Following up our earlier discussion of the theory that the Higgs boson might time-travel to avoid being found, reader gpronger notes an interview with MIT (and LHC) physicist Steven Nahn, in which he comments on Nielsen and Ninomiya's unlikely-sounding theory. "The premise is fairly crazy, but many things in physics are constructed that way... The difference here is that... previous 'crazy' ideas gave consequences that were clearly testable and attestable to the new nature of the theory, in an objective manner, and involved the behavior of inanimate objects (i.e., not humans). However, in this case, the consequences seem quite contrived... Exactly in line with their argument, I could say that Nature abhors the Chicago Cubs, such that the theory which describes the evolution of our universe prescribed Steve Bartman to interfere on October 14, 2003, extending the 'bad luck' of the Cubbies."
Do y'all have different books of the Bible than I do? Are y'all Gideons? Who are the ******' Gideons? Ever met one? NO! Ever seen one? NO! But they're all over the ******' world puttin' Bibles in hotel rooms. Every hotel room- "This Bible was placed here by a Gideon" When?! I been here all day. I ain't seen ****! I saw the housekeeper come and go. I saw the minibar guy come and go. I never laid eyes on a ******' Gideon. What are they- ninjas? Where are they? Where're they fro
Higgs bosun, my hairy white aging ass. The Cubs could win a world series -- but there's only one group of people who could make it happen. That's the Cubs fans.
My daughter tells me that if I want to see a Cardinals game not only affordably but cheap, wait until the Cardinals play the Reds in Cincinnati and drive there. Seems ticket and beer prices are dirt cheap there. Why? Because people in Cincinnati won't support a bunch of incompetent losers, unlike people in Chicago.
Anyone would think this is April Fools day with this retro Slashdot skin that almost works, and people talking about the meteor impact that broke the space time continuum as if it never happened.
Obviously the aliens are afraid we'll discover the secret element that makes FTL travel possible. And that could lead us to realize that we've been sitting on a huge mine of it all along, right here on earth--hidden deep in the rectums of rednecks.
Surprisingly many respectable physicists talking, about this dumb
nature abores the Higgs theory. You see there all very excited
about the relaunch of the LHC, about finally finding the Higgs,
super-symmetric particles, or maybe something new, that there
hyping it up. They need it to, without a bit of public excitement,
the enormous amounts of money needed for each big generation
of collider, aren't going to get spent.
Hope the LHC finds something, and something mysterious and
exacting. If nothing governments are very unlikely to fund a 100
billion for a 100 TeV collider. (that would be very strange, the Standard model need
some new physics before about 10TeV, to stablise the masses of the W,Z particles).
Not strange at all. If they spin it the right way, they can charm the governments and come out on top. Besides when you compare the cost of a new collider to their national bottom lines it just isn't that significant. Sure if they manage to pop up with a new particle or two they can get it quicker, but even without that the knowledge that these particles don't exist means it isn't just money flushed down the drain.
Surprisingly many respectable physicists talking, about this dumb nature abores the Higgs theory.
Its becoming a hallmark of theoretical physics. Underproducing and over-respected scholars prattling on about any nonsense they can dress up in sophistic argument.
Theoretical physics has produced essentially no results for 40 years. Even when faced with outright contradictions of the standard model, i.e. neutrino mass, they do little but concoct the same convoluted models that lead to nowhere. String theory is t
"Theoretical physics has produced essentially no results for 40 years."
Indeed. It's actually rather strange when you step back and look at it.
Newton gave us calculus, mechanics and kick-started the industrial revolution.
Maxwell in the 1860s produced a rich field of practical applications that we're still mining today.
Radioactivity and atomic theory in the late 1800s produced, well, very large bombs and power reactors which don't *always* kill people nastily. And a whole bunch of paradoxical complications wh
You continue to confuse high-energy physics as being the only domain of fundamental physics. It isn't.
