LHC To Narrow Search For Higgs Boson 99
New submitter mraudigy sends this quote from Physorg:
"CERN scientists say their data from two main experiments using CERN's $10-billion Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border will be made public next Tuesday, but any firm discovery will have to wait until next year. They say the data helps narrow the region of the search because it excludes some of the higher energy ranges where the Higgs boson might be found, and shows some intriguing possibilities involving a small number of 'events' at the lower energy ranges."
Physics (Score:2)
Re:Physics (Score:5, Funny)
actually at the energies involved it is pretty damn hot.
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I dunno. An electronvolt is about 1.6 x 10^-19 J, which means a teraelectronvolt is still only 1.6 x 10^-7 J, which Wikipedia helpfully says is the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito (the bug kind, not the WW2 aircraft). The energy of a mosquito, distributed over the entire collision chamber, doesn't seem to be a lot.
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It's like comparing a truck and a mosquito sitting on the road in front if it.
Re:Physics (Score:4, Informative)
That's the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito per proton. The whole beam is supposed to have the kinetic energy of an aircraft carrier.
But you're thinking heat. Temperature is different. According to the conversion on Wikipedia, 1 TeV is just over one thousand trillion degrees. That's pretty hot.
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The whole beam is supposed to have the kinetic energy of an aircraft carrier.
So when can we expect this in a hand held, beam weapon form? Or should we just be welcoming our new mosquito overlords?
Re:Physics (Score:4, Funny)
Well, the LHC is currently 27 km in circumference and uses something like 120 MW, all in. So there is some work to do on miniaturization and battery technology before the hand held model is available.
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Ah, "one" thousand trillion degrees. Is that degrees Kelvin, Celsius or Fahrenheit?
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Nobody uses Fahrenheit for scientific stuff. Kelvin doesn't have degrees. So it's Celsius, although the difference between Kelvin and Celsius is negligible OVER 9000!!!!
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Take your pick. There's enough rounding in there that the difference between Kelvin and degrees C is irrelevant. True, it didn't strike me that anyone might think it was in Fahrenheit. Nor any of the other weird old temperature scales.
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The motion of the particles in the beam is mostly collimated, so doesn't count as thermal energy. To be considered "thermal" energy, it's the random motion of the particles about the object's centre of mass that is considered, not the net motion of the particles as a whole.
Consider this thought experiment : prepare a couple of Dewar flasks, one filled with liquid helium at a couple of Kelvin, and the other containing liquid zinc at about 600K. Sittin
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Maybe we haven't identified all the places to look in our limited understanding of nature. So, sure we have axed a few "known" anthropomorphic places, but maybe we don't know WTF anyway. Socrates would say that we know nothing and this is really a search for nothing. For instance, what if the effect we attribute to a particle is responsible when hundreds of particles interact in aggregate? Maybe this is all being handled, but one particle to rule them all seems like it is an idea out of fantasy.
Re:Physics (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, what if the effect we attribute to a particle is responsible when hundreds of particles interact in aggregate? Maybe this is all being handled, but one particle to rule them all seems like it is an idea out of fantasy.
We understand different things at different levels. And when we do not have some fundamental understanding, we build what we call effective theories. It may very well be that the Higgs boson is composed of other particles. Even if it is, this entity has a role in interactions, which is not diminished whether it is composite or fundamental.
Take the atom. It was indivisible for a long long time. Then we figured out there was a nucleus, 99.9% empty space and electrons. Then the nucleus turned out to have protons and neutrons. And then it turned out that protons and neutrons are made of quarks and gluons.
At each level, we can have a working tool that explains to a good level of accuracy what is happening at that level. Take the example of gravity: Newton's laws work for 99% of what we do. There is no need to go for Special or General Relativity until you really consider gravity in scales which are not human: galaxies, etc.
So, no one is looking for a particle to rule them all. And no one is claiming that we have finally reached a final understanding of matter. Or energy.
In fact, finding the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model would fill in a piece in the puzzle, but not finish all puzzles.
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You should look up what anthropomorphic means, or sometime try searching the web for "anthropomorphic fantasy" as you've used in other posts. You might be mixing up anthropocentric and anthropomorphic.
