94 replies to this topic

[BiffSplitkins]

Coffey, on 04 July 2012 - 09:33 AM, said:

Is there any technology that we can gain from this?

I found this article pretty interesting.
6 reasons why the 'God particle' matters

[ranrod]

Beckys_Mom, on 05 July 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

99.999%  is close enough ....Glad they found it... It is splashed over some of the daily news papers  over here ...

That's the percent that what they saw was not an error.  Not to say that what they saw is a Higgs boson.  It's at the right energy level and the right debris came out of it but other markers need to be found.   So using my previous analogy, we know it looks like a duck, now does it walk like a duck and quack like a duck?

BiffSplitkins, good article.  Behold his noodly godliness in uncooked form in the collider images!

Edited by ranrod, 05 July 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[questionmark]

ranrod, on 05 July 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

That's the percent that what they saw was not an error.  Not to say that what they saw is a Higgs boson.  It's at the right energy level and the right debris came out of it but other markers need to be found.   So using my previous analogy, we know it looks like a duck, now does it walk like a duck and quack like a duck?

BiffSplitkins, good article.  Behold his noodly godliness in uncooked form in the collider images!

Wherein, as shown by the superfast neutrinos, it could also have been a loose cable connector

[Beckys_Mom]

ranrod, on 05 July 2012 - 05:55 PM, said:

That's the percent that what they saw was not an error.  Not to say that what they saw is a Higgs boson.  It's at the right energy level and the right debris came out of it but other markers need to be found.   So using my previous analogy, we know it looks like a duck, now does it walk like a duck and quack like a duck?

You are not seriously  splitting the difference over a  slight  ( and I do mean  slight )  0.001 % its not?   Talk about a waste of argument  lol   If I had a jigsaw puzzle.. that was of the planet earth...and I pieced it together..all but one small  piece..  does that mean the jiogsaw is not of the planet earth because of a tiny small piece missing? It looks like the earth...but  might not be because  one jigsaw piece of blue  is missing...!!!!!

That arguement is just as bad  as the one creationist use against evolution claiming thwere is a link missing so it cannot be fact  lol  

Edited by Beckys_Mom, 05 July 2012 - 06:36 PM.

[ranrod]

Beckys_Mom, on 05 July 2012 - 06:33 PM, said:

You are not seriously  splitting the difference over a  slight  ( and I do mean  slight )  0.001 % its not?   Talk about a waste of argument  lol   If I had a jigsaw puzzle.. that was of the planet earth...and I pieced it together..all but one small  piece..  does that mean the jiogsaw is not of the planet earth because of a tiny small piece missing? It looks like the earth...but  might not be because  one jigsaw piece of blue  is missing...!!!!!

That arguement is just as bad  as the one creationist use against evolution claiming thwere is a link missing so it cannot be fact  lol  

haha, no, you misunderstood.  The 99.99994% is NOT the chance that they found the Higgs boson.  It's the chance that the bit of data that they were looking at wasn't an error:  background radiation, noise in the signal, interference, a glitch of some sort, a loose wire, etc.  They are 99.99994% sure it wasn't any of that.  The chances that the bit of data is in fact a higgs boson has not been determined - there's not enough data to give a good percentage.  Taking a wild guess, I'll say 70% or so.

[Beckys_Mom]

ranrod, on 05 July 2012 - 07:15 PM, said:

haha, no, you misunderstood.  The 99.99994% is NOT the chance that they found the Higgs boson.  It's the chance that the bit of data that they were looking at wasn't an error:  background radiation, noise in the signal, interference, a glitch of some sort, a loose wire, etc.  They are 99.99994% sure it wasn't any of that.  The chances that the bit of data is in fact a higgs boson has not been determined - there's not enough data to give a good percentage.  Taking a wild guess, I'll say 70% or so.

How do you arrive at 70% ? ...Can you post your calculations ?

All indications suggest that it is the Higgs Boson Particle, but further research is required ...From reading about it in the paper..it says - It may be the Higgs Boson  OR it may be one of several, the theory suggests there may be more than just one ....Further work will be necessary to confirm that the new particle  is indeed the Higgs  

[Seeker79]

Render, on 04 July 2012 - 01:21 PM, said:

Saru, your title is terribly misleading.

no one at the conference said they've found the higgs boson
what was said bassically is that they've found A boson that is at the same coordinates they expect the higgs boson to be.
No absolute conclusions are drawn, only that we are on the right track and that further testing is necessary.

Thank you...

THe LHC is a massive undertaking I'm sure there are plenty of business minded folks involved in justifying the billions spent in the thing no matter how misleading.

[Seeker79]

Beckys_Mom, on 05 July 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

How do you arrive at 70% ? ...Can you post your calculations ?

All indications suggest that it is the Higgs Boson Particle, but further research is required ...From reading about it in the paper..it says - It may be the Higgs Boson  OR it may be one of several, the theory suggests there may be more than just one ....Further work will be necessary to confirm that the new particle  is indeed the Higgs  

What are the criteria to determin if the particle is responsible for gravitational affects?