Compare this to the history of theoretical physics since Newton.
That's 330 years of history. How many "major" advances (by your definition) have occurred since then in total? You don't seem to understand the manner in which science progresses and you seem to want to hold it (or at least particle physics) to a different standard than the rest of intellectual
Which physicists and who are they talking to? What makes it into the news isn't an accurate representation of the work that's being done by those who work in the field. The small, interesting discoveries don't get reported on by the media; it's the crazy theories and cool ideas that get coverage. I can guarantee you that most of the work work being done at CERN is mind-numbingly boring as far as the general population is concerned, but it's very good work.
This might simply be a matter of physicist humor not translating into reporter humor:
Physicist says, "Maybe we're violating the laws of the universe and it's out to get us (chuckle, chuckle)."
Reporter thinks, "That sounds like front-page news!"
A physicist who eats a bowl of spaghetti, cuts himself shaving or takes a particularly large dump will probably publish a paper for peer review. It's their way of validating their existence, just humour them...
that is right the cubs must win it all before the World can end also the maybe the LHC can take out the Earth but the universe? other allens out there likely have much better tech.
also is the goat tied to this as well? and we need game 7 to be at 1060 west addison and WE NEED TO DROP THE ALL STAR GAME COUNTING.
at least the blackhawks and bears look good this year.
I could believe that there was some strange time-travel-effects going on to prevent this poor Boson, but I can't imagine that it would establish itself as suspicious high-level events such as meteorite impacts or whatever "chance" events people are going on about. If it is happening I bet it is in the form of some new repulsive force that doesn't follow from other theories, or something basic like that. Something we will be able to measure and something we will probably be able to take advantage of.
I can't imagine that it would establish itself as suspicious high-level events such as meteorite impacts or whatever "chance" events people are going on about.
You clearly have no understanding of theoretical physics. You are probably one of those people who doesn't believe that in the many-worlds interpretation decoherence hinges entirely on human actions, resulting in universes which are primarily distinguished by the clothing and facial hairstyle choices of their respective inhabitants, thus providing
This whole 'theory' really just sounds like an application of the Novikov Self-Consistency Conjecture [wikipedia.org] to particle physics. The short version is: the probability of events which could lead to a violation of causality is zero. So, according to this conjecture if the manifestation or observation of the Higgs Boson eventually lead us to develop technology with which we might otherwise violate causality, we'll never discover it.
I can think of at least one way it might - the Higgs Boson is critical to our understanding gravity. We know from relativity that there are certain gravitric structures which might potentially lead to violations of causality. One example is a toroidal singularity, spun extremely fast, which theoretically generates stable artificial wormhole along the axis of the spin with an opening small enough to fire, say, an x-ray laser through. A signal sent through such a wormhole and then back again could lead to extremely clear-cut violations of causality.
Thus, if the Novikov Self-Consistency Conjecture is correct, the discovery of anything capable of allowing us to engage in large scale gravity manipulation of this sort might well have zero probability of ever occurring.
I don't really believe this is what's going onhere , but given the abject failure of every experiment that might lead us to real, large-scale gravity manipulation (I'm thinking of that experiment where extremely fine measurements of lasers fired down long tubes buried under the ground were supposed to be used to detect gravity waves), it's a neat idea.
I don't buy it. By your interpretation of the conjecture, the people working at CERN couldn't possibly be born.
You make the fallacious reasoning that if A may lead to and precedes B, B to C, C to D and D to violation of causality, that A cannot possibly happen. This is faulty. Just because you can't have Y without having X and Y is impossible doesn't mean X is impossible.
The earth is not the center of the universe. You can't travel back in time and create paradoxes anymore than a hydrogen atom can. The Higgs boson isn't hiding from you and your macroscopic view. You're not special.
Either I'm missing something, or the level of arrogance in this 'theory' is exceptionally high.
