Hawking Bets Kane $100 That There Is No Higgs Boson

limpdawg writes "Stephen Hawking bet Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan $100 that the Higgs Boson does not exist."

Re:Only 100$... Warning: -1, pedantic.

[renehollan]

btw, in America, the $ goes before the 100

Er, no.

In the United States of America, the dollar sign comes before the numeric amount.

In most parts of Canada (part of the North American continent, and thus America), the same is true.

In Quebec (by law), and possibly other predominantly French parts of Canada, the dollar sign comes after the numeric amount (the period is replaced with a comma, and the thousands separator is a space -- go figure).

So, please, do not say "fucking Canadians" (though, we do do that from time to time). Please say, "fucking Quebec government".

Re:Only 100$...

[bofh31337]

The Higgs Boson particle is supposed to explain where mass "comes from". The problem with a particle explaining mass is that all particles must have mass, thus each Higgs Boson particle would need another particle which would need yet another particle. Most people tend to ignore that interesting paradox. Either way, I don't think we'll know until the Large Hadron Collider comes online at CERN in '05.

Re:Only 100$...

[ConcentratedEvil]

The way I understood the Higgs particle was that it provided a sort of drag on other particles that it interacted with. For instance photons have no mass, they don't interact with the Higgs. So any particle that has mass by definition interacts with the Higgs. But that doesn't mean the Higgs has to have mass (in other words the Higgs doesn't interact with itself).

Re:Only 100$...

[Lars T.]

Mrrrp. Photons have no mass [iastate.edu], yet they are particles. More precise, they are "gauge bosons" [iastate.edu]. (From the Usenet Physics FAQ)

bid 75, ask 77, last 76

[mlinksva]

The Foresight Exchange [ideafutures.com] gives a ~3/4 chance that Higgs Boson will be discovered on or before January 1, 2005 12:00:00 GST [ideafutures.com]. Hawking made a rich bet.

Re:bid 75, ask 77, last 76

[DeadMeat (TM)]

Hawking makes a lot of weird bets. He infamously bet Kip Thorne that Cygnus X-1 did not contain a black hole, even though Hawking himself believed it did, because he figured if he turned out to be wrong he might as well get something out of it. (Incidentally, the wager was a porno magazine subscription.)

Supposedly one of our school's quantum physics classes uses a book with a reproduction of one of his written bets in it.

Hawkins reason?????

[jsimon12]

Does Hawkins frequently take the "Devil's Advocate" stance because he wants to be proven wrong? I remember reading a piece written by him to that effect. Because if for whatever reason he is correct in there being no Higgs Boson then he would be viewed as a genius for thinking differntly, and if he is wrong, well the scientific community still wins out because it upholds existing ideas. Guess my point is this isn't the first time he has taken counterpoint at the last minute or made a bet like this.

Why do they call it the "God Particle"

[PD]

And for my second question, what will they call the particle after that?

Hawkins is quite a gambler

[josepha48]

Apparently this is not the first bet that Hawkins has done. He bet someone already that blackholes do not exist and he lost the bet. Good thing he is a good looser. I think he likes betting to get the other scientist to come up with proof.

News flash

[mlinksva]

Perhaps Hawking made a good bet after all, just in the last week these articles questioning the Higgs particle have shown up:

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1 695000/1695390.stm [bbc.co.uk]
• http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 91663 [newscientist.com]
• http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 91649 [newscientist.com]