Race For the "God Particle" Heats Up 397
SpuriousLogic writes "CERN is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, its American rival claims. Fermilab say the odds of their Tevatron accelerator finding it first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best. CERN's Lyn Evans admitted the accident which will halt the $7B Large Hadron Collider until September may cost them one of the biggest prizes in physics."
How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system. Without any data to base your odds on, you're just making some shit up. Not only is their level of precision low, but there is zero confidence.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Funny)
I see nothing wrong here. As they say - it's 50-50: they either find it, or not.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh don't bring cats into it. Next thing you know, you're herding them (or not herding them) and either way, it's a big, fat, hairy mess.
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Then that would result in a 'didn't find it' result?
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, what are the odds the particle doesn't exist AND they find it?
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Funny)
1/0
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Oh c'mon guys, it was funny. Not only was it two answers to two questions, it was also the very likely definitive answer of the combined probability. And it most likely evaluates to "FILE NOT FOUND" as per TDWTF, making it a valid probability...
I say this is brillant!
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It's not 1/404
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"I can divide by zero"
No you can't, whilst extrapolation may seem to imply the answer is infinity, division by zero is completely illogical thus has no place in mathmatics.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Informative)
To put it another way, reminding people of the way they were taught to divide in primary school, dividing by anything is splitting it up into that many groups. Exactly how can you divide something into zero groups? The answer isn't infinite, because that would imply creating more stuff to put in those groups. If you divide by zero, whatever it is your dividing has nowhere to go.
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Probably pretty good. After all, God doesn't exist, but millions of people are finding Him all the time.
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Probably pretty good. After all, God doesn't exist, but millions of people convince themselves that they are finding Him all the time.
There. Fixed that for you.
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After all, God doesn't exist ...
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist [or /.er] states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible [or nonexistent], he is very probably wrong."
-- Arthur C. Clarke's First Law
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you haven't found Him doesn't mean He doesn't exist, I can't find most of the constellations in the night sky but apparently they exist.
Same logic applies to:
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"through patterns in chaos. People looking through history (either global, national, or personal) can find patterns that show either an intelligence manipulating the events or an incredible string of luck and coincidence."
Good news everyone! We've discovered god! Turns out it was just confirmation bias under another name.
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Unfortunately all that is filtered by each person as they look at it ... We see the evidence of God, you would see Luck.
Wow, you just get better and better. Unfortunately? It's not unfortunate, it's close to proof that there isn't actually a god and people that have fortunate events happen to them that were out of their control attribute it to a god because they feel more comfortable than the harsh realisation that the universe decided that it wouldn't kill them ... yet.
Two houses sit next to each other nea
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You got modded funny for this, but it's a reasonable question. It's certainly possible they'll conclude they've found the Higgs even if it doesn't exist.
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Yeah.
We know that the observer is an integral part of the experiment; at this level of physics there is no such thing as a third party observer.
But I understand that we cannot assess in advance the degree of effect the observer will have on an entirely new experiment.
Which leads me to the uncomfortable recognition that we might create the Higgs boson as we get better at looking for it.
What is uncomfortable about this is the way it raises the question: "If we are literally making it up as we go along, is
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Well, that's one way to get us out of the economic crisis.
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It'll consume the derivatives trading black hole?
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Interesting)
What data are they lacking? The math and physics from other experiments that suggest that the Higgs Boson exists, along with a lot of details about it? Or the fact that it is by far the simplest solution to a number of phenomenon? Remember, much more often than not, the simplest solution that fits the math tends to point to the correct answer.
Oh wait. They aren't lacking those.
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Addendum,
this could also be bad journalism, they may simply mean demonstrating that it does or does not exist.
Either way, probabilities can be given. The former situation (proving it does exist) has a more rough probability since it it would use similar, but nonetheless different circumstance, while the latter (proving that it does or doesn't) exist is requires less external data, and is thus a less rough calculation
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Its mass for a start. If that was known then it would either have already been found (LEP or Fermilab) or will be found (CERN) or won't be found (yet) because we'd know where to look for it.
We have a good idea of what sort of range its mass is likely to have but that's not certain. Some physicists are even hoping that it won't be found, pointing to a much larger mass and interesting new physics to explore.
We're approaching a nadir much like classical physics pre 1905. Are we destined to now spend our time d
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We actually have a very good feel for how close we are at any given time to finding it.
Higgs Boson senses *tingling*?
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I know you aren't saying it doesn't exist. I'm not saying it does or doesn't either. I'm simply saying that the facts aren't necessarily pulled straight out of their asses. That, and there's likely the usual journalistic filter in there to add some garbage to info that wasn't already trashed enough.
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So, what you are saying is... ?
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Ah. In another post on this topic, some wrote that they 'felt' they had a 50%-98% chance of first detection. And hey, this is teh internet. If a feeling's been published, we should all run with it.