Actually, it's a pretty cool Sciencey-fiction plot. Ever see the butterfly effect? Think about it, human kind invents time travel, almost wipes itself out because of it so goes back and prevents the original invention. Pick a point of failure that is sufficiently essoteric like the higgs boson and humanity might come to believe time travel is not even possible.
Cool for fiction, not so sure I'd want to be the one to suggest time traveling ninja assasins as the reason I failed at my lab work.
A universe which permits time travel which can change the past is inherently unstable. Sooner or later (on some meta time axis) that universe's timeline will be changed to one where such time travel never occurs, and will then stay that way. It's the most stable state.
The theory may be silly, and currently it appears to violate Occam's razor. It's pretty implausible for now.
But, what if every time they try to discover the Higg's Boson, an even unlikelier mishap prevents them? Janitors tripping over power cords, meteors, lightning strikes, structural collapse...
Yes, very good point. If something really unlikely happens, we should have a good unlikely explanation ready. It's good we are starting now, so we can be ready when something really unlikely happens.
If Higgs Boson makes time loops that get solved when something break and then is not discovered, really weird things could happen to end those loops (i.e. in FAQ about time travel there were giant ants, and in PKDick's Medler were intelligent killer butterflies). That so far has been just somewhat minor problems that affected only the LHC, but next try could happen something that ends civilization, life on earth or the entire universe.
What many people do not realize, is that the cubs that won in 1908 were a completely different team playing in a different field. Wrigely field ( then called wigman park) was built for the Chicago Whales. The whales kicked but winning two championships at the same ballpark that the Cubs suck in. So yadda yadda yadda. Federal league goes kaput, the whales owner buys the cubs, just changes the name of the whales to the cubs and presto chango they never win again.
The obvious problem is that aliens can no longer communicate with the chicago whales. And thus are cursing them from space. Manipulating the flights of balls. Temporary blinding out fielders. Not even the Modern steroids coursing through Sosa's veins were a match for the alien interlopers.
So we need to go back, BACK into the past and rescue the chicago whales and bring them into the modern era where they can successfully communicate with the pissed aliens and allow the Cubs to win or lose as their abilities permit.
If the Cubs win it all in 2012, THEN the Mayans may be on to something...
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an example of a badly run team and franchise. The Cubs are on a whole new level. They've had some really good teams, but yet, no Worlds Series in 100+ years. Even the two newest franchises in the National League have not only been to a Worlds Series, they've won it!/ducks
Well, there is a theory of spacetime that everything that has or will or is happening exists simultaneously. So time paradoxes are impossible.
So, we may have discovered the Higgs boson, and then "nature" undid the discovery afterwards, by stopping it from being discovered in the first place. We'd never "know" that the Higgs boson had been discovered, but it WAS discovered. We just don't have access to that event in spacetime.
I'm roughly aware of what you are writing. But supposing that there is some validity in those theories, what I'm protesting is not the theories themselves but many peoples supposition that they must lead to suspicious events such as meteorite strikes on the LHC etc. Using the principle of Occam's razor it seems more logical to me to think for instance: A, each time some effect manifests itself it will be in roughly the same way and B, the effect will be something much simpler than a meteor strike, e.g. we m
Erm, it is. He's joking that saying that some spooky future force is preventing us seeing Higgs bosons 'for our own good' is about as scientific as saying that God hates the Chicago Cubs... and that there's as much proof for the latter as for the former.
He also says:
Admittedly, I haven't read the whole series of papers, which means my comments should be taken with a grain of salt, but I did skim, and the authors do make an argument for why a new unknown particle (they use Higgs as their poster boy for unknown theoretical particle) can do this and not the ones we know about, based on the experimental evidence we have on the known particles and the existence of yet another theoretically possible but experimentally undetected (not without trying) phenomenon, a magnetic monopole.
Aside from its hideous verbosity, this made me curious because there was an article a day or two about magnetic monopoles...