And all the "Is it real?" stuff on a deeper level is outside the realm of science. If two descriptions are physically indistinguishable, science won't differentiate between them and picking one or the other is a matter of what is easier to work with or for pedagogical purposes. What scientists assume about
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Maybe we haven't identified all the places to look in our limited understanding of nature. So, sure we have axed a few "known" anthropomorphic places, but maybe we don't know WTF anyway. Socrates would say that we know nothing and this is really a search for nothing. For instance, what if the effect we attribute to a particle is responsible when hundreds of particles interact in aggregate? Maybe this is all being handled, but one particle to rule them all seems like it is an idea out of fantasy.
I'm sorry, but blindly applying the zeroth order concept of epistemology and then namedropping Socrates really doesn't give you the pass to blindly comment on something that you can't remotely grasp...
Re:Physics (Score:5, Interesting)
Not finding the higgs may be the most exciting thing the LHC does. Finding it will be boring.
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Well, yes.
Finding the Higgs boson would confirm current models. Not finding it opens up for a possibility that the universe is even more interesting than previously thought.
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Heh (Score:2)
It is almost as boring as a huge discovery that shapes an entire area of knowledge can be. The only except is that we'll know the actual mass.
Re:Physics (Score:4, Insightful)
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The positive spin is that "this is exciting because now there are fewer places to look."
You call that spin? I call it scientific advance. Is there anything else you can do with science other than exclude hypothesis? Before the LHC, the Higgs boson could not exist below 114 (let me gloss over the units) nor between 150 to 170 or so.
The last results from the LHC excluded it from 140 to more than 500. That means that any theory predicting a Higgs boson in that range just went out the window.
Let's see what comes up on the 13th.
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Time to check again (Score:5, Funny)
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It's been awhile since I've checked.
You haven't added the atom feed [hasthelarg...rldyet.com]?
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Ha ha, Viewing the source code is even funnier: if (!(typeof worldHasEnded == "undefined")) { document.write("YUP."); } else { document.write("NOPE."); }
That code obviously isn't peer reviewed. Shouldn't it say if(!(typeof theWorld == "undefined")) ...? The variable worldHasEnded will require updating to indicate that it has ended, which will be impossible once it actually ends.
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I'm sure some divine spaghetti entity will take care to flip the variable on the way out.
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Re:Time to check again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:scientists can be as bad as religion (Score:5, Insightful)
the LHC is a great idea, and is giving us insight to how the universe works.
IT's not a waste of money.
Sciecen is not a religion.
to Quote Tim Minchin:
Science adjusts its views
Based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation,
so that belief can be preserved.
That why science can not be a religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U [youtube.com]
Until you can grasp that, please don't think you can sit at the adult table.
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Totally with you on the "not a religion". That's a dumb meme.
As for "not of waste of money", I'd call that "not proven", at least in the case of the LHC. Maybe yes, maybe no. Worth the gamble, in my opinion, though it's close. $9 billion buys an awful lot of research into, say, batteries or cancer treatment.
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What makes you think that what we learn from the LHC won't have an application in batteries and cancer treatment?
What makes you think that my intensive study of my navel lint won't have applications in batteries and cancer treatment? Worth at least a billion, don't you think?
I'm all for basic research, but there's a vast ton of basic research that could be funded. The LHC puts nine billion eggs in one basket. Maybe it'll pay off in the biggest, most amazing new technology of all time. Maybe it'll tick off a box on the Standard Model that we can hang on our wall and gaze at proudly.
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What makes you think that my intensive study of my navel lint won't have applications in batteries and cancer treatment?
What aspect of your naval lint are you studying and could you give me a budget breakdown?
Maybe it'll tick off a box on the Standard Model that we can hang on our wall and gaze at proudly.
Just like all those other useless aspects of the standard model that we never really needed to know.
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But nice try.
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Not sure if you are being sarcastic. Space-time fabric sounds like anthropomorphic fantasy. Have you touched a space-time fabric? How do you know it is real and not just a man-made model that is coincidental with nature? Is coincidence the same thing as reality? Sounds like religion. Does that mean it is any less useful? Nope.
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I am not sure why you want to conclude stuff, but your conclusion is incorrect. Because we do not know if there ARE x-rays does not make the fact that we understand that a given set of inputs dependably generates a set of outputs less useful. To say that there is in fact x-rays IS A religious assertion as we may discover/invent that x-rays are a combination of thousands of phenomena. Does that mean it is any less useful?