To the Wikipedia!
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway theres pretty reasonable indirect evidence for the Higgs, lets just say to make all our measurements consistant, it would be nice if a fundamental scalar existed around 115 GeV. And it would be even nicer if it generated all the masses in the Standard Module while it was at it. There is certainly enough to have a reasonable Bayesian prior.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Insightful)
The great thing about scientific theory - real scientific theory - is that is has predictive capabilities. Theory predicts that the Higgs exists. If the theory is correct, they feel that their experiment has a 50% to 96% chance of finding it.
And if they don't find it, it would actually be a bigger deal than if they do. It means something was off either in the experiment or the theory, and that means it's back to square one!
=Smidge=
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The problem with searching for something that only theoretically exists is that it is profoundly easier to prove that something exists (by finding it) versus proving that it does not exist ("we've done a lot of searching without result, but we cannot conclusively say this [x] does not exist"). If they find it, yay search is over. If they don't... well, they'll probably just keep looking until they rip a hole in the space/time continuum or create a blackhole that rips the Earth from existence... I'd rather
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They aren't searching. They are performing experiments for which current theory predicts certain results.
Where the percentages come from (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not a physicist. But I know that the Tevatron, since it is lower-energy than the LHC, relies on aggregating the data from many collisions to produce a data set in which to look for proof of the Higgs. In the article they said that they already have 8 collision events which seem to provide good hints that the Higgs does exist. Presumably they will need many more good hints and/or a lucky collision that produces direct proof.
There is not unlimited time--the actual quote was a 50% to 96% chance of finding
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Funny)
Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system.
So it's one, then?
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Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system.
So it's one, then?
I think he ment intelligent life.
The odds are dependent on you faith in humanity.
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I'll ponder that as I watch my Jackass reruns......... bwahahaha, he got it right in the balls, again!!!
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The LHC will be to give a definitive answer to the question as to whether the Higgs Boson can exist. the LHC will pretty much give a clear yes or no answer, its not going to be indeterminate. They have create the conditions where they know that one will have to appear, with certainty that if they cannot produce it, it will indicate that Higgs is likely impossible to exist. This is an important moment for verifying the Standard Model and has will be one of the greatest discoveries lately.
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Well, if the theory includes any sort of number of those particles that would be required for it to fit the problem that the theory was trying to solve, and you have other theories that fit with less things observed previously, then no, it's fairly sensible to quote the odds.
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Even so, 50-50 to 96% is a pretty good spread of odds.
I'd bet those all day long. If someone told me my horse in the fifth race at Belmont had "somewhere between 50-50 to a 96%" chance of winning the race I'd feel like I'd made a pretty good bet.
Anyway, with all the money they're spending looking for the God particle, they better not lose it again.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Informative)
To discover the Higgs, we must show that given a theory without the Higgs, our data would only occur 1 in 2 million times we did an experiment like this, (5 sigma significance, standard for particle discovery) and of course the the difference in the data is consistent with a Higgs.
To exclude the Higgs in a certain mass range, we must show the opposite: if there were a Higgs, our data would only occur some very small percentage of the time (I can't remember the exact significance, but it is less stringent than discovery, again standard).
LEP already excluded masses below 114 GeV/c^2, and the Tevatron has excluded a small mass range around 160 or 170 GeV/c^2.
However, all that said, I disagree with the apparently official Fermilab line (50/50). We have a small chance of excluding all the available mass ranges, but the amount of data needed to go from excluding it if its not there to discovering it if it is there is huge. We would need several times as much data as we will have unless we keep running for quite a bit longer. Maybe we can get a chunk of the gov't stimulus package?
Without any data to base your odds on, you're just making some shit up. Not only is their level of precision low, but there is zero confidence.
Quite the contrary, sir, and I do somewhat resent remarks like these, although I understand they were made in haste in your frenzy to get first post. We have a tremendous amount of data, and we have theories that describe exactly what we're looking for. It's almost just a statistical game now. Our level of precision is in fact quite high (although not as high as is achievable at a lepton collider), and as I said above, we have excluded some potential Higgs masses to a high level of confidence.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a nice graphic of what you described about the exclusions for a light-mass Higgs:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/higgsexclusionplotfy08.jpg [symmetrymagazine.org]
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A few decades of particle physics experiments adds up to no data? That's pretty harsh.
We're not butterfly collectors looking for a new color. We're physicists. Quantitative prediction of things we've never seen is what we do.
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Nope. Here's how it works. Other observations [wikipedia.org] show that the Higgs has to have a mass between 170 and 285 GeV/c2, with 95% confidence. Assuming a given Higgs mass, Fermilab can do Monte Carlo simulations [wikipedia.org] of the results of their experiments, and they can determine
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RTFA.