Everytime you try to go on a drive with it, something happens to it. The kids poked the wheels, a meteor fell trough the engine compartment, the steering wheel just fell of...
Whoa (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Must be a White Sox fan.
Re:Whoa (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Funny)
Least coherent summary ever. I read it twice and I'm still not sure I understand what we're talking about.
That's just because the Higgs Boson was there in the discussion before and after you read it, but not during.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Do y'all have different books of the Bible than I do? Are y'all Gideons? Who are the ******' Gideons? Ever met one? NO! Ever seen one? NO! But they're all over the ******' world puttin' Bibles in hotel rooms. Every hotel room- "This Bible was placed here by a Gideon" When?! I been here all day. I ain't seen ****! I saw the housekeeper come and go. I saw the minibar guy come and go. I never laid eyes on a ******' Gideon. What are they- ninjas? Where are they? Where're they fro
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Higgs bosun, my hairy white aging ass. The Cubs could win a world series -- but there's only one group of people who could make it happen. That's the Cubs fans.
My daughter tells me that if I want to see a Cardinals game not only affordably but cheap, wait until the Cardinals play the Reds in Cincinnati and drive there. Seems ticket and beer prices are dirt cheap there. Why? Because people in Cincinnati won't support a bunch of incompetent losers, unlike people in Chicago.
Major league baseball is not a game
Time will tell (Score:5, Funny)
If the LHC gets hit by a meteor five minutes before it is next switched on we may conclude that something strange is going on.
Oblig. link (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Oblig. link (Score:4, Funny)
YES [cyriak.co.uk]
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Proof that God exists! He doesn't want his particle to be found and his universe destroyed.
Uh oh, I dumped the chum in the water again. Sorry. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Surpisingly many respectible physists talking (Score:5, Interesting)
Hope the LHC finds something, and something mysterious and exacting. If nothing governments are very unlikely to fund a 100 billion for a 100 TeV collider. (that would be very strange, the Standard model need some new physics before about 10TeV, to stablise the masses of the W,Z particles).
---
LHC [feeddistiller.com] Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Re:Surpisingly many respectible physists talking (Score:5, Funny)
Not strange at all. If they spin it the right way, they can charm the governments and come out on top. Besides when you compare the cost of a new collider to their national bottom lines it just isn't that significant. Sure if they manage to pop up with a new particle or two they can get it quicker, but even without that the knowledge that these particles don't exist means it isn't just money flushed down the drain.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Its becoming a hallmark of theoretical physics. Underproducing and over-respected scholars prattling on about any nonsense they can dress up in sophistic argument.
Theoretical physics has produced essentially no results for 40 years. Even when faced with outright contradictions of the standard model, i.e. neutrino mass, they do little but concoct the same convoluted models that lead to nowhere. String theory is t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Theoretical physics has produced essentially no results for 40 years."
Indeed. It's actually rather strange when you step back and look at it.
Newton gave us calculus, mechanics and kick-started the industrial revolution.
Maxwell in the 1860s produced a rich field of practical applications that we're still mining today.
Radioactivity and atomic theory in the late 1800s produced, well, very large bombs and power reactors which don't *always* kill people nastily. And a whole bunch of paradoxical complications wh
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean theoretical results fundamental physics
You continue to confuse high-energy physics as being the only domain of fundamental physics. It isn't.
Compare this to the history of theoretical physics since Newton.
That's 330 years of history. How many "major" advances (by your definition) have occurred since then in total? You don't seem to understand the manner in which science progresses and you seem to want to hold it (or at least particle physics) to a different standard than the rest of intellectual
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Surprisingly many respectable physicists talking
Which physicists and who are they talking to? What makes it into the news isn't an accurate representation of the work that's being done by those who work in the field. The small, interesting discoveries don't get reported on by the media; it's the crazy theories and cool ideas that get coverage. I can guarantee you that most of the work work being done at CERN is mind-numbingly boring as far as the general population is concerned, but it's very good work.
