)

Going to be some awfully red faces when they find that the particle is responisible for adapting to homoepathic distillation - no doubt a crowd of angry scientists will burn the hadron collider to the... er... ground.


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## RJM Corbet (Jul 7, 2012)

I just think its incredible and beautiful that this side of the human spirit exists ...

*Loud applause!!!*


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## Moonbat (Jul 8, 2012)

Can science stagnate? Isn't one of the fundimental things about scientific research that if something comes up that disproved accepted theories then it accepts the new results and moves forward accordingly?


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## RJM Corbet (Jul 8, 2012)

The power of this is how it confirms all the brilliant theoretical work of the last 50 years or more, in support of the standard model?


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## Vertigo (Jul 8, 2012)

There's still more work to do before that can definitely be said but it does seem likely.


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## Harpo (Mar 14, 2013)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21785205


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## JoanDrake (Mar 15, 2013)

Now does the existence of the Higgs prove, disprove, not affect or modify the Theory of Multiple Universes?


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## Harpo (Mar 15, 2013)

Which theory of multiple universes?  There are multiple theories.

And there are parallel theories about parallel univeres too


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## Harpo (Apr 4, 2013)

More LHC fun:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21941666

My money's on another bird dropping another piece of bread


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