Fermilab said their odds of discovering it before CERN was between 50-96%. This means that if the particle exists, there's a 50-96% chance that Fermilab will find it first and a 4-50% chance that CERN will find it first and a 1% chance that some other unknown entity finds it first.
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race? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is there a race? Why aren't they working together to find it?
Re:race? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is there a race? Why aren't they working together to find it?
Races are good. I don't think we would have gone to the moon so fast if it wasn't a race between usa and russia.
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As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class
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As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.
I personally believe if you get a too large group of people. Some will end up not being heard, not work so hard because they feel redundant or just end up wasting a lot of time because of communication trouble. The competition aspect will probably motivate workers more and they will probably work harder. For ex. I think 1 programmer putting in 10 hours of effective work is more effective than two programmers working 6 hours each. There's a overhead in collaboration.
Re:race? (Score:5, Funny)
As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
No if we had worked together things would still be tied up in a international comittee and at best we would have a non-binding resolution to send a strongly worded letter to the moon stating our intentions to visit it someday.
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You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.
We certainly wouldn't have gotten there quicker, if at all, simply because we (the populations of the US and USSR) wouldn't have had the motivation. I mean, yes, the USA and USSR working together would've had the capability to do more, quicker, and better than either could do separate. But without the fear of what the "enemy" might do if they got control of space, all the funding would dry up. The biggest justification (to the American public, at least) for the space race was "We can't let the commies win,
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From a purely human point of view, competition makes us try harder. You may not like it, but it is the truth.
From a purely scientific point of view, repeatability is an important thing. Having more than one experiment confirming the results isn't just a good thing, it is a requirement of science.
Re:race? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, Newton tried to cover up the Calculus, just so he could have the edge over other natural philosophers. Some competition is harmful. It depends.
Re:race? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a very friendly "competition". While it *may* be possible for the Tevatron to locate the Higgs before LHC turn-on, it doesn't negate the fact that the LHC will use energies an order of magnitude higher than the Tevatron.
Fermilab - which is where the Tevatron is located - also has a huge number of people working on CMS - one of the LHC detectors.
Most of the "US vs Europe" mentality and the "OMG we're losing our physics crown to some other lab" is a sidebar injected by the media and politicians. Otherwise, it can be very dry (aka, non-newsworthy) work punctuated by moments of "Eureka!"
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Sometimes races are a good thing. Sure, it's a sign of the imperfection of the human being as such... but we are what we are. And racing after a prestigious prize is sometimes the best motivation for groundbreaking science.
Rather than whine that this won't get us peace in the world, I'd choose to be glad that humanity can pull off some stunning scientific breakthroughs.
For the record, Fermilab were supposed to retire the Tevatron, since the LHC obsoletes it - so the US team is not completely imbued by natio
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I think the same question applies to the Intel/AMD, Windows/Linux family...
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Now boil your brain on the fact that the very same thing exists in medical research, and feel the creeping horror at what that implies.
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There is no motivation without the fear of losing. Who cares about some God particle... I just want to see Jeff cry!
Going to the moon was an afterthought. Beating Russia was the main purpose. There is no one to beat, so we aren't going there anymore.
Colliding egos have contributed to more innovation in the History of Mankind than anything else. Team work, cooperation, common goals... are all overrated and there is plenty of evidence of that.
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You were three minutes late.
Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Even we do do find it it will open thousand more questions about it.
Thus will keep the pointless debate of is there a God or Not going.
I think they came up with the "God Particle" name as a way of saying to the people who beleave in God. Here we found out how the Universe works and THERE IS NO GOD See, you have lived your life on a false belief.
Just as the religious people are hoping for the Second Coming to say to the atheists. Oh Oh here is God he about to put the smack down on you. You should have lived
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Since when are did all religious people believe in the second coming of Jesus and have anything against atheists? And since when has all religion been against science?
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Since it is based on NOT having evidence?
That is not true. It is based on different axioms than science, but not on lack of evidence. I find that I need no less faith to believe in "science" than I do to believe in the Old Testament. And not only do I believe in them both, I see very few contradictions.
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> That is not true. It is based on different axioms than science, but not on lack of evidence. I
Correction. The axioms of science arose from the Judeo-Christian world view, so science has the same axioms. The main parts of the scientific method are:
(a) the universe is orderly (because it was designed by an orderly God.) so it's possible to discover its regular laws
(b) man is rational (because he was designed by a rational God and man is in the image of God), so it is possible for us to discover the unive
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See, there are these books...
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How about testability and falsifiability?
Testability: The ability to predict is why I believe in science.
Falsifiability: Which you don't have for mathematical axioms either.
You keep using that word.I do not think it means.. (Score:3, Informative)
...what you think it means.
