'God' Particle and why I hate the media!
 

"Higgs boson" is the term for the particle they were looking for and until they make an official announcement it's all moot anyway.

Like as not it will be 50 years before we have the understanding to do anything useful with the knowledge.

Cheers!

It's a great discovery in fundamental physics and essential for our understanding of the world. One of the biggest news of the decade I'd say. Predicted 50 years ago by Higgs on the sole basis of his theory, and confirmed today by experimental evidence. Fascinating.

The fact that there will be no immediate practical applications is irrelevant... there will be, for our sons and grandsons; think about the laser, they developed it in the 50's with very limited purposed in mind (spectrometry). Sixty years later even your washing machine has one somewhere ... :-D

My gripe is not with the scientist who designed a 2 billion Pound experiment to discover it (based on what was predicted), just with the media hype.

At least they could use the correct name to honor the man that came up with the theory.

Peter Higgs?

I think he was one of the scientist that proposed how it would work to create mass. There were three group that predicted the particle according to wikipedia, if I'm reading it right.

From a physics point of view I am looking very much forward to more info on the Higgs but I entirely agree the media make it sound like its the answer to life when it's only another piece of the jigsaw.

Anyway the answer is 42 :P

Plus... they found a particle that looks like a Higgs but they are not sure yet.

This is true. The particle they found exhibits the same mass as the Higgs particle, but they still need to confirm that it is in fact the Higgs boson.

Where's raaid?
This is all a LIE!

what interests me the most of these things is quantum entanglenment

an instant effect even gazillions of lightyears away

doesnt this question causality since the cause-effect are instant?

take this monty hall variation that questions the nature of the arrow of time:

there are four doors just one with a prize

remember: THERES A 1/2 ODD THE PRIZE IS ON AN EVEN OR ODD DOOR

The host discards one door

now according chance you have 1/3 chance to win since there are 3 left doors

not really remember there WAS a 50% cahnce to be the price in odd or pair door

so if the host discarded and odd door you pick the other odd one if a pair you chose the other pair

on this way you hold all the pair or even doors so according the satblished original rule theres a 50% chacne to win not 33.333%

Did you see the Mythbusters episode where they try the monty hall paradox ?

The results are much higher than 50% vs 33% (switch to stand)

Hey I will try it for myself and see...later

Careful with what you wish for... :-P

I'm slightly surprised that no one here has claimed that this discovery is not just some sort of socialist scam designed to screw tax dollars out of the working man.

.... exactly

Funny you should say that, the thought did cross my mind..

How much has this project cost again.....

Now, now be nice to the Tea Baggers they cannot help it.

Interestingly the Higgs Boson makes it into conservapedia

http://conservapedia.com/Higgs_boson

... but they haven't added the bit about the collider being financed by government funds and hence a hippy/communist scam yet :D






What would be interesting is to see Mythbusters do Schrodinger's Cat ... no wait ....

Prisoners dilemma not withstanding....

Are we not straying from the point? The new found particle, known as The Higgs, is a snow flake. The higgs field can be considered as snow, many snow flakes. Some particles have skis and can walk across the snow quite easily. Other particles have snow shoes and find it tiring to walk across the snow. And some particles have no skis or snowshoes, and thus find it quite difficult to walk across the snow. One could therefore argue the slower you move the more mass you have. And that is the essence of the Higgs field.

But the real physics is not whether the Higgs exists, which it does. But rather what does it decay into. Wha does it become after it's finished being a Higgs?

If it becomes something "interesting" then 15 out of 20 research grants over the last 30 years will be justified. But if it is less "interesting" when it decays then physicists will stop trying to become philosophists and get back to work!

Goodbye Super Symetry, hello 9 to 5........well that's my prognosis anyway.

Notice how no-ones talked about, nor discussed is wether the particle is natually emmitted the moment when a black hole is created! ..... well thats my theory, Not a very good theory I admit, because there is not science behind it, but that's how you can tell a great mind!

Only time will tell!
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Has anyone heard any news from Geneva this morning?

Sorry - coudn't help myself

There are(possibly) micro black holes which work differently compared to the black holes made of stars.

this is what I'm using at the moment on my Facebook

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg612/sca...=640&ysize=640

I understood that the name 'god particle' was actually used by the scientists themselves and wasn't a media creation, based on the fact they only had a theoretical idea of it's existence and used it in pure 'faith' basically likening it to god and it's significance in the creation of the universe was a side note.

I don't know, sound possible, but the way the media is talking about it just finding it will give tell us the meaning of life, the universe and everything! (which we all know is 42! :rolleyes:

According to wiki all the scientist got together and voted on a name and came up it the 'Champaigne Bottle Boson' because they used the shape of the bottles bottom in their explanations when lecturing about it. Maybe the media should be using that term?

Cheers!

lol.

google: The Goddamned Particle

I think its origin actually came from the boffins frustration in trying to find it the term "Godam particle" was abreviated to God ... I dont think it has any connections to any deity.

I heard it was actually the "Dog" particle but the physicist being interviewed about it was dyslexic.

it would be interesting be a physicist and dream youre researching on the nature of matter

I'm amazed no one hasn't given a crap and called this a collossal waste of money ...

You just did...

LOL

I cant pretend to understand Higgs Bosun either, but the best basic description I read somewhere that I can understand is that, in the beginning just after the start of the big bang, sub atomic particles were whizzing about totally out of control at or near the speed of light ... somehow they met the Higgs Bosun that the big bang somehow created too, the Bosun slowed down these sub atomic particles and gave them mass ... kind of like swimming through treacle.

And the rest is history.

Nearly every forum I visit has a thread on this news with some pretending they understand it fully and trying to explain it with blatant copy pastes from scientific sites, and some who are more honest making jokes about it who are interested too or they would not have read the subject matter and skipped to something else :)

One things more clear to me in my middle age, the more answers we get the more questions un-answered we need to delve into.

I honestly think its Mankinds destiny to research our environment, not just the wider Universe outside our Solar System but the sub atomic Universe too.

Some say the Universe might be as infinitely small as it is large ... I was just getting a handle on the larger scale of the Universe when I saw this ...

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

And then there are probably Multi Universes too that in turn are some sub atomic particles in an even bigger scheme of things, and so on and so on and so on forever.

Well if you get a lot of energy released splitting the atom, just emagine the distructive potential from splitting a....

Why don't scentist ever use their strange scientific powers for good instead of evil! ;)

Studying black holes and how to detect them lead to the development WiFi. It may take fifty years but who knows, there could be some life changing technologies developed from this research.

Another great example of the "colossal waste of money" scientist are so fond of - just like the programs and government sponsored research that lead to the internet, the transistor, radar, 3d rendering, ect.

Its like people think these things just fall out of thin air... or some lone inventor dreams them up one day after getting hit on the head with an apple. Thankfully these short sighted types are rarely in a position to influence research.