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3rd July 2012, 12:05 PM | #41 |
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3rd July 2012, 12:08 PM | #42 |
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Already I am concerned that the Higgs Boson announcement will lead to a rush of "fat jokes," if it hasn't done so already. Get ready for wit like this:
"Scientists say that the Higgs Boson is the particle that gives a body its weight. Looks like Chris Christie has discovered a whole bunch of Higgs Bosons already!" |
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3rd July 2012, 12:30 PM | #43 |
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3rd July 2012, 12:36 PM | #44 |
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Laboratory accidentally posts video heralding discovery of a new particle on its website ahead of scheduled announcement:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...?newsfeed=true -- Roger |
3rd July 2012, 05:14 PM | #45 |
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So its mass is 100 times the mass of a proton, but it doesn't interact with normal matter.
So the Higgs is dark matter, right? The dark matter question has been answered. |
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3rd July 2012, 05:16 PM | #46 |
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3rd July 2012, 05:50 PM | #47 |
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From what I've read the super-symmetry experiment is coming up empty, so apparently not. Super-symmetric particles (sparticles?) are apparently proving obvious by their absence.
Of course the super-symmetry squad may be terminally compromised by Satanist infiltration, it's not for me to say. It could be down to something as simple as the god particle having better hair. |
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3rd July 2012, 05:52 PM | #48 |
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How stable though? Is a half-life of a trillion years stable enough to account for dark matter but still detectable (barely).
ETA: It seems to me like, to make an analogy, that there's a big part of the jigsaw puzzle of physics that has been missing its piece, and now we've found a piece that looks like it's the right size and shape, and it just remains to put the piece into the puzzle and see if it fits well enough. |
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3rd July 2012, 07:18 PM | #49 |
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Why do you mention a hypothetical half life many times the age of the universe and the piece we found that looks the right size and shape, which means amongst other things a halflife measured in the tiniest fractions of seconds, like you're talking about the same particle?
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3rd July 2012, 07:21 PM | #50 |
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For anyone interested in a pretty reasonable layman's explanation, the Guardian has a pretty neat, quick video on explaining the Higgs field and Higgs boson:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/vi...gs-boson-video I particularly like the lunch tray with the ping pong balls and sugar. Nice visual |
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3rd July 2012, 07:43 PM | #51 |
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3rd July 2012, 08:22 PM | #52 |
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Lederman appears to have coined both terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle_(book)
Quote:
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3rd July 2012, 09:02 PM | #53 |
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Sorry. Perhaps I've misunderstood what this thing is. I'm only a layman.
So, the Higgs boson only exists for a fraction of a second before decomposing? ETA: I looked it up. Sorry, never mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
Quote:
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3rd July 2012, 09:27 PM | #54 |
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The Higgs boson is an unstable (something like 10^-25 seconds) particle whose interactions are, in the context of the Standard Model, 100% known.
Dark matter is thought to be some sort of stable or nearly-stable particle---more than a trillion years, i.e. 10^+20 seconds, is probably the right ballpark. It's not described in the Standard Model. We have a forest of hypotheses about what interactions it might have, but no idea if any of these hypotheses are true.
Quote:
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3rd July 2012, 10:09 PM | #55 |
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New reuters article from a few minutes ago. Some new info in it supposedly.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...86008K20120704 |
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3rd July 2012, 11:53 PM | #56 |
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4th July 2012, 12:33 AM | #57 |
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CERN live webcast - the source of the announcement - on now.
http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/play_higgs.html |
4th July 2012, 12:38 AM | #58 |
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Nature also has an article on it:
http://www.nature.com/news/physicist...-higgs-1.10932 |
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4th July 2012, 12:43 AM | #59 |
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Damn - I was hoping that it wasn't found - because it's getting rather boring these days in physics what with the world behaving as we thought it did!
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4th July 2012, 12:50 AM | #60 |
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I see that they are still waiting on the results from Atlas, I expect the results from Atlas will be really, really big and really, really impressive and have great hair.
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th July 2012, 12:52 AM | #61 |
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Having problems running the cast - anyone want to me fill me in?
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4th July 2012, 12:55 AM | #62 |
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ETA: that was the CMS presentation's conclusion. |
4th July 2012, 01:03 AM | #63 |
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CMS results:
The two high-resolution, actually-see-a-peak searches (Higgs decaying to two photons, and Higgs decaying to two Z-bosons, both decaying to ee or mu mu) combine for a 5+ sigma discovery. Clear as a bell, you can see the Higgs peaks with the naked eye. In the ZZ channel that means what looked like (eyeballing my memory of the viewgraph) 7-8 Higgs-like events on top of a nearly zero background. Several the other channels, of the sort that see broad mass-insensitive excesses, have slightly lower-than-expected counts, which pulls the all-combined discovery number to 4.9 sigma. The ATLAS talk is ongoing ... |
4th July 2012, 01:13 AM | #64 |
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4th July 2012, 01:32 AM | #65 |
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Wouldn't it be ironic that in the year of the Earth ending (thanks Mayans!), we discover how the universe works?
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4th July 2012, 01:39 AM | #66 |
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Fantastic. Perhaps particle physics will be front page news for the first time in decades.
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4th July 2012, 01:41 AM | #67 |
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ATLAS is also at 5 sigma! Aaaaaaand I'm off to bed.
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4th July 2012, 01:43 AM | #68 |
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There have already been "the End of Physics" blogs.
Aarrrgggh |
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4th July 2012, 01:44 AM | #69 |
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Maybe they'll be able to draw us a picture of this "particle". PMSL
This nonsense should be in the conspiracy theory section along with black holes, dark matter and gravity. |
4th July 2012, 01:54 AM | #70 |
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The concluding slide of the CERN presentation:
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4th July 2012, 02:04 AM | #71 |
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4th July 2012, 02:56 AM | #73 |
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4th July 2012, 03:05 AM | #74 |
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They seem confident they've found A Higgs boson, but just aren't 100% certain whether it's THE Higgs boson, or whether there is just one Higgs boson.
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4th July 2012, 03:10 AM | #75 |
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These aren't the bosons you're looking for...
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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4th July 2012, 03:11 AM | #76 |
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Next time they go looking for a new particle how can they go one better?
I predict the Beatles particle. |
4th July 2012, 03:14 AM | #77 |
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The higgsteria-bias
Scepticme must try to undermine the "Higgsteria-bias".
Higgsteria-bias = "Because of all our efforts, because of the million dollar project, we must find that Higgsparticle. The standard model must be right, because a lot of money, certificates and titles are depending on it. Otherwise, we stare in the unknown." Higgsteria-quotes: "We are closer....", "it could be the Higgsparticle". "It's a new particle, it must be that Higgsparticle. etc..." If a pseudoscientist would mention 'it could be this' or 'it could be that', the critical thinker would answer: 'it could be this or that' is no science at all. So, criticism to undermine it, instead of searching for comfirmation (confirmationbias because of Higgsteria) is the critical weapon against the Higgsteria, to search for the truth. The more Higgsteria, the more 'falsification-tests' needed. |
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'Where' is the image in the mind? What 'space' is the image in your mind in? Where is the dream? Where is your inner voice? It's not the same spacetime then where the electrical and chemical pulses are in the brain, causing this image or the dream. The image you see in your mind's eye is in a completely different dimension than where the chemistry in the brain is. (Maarten Vergucht) |
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4th July 2012, 03:17 AM | #78 |
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4th July 2012, 03:27 AM | #79 |
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4th July 2012, 03:34 AM | #80 |
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