Do
That's what happened, isn't it? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But how does this explain the 2004 Red Sox?
Physicist humor, reporter humor (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Apart from the part where the physicist actually published a paper with their arguments for peer review [arxiv.org].
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A physicist who eats a bowl of spaghetti, cuts himself shaving or takes a particularly large dump will probably publish a paper for peer review. It's their way of validating their existence, just humour them ...
that is right the cubs must win it all before the (Score:2)
that is right the cubs must win it all before the World can end also the maybe the LHC can take out the Earth but the universe? other allens out there likely have much better tech.
also is the goat tied to this as well? and we need game 7 to be at 1060 west addison and WE NEED TO DROP THE ALL STAR GAME COUNTING.
at least the blackhawks and bears look good this year.
Steve Bartman incident for those who don't know... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bartman_incident [wikipedia.org]
http://baseball.wikia.com/wiki/Steve_Bartman [wikia.com]
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bartman [go.com]
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cubfan1.html [thesmokinggun.com]
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseball/rays/article998054.ece [tampabay.com]
Osama Bin Laden is safer walking down the streets of New York City than Steve Bartman is walking down the streets of Chicago.
magic and time travel (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You clearly have no understanding of theoretical physics. You are probably one of those people who doesn't believe that in the many-worlds interpretation decoherence hinges entirely on human actions, resulting in universes which are primarily distinguished by the clothing and facial hairstyle choices of their respective inhabitants, thus providing
Novikov self-consistency (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole 'theory' really just sounds like an application of the Novikov Self-Consistency Conjecture [wikipedia.org] to particle physics. The short version is: the probability of events which could lead to a violation of causality is zero. So, according to this conjecture if the manifestation or observation of the Higgs Boson eventually lead us to develop technology with which we might otherwise violate causality, we'll never discover it.
I can think of at least one way it might - the Higgs Boson is critical to our understanding gravity. We know from relativity that there are certain gravitric structures which might potentially lead to violations of causality. One example is a toroidal singularity, spun extremely fast, which theoretically generates stable artificial wormhole along the axis of the spin with an opening small enough to fire, say, an x-ray laser through. A signal sent through such a wormhole and then back again could lead to extremely clear-cut violations of causality.
Thus, if the Novikov Self-Consistency Conjecture is correct, the discovery of anything capable of allowing us to engage in large scale gravity manipulation of this sort might well have zero probability of ever occurring.
I don't really believe this is what's going onhere , but given the abject failure of every experiment that might lead us to real, large-scale gravity manipulation (I'm thinking of that experiment where extremely fine measurements of lasers fired down long tubes buried under the ground were supposed to be used to detect gravity waves), it's a neat idea.
--Ryvar
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't buy it. By your interpretation of the conjecture, the people working at CERN couldn't possibly be born.
You make the fallacious reasoning that if A may lead to and precedes B, B to C, C to D and D to violation of causality, that A cannot possibly happen. This is faulty. Just because you can't have Y without having X and Y is impossible doesn't mean X is impossible.
Run it, I dare ya! (Score:2)
God.print(9 / 0);
This post (Score:2, Funny)
This post will enlighten you into the inner minds of a regular Slashdot reader. By the end of this post you will know everything.
So here's the deal...
Wait, you look like me. Is that a gun? No! Let me finish typ
Attention Humans (Score:2)
The earth is not the center of the universe. You can't travel back in time and create paradoxes anymore than a hydrogen atom can. The Higgs boson isn't hiding from you and your macroscopic view. You're not special.
Either I'm missing something, or the level of arrogance in this 'theory' is exceptionally high.
Re: (Score:2)
Either I'm missing something, or the level of arrogance in this 'theory' is exceptionally high.
Arrogance is another thing the universe doesn't care about. A given scientist can be the world's most pompous ass, and still be right.