Falsifiability: Which you don't have for mathematical axioms either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability [wikipedia.org]
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Just as the religious people are hoping for the Second Coming to say to the atheists. Oh Oh here is God he about to put the smack down on you. You should have lived your life based on these values, and now you gonna pay.
Technically, only a small percentage of Christians are actually hoping for the Second Coming, and for those that are, it's for different reasons than you espouse (usually a desire to see the permanent end to war/death/cyclical-suffering). I know quite a few Christians who fervently pray to forestall the Second Coming, hoping for more time to change the hearts and minds of those close to them.
Back on topic: it's a silly name, but easier to remember than Higgs-Boson, so it's here to stay.
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As someone who does not believe in the magic bearded man in the sky and has been pestered for years by those who do, I say to them: please stop. It got old a long time ago, and nothing you say will make me worry about being punished by a supernatural booger man for my failure to adhere to modern human interpretations of ancient human originated scripts.
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the Religious people will probably kill Jesus for the second time, not the atheists.
Religious people didn't kill him the first time, they petitioned their secular government to do it for them but feel free to wash your hands of the whole issue.
Re:Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet? (Score:4, Funny)
Ok. How about the Allah Particle?
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Ok. How about the Allah Particle?
If it creates a black hole that takes out half the galaxy, then yeah, we can call it that.
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About the only relationship to God the Higgs boson has is that there's a whole bunch of people that devote their lives to it, building temples, and yet so far have to take its existence of faith. I sometimes wonder if their zeal isn't more like idolatry than adoration.
Rather than searching for the thing itself, I think it better to reflect on what the thing's existence would mean in the grand scheme of things.
It's Pretentious More Than Annoying (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's just stick to calling it the Higgs Boson. God Particle is just a meaningless snippet that the scientifically semi-literate have latched onto because it sounds cool.
Just like Theory of Everything, actually.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the grandparent post. It isn't the God particle. It isn't the be-all-end-all-explain-everything particle. Discovering the particle won't prove or disprove the existence of a deity. Using the term is annoying AND misleading.
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1) It will explain how the universe was created (or at least bring us significantly closer), from a scientific standpoint. Finding it will not disprove the existence of a deity, nor will not finding it prove the existence of one.
2) It was nick-named that as a tongue-in-cheek 'We think this particle is everywhere but nobody has actually seen it.' (this came from an earlier Slashdot article, you can look it up for yourself later
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
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What do you do to people who call it the "Jenova particle"?
Pretend I'm not home.
Jenova's Witnesses are annoying, they always show up when I'm eating.
It's all about cash (Score:2, Insightful)
CERN needs money badly. By crying out "The Yankees are catching up!" they hope the politicians would hear and pay them more fresh euro.
In this economy, do you really believe the scientists care that much about the God Particle? If your answer is yes, do you really think it's "yes"?
If they lose jobs and food, how can they go on chasing the Higgs particle?
Re:It's all about cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Its very important for us to improve our data base and understanding of physics. While for some it may seem abstract it is often the case that data which at first seems to be inconsequential and a curiosity plays a critical role in developing some new technology. Understanding how atoms work for instance, gave rise to many new inventions that were probably not anticipated originally, such as understanding how transistors work.
Science is very important to solving our economic problems and collecting data allows science to better understand the universe and be able to develop better technologies. I am one who thinks we need to prioritise resources on science and education funding (especially our badly neglected gifted programs to allow high IQ students to fully develop their maximum potential and go through their course as fast as they wish) , and environmental protections.
LHC still important (Score:5, Funny)
Let them find that particle first (Score:3, Funny)
they would say that, wouldn't they (Score:4, Informative)
Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
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LizardKing? From the Triton demogroup?
Even more interesting if they can't (Score:2)
The newsies will never understand this, but it would actually be more interesting and significant if both Fermilab and LHC fail to detect the Higgs.
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Boring (Score:2)
Please stop calling it 'God Particle' (Score:2)
that has to rank as the all time most annoying monikers ever.
Quantum Diaries Survivor [wordpress.com] is perhaps the best blog on whats doing at Fermilab, though it is technically inclined, and is done by a member of CDF
another nice article (Score:3, Insightful)
This is from the Symmetry magazine blog:
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/hunt-for-the-higgs-kicking-into-high-gear/ [symmetrymagazine.org]
There is a lot of talk about this recently because of the AAAS meeting in Chicago. Also here is another neat article (not related):
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/a-first-string-theory-predicts-an-experimental-result/ [symmetrymagazine.org]
Re:...its a 50-50 chance (Score:4, Informative)
Wow thats a worse investment than that stimulus package
You mean it in jest, but the "stimulus package" (aka handout for the rich) is going to provide more ammunition for the robber barons to shoot at us with, whereas these colliders are going to lead to developments in science whether they find this particle or not.
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