Scientists discover Higgs Boson

[AdamD]

Originally Posted by Damien

Understanding the fundamental nature of physics could enable faster, cheap space travel...

Awesome, then we can spread the virus known as mankind, to other planets.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by jempalmer

Is this really a discovery or another miscalculation? They got it wrong before. It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the next few days or weeks, or for that matter, years.

It's always possible, the method used is exceptionally more complicated than that which was used to discover the top quark. By the end of the year we will probably have a lot more data, so we will be even more certain, or issuing a correction.

Being right all the time is good for the old physicists but bad for the young, more difficult to improve on it.

[TheDon]

The tread title is incorrect.

They haven't discovered the Higgs Boson, they've observed something with the expected mass of the Higgs Boson, which is why the news reports say "Higgs like" and all stop short of announcing the actual discovery (well, the ones based on fact do).

It's likely to be the fabled Higgs Boson, but there's other things that have to be shown before they can say it is, such as it has to have zero spin. If it turns out that this new particle has a non-zero spin then what they've actually discovered is something else entirely.

The only thing they've shown with 5 sigma certainty is that a particle exists with a mass of 125GeV, there are actually some things in the data that don't really align with a standard model Higgs, there's decay paths that occur more frequently than would be expected, so there is a chance that it's not actually the Higgs at all, although it's more likely that more data will bring everything back into line with the predictions.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Sparkle

I used to feel that way, but nowadays I tend to think that if humanity can't manage its affairs on Earth in a civilised manner, what chance have we anywhere else? Also, by "we", I trust you mean the super-rich elite.
Our leaders are incompetent, they could manage a p*** up in the proverbial brewery.

We can't even manage our water supply in [cough]drought[/cough] ridden England.

Just playing devils advocate here, but imagine for a moment that physicists did actually discover the "unified field theory". That is the theory of everything.
The holy grail of physics that is desperately being sought as we speak.
If discovered, there would be nobel prizes, a great celebration and we'd marvel at our own magnificence.
Then would come anti-gravity technology, and fusion/anti-matter nuclear devices small enough to fit in your hand. No radiation to track such devices either. Governments would have Dune style anti-gravity assassination devices and military killer drones. I think they do just fine with their destruction with helicopters without the startrek element.

With such nukes, anonymous city annihilation would then be possible. Israel would be history, and then others.
Do we really need such technology? Many would say yes, but bear in mind we came to within a whisker of self annihilation during the cold war, particularly during the Cuban missile crisis. If we had, would those post nuclear holocaust apocalyptic survivors agree that mankind needed the technology?
Nothing wrong with technology, just those who seem to wield it.
We managed 25,000 years without it. With it, we've survived 67 years, but only just....

The planet is doomed, ok that doom may be billions of years of but the groundwork has to start somewhere, here's as good a place as any imo

[RizzyKing]

It is the nature of humanity to seek ever more knowledge but it is only the nature of some to misuse it so do we stop seeking knowledge i am not sure we as a species are capable of stopping. All this LHC stuff is so far over my head i am not even going to try but i believe that as well as making phycisits happy we will derive additional benefits from this type of research and given the mess we've gotten ourselves into on old planet earth i think a technological solution is our only chance so plough on you brainiacs and lets see what you can discover.

[downquark1]

It's important to remember that even if the physics turns out to be useless, the money did not go down a black hole [pun]. A lot of the funding goes into industrial contracts (stimulating the economy of member nations), and industrial innovations developed at CERN are shared with the private sector.

[Maggy J]

I can't see how working out how the universe works can possibly bring anything bad down on us.Anyway we can do that even if we never ever learn anything new.Ignorance may be bliss but it won't stop annihilation.

However us being as curious as we are I can't see us not trying to find how things work..We are always going to be poking an ants nest metaphorically.

[Sparkle]

Higgs Boson or not? Seems some scientists aren't so sure...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...Higgs-all.html

[downquark1]

CERN never claimed that it was definitely the standard model higgs boson, the director general was very clear on that. The press and the public want a "defining moment" for when a discovery happens, but there never is one in this field (we can sit here every day running tests with slightly more data than yesterday).

Traditionally, a discovery is announced when the significance hits 5 sigma, which is what happened.

[Maggy J]

Besides which the DM is not the foremost source of accurate info..

[Chris]

Originally Posted by AdamD

If it has some useful, practical application, which benefits mankind like Electricity does, then great, but if not? Again I question the amount spent on it which could've been put to better use

The whole point of doing pure science is that you don't know what the practical benefits might be, but if you don't do the science, you never find out.

Even the most rudimentary equations that we all learned in school started out as the pursuit of pure study yet, for example, without geometry the construction of your home, your place of work and wherever you like to spend your leisure time would have been a whole lot more problematic, if not outright impossible.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by downquark1

CERN never claimed that it was definitely the standard model higgs boson, the director general was very clear on that. The press and the public want a "defining moment" for when a discovery happens, but there never is one in this field (we can sit here every day running tests with slightly more data than yesterday).

Traditionally, a discovery is announced when the significance hits 5 sigma, which is what happened.

Like I posted above, the discovery wasn't Higgs Boson. What was shown with a 5 sigma certainty is that a that a particle with mass of 125GeV exists. It could be anything, Higgs is just one of the candidates, it could be something we haven't even thought of yet. There's far more data needed before the line can be drawn from this particle to Higgs (such as the zero spin I mentioned before), but people are too eager to go from "this may possibly be the Higgs Boson" to "Higgs Boson found!" when that's a jump that needs a lot more evidence.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Damien

We can keep investing there as well. However discovering fundmental rules of the universe is an amazing thing, we should always try to learn more things.

Indeed. Who is to say that the LHC won't find something (be it the Higgs Boson or not) that enables us to develop a power source that makes todays most advanced nuclear reactor look like a AA battery?

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Like I posted above, the discovery wasn't Higgs Boson. What was shown with a 5 sigma certainty is that a that a particle with mass of 125GeV exists. It could be anything, Higgs is just one of the candidates, it could be something we haven't even thought of yet. There's far more data needed before the line can be drawn from this particle to Higgs (such as the zero spin I mentioned before), but people are too eager to go from "this may possibly be the Higgs Boson" to "Higgs Boson found!" when that's a jump that needs a lot more evidence.

It has some of the characteristics that we expect from from the higgs boson, but they can't be measured accurately yet. Unfortunately particle physics theory is not very clear cut (Karl Popper would probably hate super symmetry if he was still alive), there are plenty of "higgs bosons" proposed and it would take accurate measurements to work out which one is the true one.

[Russ]

Unless this Higgs Boson can be used to find a way to teach people the differences between "their", "there" and "they're" I shall consider it useless to society today.