Not that that's likely in this case. But at least give them points for creativity.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool for fiction, not so sure I'd want to be the one to suggest time traveling ninja assasins as the reason I failed at my lab work.
Re:Attention Humans (Score:5, Insightful)
A universe which permits time travel which can change the past is inherently unstable. Sooner or later (on some meta time axis) that universe's timeline will be changed to one where such time travel never occurs, and will then stay that way. It's the most stable state.
Parent
Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Consider yourself lucky (Score:2)
Star Trek IV & The cubs (Score:4, Funny)
What many people do not realize, is that the cubs that won in 1908 were a completely different team playing in a different field. Wrigely field ( then called wigman park) was built for the Chicago Whales. The whales kicked but winning two championships at the same ballpark that the Cubs suck in. So yadda yadda yadda. Federal league goes kaput, the whales owner buys the cubs, just changes the name of the whales to the cubs and presto chango they never win again.
The obvious problem is that aliens can no longer communicate with the chicago whales. And thus are cursing them from space. Manipulating the flights of balls. Temporary blinding out fielders. Not even the Modern steroids coursing through Sosa's veins were a match for the alien interlopers.
So we need to go back, BACK into the past and rescue the chicago whales and bring them into the modern era where they can successfully communicate with the pissed aliens and allow the Cubs to win or lose as their abilities permit.
Re:Well, duh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nature having it out for the Cubbies is at least plausible. The rest of pseudo-science is not.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Damn! There's a lot more baseball fans here than I thought.
Re: (Score:2)
Damn! There's a lot more baseball fans here than I thought.
Calling Cubs fans "baseball fans" is like calling Scientologists "religious". They're not really playing the same game as everyone else...
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I bet you're a gas at parties.
-Peter
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I bet you're a gas at parties.
It all works swimmingly until he pulls out his favourite board game. The game of life insurance.
Re: (Score:2)
If the Cubs win it all in 2012, THEN the Mayans may be on to something...
The Pittsburgh Pirates are an example of a badly run team and franchise. The Cubs are on a whole new level. They've had some really good teams, but yet, no Worlds Series in 100+ years. Even the two newest franchises in the National League have not only been to a Worlds Series, they've won it! /ducks
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there is a theory of spacetime that everything that has or will or is happening exists simultaneously. So time paradoxes are impossible.
So, we may have discovered the Higgs boson, and then "nature" undid the discovery afterwards, by stopping it from being discovered in the first place. We'd never "know" that the Higgs boson had been discovered, but it WAS discovered. We just don't have access to that event in spacetime.
Yeah, it's nutty. But the physics all work out.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm roughly aware of what you are writing. But supposing that there is some validity in those theories, what I'm protesting is not the theories themselves but many peoples supposition that they must lead to suspicious events such as meteorite strikes on the LHC etc. Using the principle of Occam's razor it seems more logical to me to think for instance: A, each time some effect manifests itself it will be in roughly the same way and B, the effect will be something much simpler than a meteor strike, e.g. we m
Re: (Score:2)
Math is a concept, abstract, invention of the mind. Likewise so is Time.
Didn't get you an extension on your paper either, did it?
Re:I can't be the only one... (Score:4, Insightful)
He also says:
Admittedly, I haven't read the whole series of papers, which means my comments should be taken with a grain of salt, but I did skim, and the authors do make an argument for why a new unknown particle (they use Higgs as their poster boy for unknown theoretical particle) can do this and not the ones we know about, based on the experimental evidence we have on the known particles and the existence of yet another theoretically possible but experimentally undetected (not without trying) phenomenon, a magnetic monopole.
Aside from its hideous verbosity, this made me curious because there was an article a day or two about magnetic monopoles...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't get it, can you give me a cars' analogy?
Imagine you just got your dream car.
Everytime you try to go on a drive with it, something happens to it.
The kids poked the wheels, a meteor fell trough the engine compartment, the steering wheel just fell of...