[the L]

Sepulchrave,

I got a lot of questions about it (and about physics in general) but I will try to make a shorter list.
You mentioned broken symetry and I search a little ask questions even watch one documentary.
Why symetry is broken? In fact I think that you already answered that question-no one knows. But seems to me , as I heard one analogy, but I would like to hear you opinion on it,.
In wooden table like one in front of us where is our computers all atoms have magnetic forces in different direction. And in magnet all magnet is line up. The result is magnetic field.
Lets say that something loose symetry in our table where all atoms have magnetic forces in different direction and they choose one direction we will get magnetic field. (Physicists mention something like phase shift too). That something which break symetry is somehow connected with cooling. (Thats where you step in and try to explain it.)   Warm>atoms radiate magnetic forece in different direction ; Cooling>atoms radiate magnetic force in choosen direction...So Higgs field is result of cooling universe.(?)

Also what about that symetry theory. That EVERY particle we know have one undiscover partner. So just when we thought that we know something back to begining.

Furthermore, what do you say do we actually BELIEVE in Einstein general theory of relativity? Im mean no one ever seen Quark. We believe in Black holes yet no one ever seen in black hole. Probably never will.

Do you believe in big bang theory or in big bounces theory, which is seems quite popular? Do you believe in multiverse?

Do we understand foundation of our physics? For example snowflake foundation is hexagon but everything else is different. Do we know physics "hexagon"?

Also we knows how things work in quantum realm and in classic physics realm, but what happens between? What rules work between? Where is border that one could say okay from there classic laws of physics dont work anymore?

[questionmark]

Seeker79, on 05 July 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

What are the criteria to determin if the particle is responsible for gravitational affects?

If you destroy something so it disintegrates in its components generally the forces are such that the components leave the place of destruction in a fashion inverse to the force applied. How much gravity affects these components, or how much the components affect gravity can be determined by the size of the particles and the distance they are capable of traveling from the place of the impact before "falling to the ground".

[ranrod]

Seeker79, on 05 July 2012 - 08:52 PM, said:

What are the criteria to determin if the particle is responsible for gravitational affects?

The Higgs boson is not related to gravity... In terms of the expense of building it, there are thousands of different experiments that it will conduct, helping thousands of different research projects.  We shouldn't care about how much it cost.  We're doing something that transcends petty human issues.

[ranrod]

Beckys_Mom, on 05 July 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

How do you arrive at 70% ? ...Can you post your calculations ?

All indications suggest that it is the Higgs Boson Particle, but further research is required ...From reading about it in the paper..it says - It may be the Higgs Boson  OR it may be one of several, the theory suggests there may be more than just one ....Further work will be necessary to confirm that the new particle  is indeed the Higgs  

There's not enough data to determine if the test reveals a Higgs.  So my guess is as good as anyone else's.  The big question is what is the spin.  Particles can have one of many positive spins.  Main distinction is integer vs non-integer.  Anything other than zero means it's not a SM Higgs boson.  The thing is they determined it's an integer, and determined the spin is either 0 or 2.  That means 50-50 chance it's NOT a SM Higgs!  Furthermore, if it's 2, it can't be Higgs, nor its supersymmetric partners.  The extra 20% in my odds prediction (over 50-50), is based on the confidence level of the researchers.

[Magicjax]

From what I understand the question at this point isn't "what can we do with this knowledge?" but rather, "what will we learn from this knowledge?". Kind of like when gravity was "discovered". It opened the door for study and understand more about our world and univers. And we learned a lot from that door the discovery of gravity opened. Newton only scratched the surface of what it helped to understand.

[sepulchrave]

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

I got a lot of questions about it (and about physics in general) but I will try to make a shorter list.
You mentioned broken symetry and I search a little ask questions even watch one documentary.
Why symetry is broken? In fact I think that you already answered that question-no one knows. But seems to me , as I heard one analogy, but I would like to hear you opinion on it,.
In wooden table like one in front of us where is our computers all atoms have magnetic forces in different direction. And in magnet all magnet is line up. The result is magnetic field.
Lets say that something loose symetry in our table where all atoms have magnetic forces in different direction and they choose one direction we will get magnetic field. (Physicists mention something like phase shift too). That something which break symetry is somehow connected with cooling. (Thats where you step in and try to explain it.)   Warm>atoms radiate magnetic forece in different direction ; Cooling>atoms radiate magnetic force in choosen direction...So Higgs field is result of cooling universe.(?)

Kind of, yes. There is a tendency for everything to attempt to be as low an energy state as possible. In the case of a ferromagnet, the low energy state is one where the spins are all aligned, creating a net magnetic field. However since heat is basically just random motion, it will be more difficult of spins to align consistently when everything is jumping around. Once things cool down the spins have two possibilities: be frozen in random alignment, or be frozen in an ordered alignment. Since the low energy state for a ferromagnet is an ordered alignment, that is what is ends up happening.

So yes, I think it is fair to make the argument that the Higgs field is a result of a cooling Universe.

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Also what about that symetry theory. That EVERY particle we know have one undiscover partner. So just when we thought that we know something back to begining.

My personal opinion is that supersymmetry is not correct. But I can't really back this up with anything better than ``I don't like it''.

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Furthermore, what do you say do we actually BELIEVE in Einstein general theory of relativity? Im mean no one ever seen Quark. We believe in Black holes yet no one ever seen in black hole. Probably never will.

Well Einstein never said anything about quarks... but yes, I would say we believe Einstein's theory of relativity. The predictions of his theory on the effect of velocity and gravity on time have been tested fairly thoroughly (the lifetime of unstable particles in a lab versus in an accelerator, the differences between highly accurate clocks on the ground, in airplanes, and in satellites, etc.) and everything seems to work out as expected.

So we believe that Einstein's theory is an accurate description of the Universe for a particular range of distances, velocities, and time. Einstein's theory doesn't explain everything though, so it clearly is not complete.

However we believe that just like General Relativity simplifies down to Newtonian Mechanics (for slow moving, light objects), we believe that the as-of-yet-undiscovered more complete theory (possibly String Theory, possibly something else) will simplify down to General Relativity in the right conditions.

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Do you believe in big bang theory or in big bounces theory, which is seems quite popular? Do you believe in multiverse?

I believe in the big bang, I don't really like big bounce or multiverse theories because to me it seems like they are trying to explain problems (why did the big bang even happen, why is Quantum Mechanics probabilistic, etc.) by introducing infinite complexity (everything happens all the time over and over again!).

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Do we understand foundation of our physics? For example snowflake foundation is hexagon but everything else is different. Do we know physics "hexagon"?

We know why snowflakes are usually (but not always) hexagonal. But I think the question you are asking is more metaphysical in nature. We can use General Relativity to explain what gravitational force will do, but we can't explain why gravitational force exists.

the L, on 05 July 2012 - 08:56 PM, said:

Also we knows how things work in quantum realm and in classic physics realm, but what happens between? What rules work between? Where is border that one could say okay from there classic laws of physics dont work anymore?

In my opinion (and, by the way, I study materials physics so this is the one part of your post where my opinion might be valuable) this is answered by the concept of entropy (i.e. the Second Law of Thermodynamics). I don't know why there is such a thing as entropy, but it does seem to exist and it does seem to always increase.

Much of the ``weirdness'' of Quantum Mechanics is related to entanglement: when a single wavefunction describes what we might normally think of a collection of individual particles (i.e. one N-body wavefunction instead of N one-body wavefunctions).

It turns out that the entropy of an entangled ensemble is much less than the entropy of a decoherent ensemble (see the wiki on von Neumann entropy), so just by the Second Law of Thermodynamics we have a reason why the more particles you have in a system the more classical the behaviour is. (This is another example of spontaneous symmetry breaking.)

Since entropy is linked to temperature, this also helps explain why most of the many-particle Quantum effects like superconductivity, or Bose-Einstein condensation, etc. can only happen at very low temperatures.

So there isn't really a ``border'' between Quantum and Classical Mechanics. In fact, Quantum Mechanics should work for regular everyday objects (like throwing a baseball), but since you are dealing with ~10²³ particles at 300 K, none of the weird, probabilistic possibilities that the baseball could technically do will ever happen (it is possible for a baseball to Quantum tunnel through a brick wall, just incredibly unlikely), and therefore simple Newtonian Mechanics will give you the same answer with much less effort.

For that matter, you wouldn't use General Relativity to calculate the trajectory of a baseball either, although you could, and it would eventually give you the same answer as the one you quickly calculated with basic Newtonian Mechanics.

[ranrod]

ranrod, on 05 July 2012 - 10:18 PM, said:

There's not enough data to determine if the test reveals a Higgs.  So my guess is as good as anyone else's.  The big question is what is the spin.  Particles can have one of many positive spins.  Main distinction is integer vs non-integer.  Anything other than zero means it's not a SM Higgs boson.  The thing is they determined it's an integer, and determined the spin is either 0 or 2.  That means 50-50 chance it's NOT a SM Higgs!  Furthermore, if it's 2, it can't be Higgs, nor its supersymmetric partners.  The extra 20% in my odds prediction (over 50-50), is based on the confidence level of the researchers.

Just finished going through some of the released papers.  Their confidence level NOT counting the spin data is 95% that the signal they found is a SM Higgs boson.  As in my previous message the spin will be 0 or 2, where 2 means it is not a Higgs boson of any sort.  Both 0 and 2 would match the data found thus far.  Given the correlations that lead to the 95% confidence, I would not say it's 50-50.  I still stand by my 70% estimate (splitting the difference more or less).

Edited by ranrod, 06 July 2012 - 02:06 AM.