If we know so much about particles and what we know is nature, then why do we need a par
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Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very go
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... the difference between a mathematical model of how some scenario behaves, and a religion, is enormous. Can I check - is that actually your point? Because physics is, ultimately, a collection of algorithms that tell us how we expect a given situation to evolve. Nothing more, and nothing less. The interpretation of gravity as the "bending" of the "fabric" of spacetime comes from an extremely successful (and, when applied outside of its range of validity, inaccurate) set of algorithms. [Total aside: it's e
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It is religion if we say that science produces knowledge that is reality.
As I see it, science is a technology that produces higher qualities of usable knowledge. Religion does not produce knowledge. It is apples and oranges when arguing one against the other.
My other argument is that if science is BS, as Socrates may say, it is very effective knowledge. Do we care if it is reality so long as my plane can create lift or that I can power my computer with electricity? No, so long as the algorithms that create
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pffffft! I'M warping the space-time fabric all the way out to infinity.
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Ah, a philosopher. Who quotes dead Greeks and can't spell "cite."
A little less "adult table" and a little more listening and you might learn something.
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Hmm, a comment about nothing. I was not aware that it has been decided that quoting dead Greeks is foolish.
The adult table was not my remark but I am all ears for any wisdom you would like to share.
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Um, just because we do not know reality, does not mean that our models are not useful. Is that what I said?
I am seriously attributing more value and wisdom to one Greek than the mass of human knowledge. I actually think that this one Greek is the grandfather of modern philosophy of which the scientific method sprung from.
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Ehm...they can be credited for have gotten the ball going on philosophy, but that ball has grown much bigger since then.
The scientific method we have now we can attribute to much more recent philosophers....which used the reflections from philosophers past that, and on and on and on.
The scientific method we have today we can thank Karl Popper for, and its more then just testing, its about how you use the results to come to conclusion...and quite often, making sure you don't.
http://xkcd.com/683/ [xkcd.com]
Such epistemo
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It can be. Just declare the all encompassing laws that govern the universe as your god. A god that has commanded you to swell upon its meaning.
Re:scientists can be as bad as religion (Score:5, Insightful)
coming up with wacky ideas to collect & consume HUGE sums of money, at least science comes up with something good on occasion but the LHC is not one of them
Wacky ideas to collect & consume huge sums of money? I take it you've never encountered a collection plate. The Higgs field is not just something pulled out of a hat, it is a heavily studied and well developed theory that fits well into the standard model as we know it. The LHC is one of the best, if not the best, possible chance for humanity to verify the correctness of our understandings of the universe insofar as we've developed it. Like Sagan said, stardust thinking about stardust. Sentient intelligence forming theories and models of the nature of our own existence. While it can be claimed that religion attempts to do the same thing, scientific endeavors such as the LHC push the limits of understanding in ways that religion will never, ever do by its very nature.
Some scientist can have an almost religio-fanatical belief in unproven theories, but equating the collective sum of brilliant minds at LHC to fringe theorist is a travesty and misleading to those who abide by the scientific method.
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And a group of scientists have never been wrong even if they work at the LHC? Right. I think a little humility is needed. Because their heads are big and full of nothing, as Socrates would say, they must be respected? Gimme a break. They could all be morons in the context of the next horizon in human understanding of nature. Sure, they have a great understanding of old theories and old math, but that does not mean in anyway that this knowledge translates into the next generations of knowledge.
Re:scientists can be as bad asThe humilit religion (Score:2)
My point was that in general, hard-line religion does not participate in the 'discard the old and wrong and in with the new and less wrong' philosophy. Sure there are religious scientist and spiritual physicist and
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I was more commenting on the assertion about the collective sum of brilliant minds. My point was that they may be the most brilliant minds of what we "know" today. But it is entirely possible we have exhausted the models we have produced based on this current state knowledge. These minds might be fruitlessly spinning their wheels in the mud without some sort of breakthrough that throws away old assumptions and theories. But because they are brilliant means nothing is what I am saying.
I agree that science,
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Were the theories of Einstein built on old knowledge?
Quite so. The mathematics of non-euclidian geometry. Differential equations. Integral calculus. All The Prior Physics Knowledge Before Him. Newtonian physics. The key takeaway I present is that yes, while Newtonian physics is not 100% an explanation, it does a damn good well job within certain experimental limits. Not to mention that all of these topics existed before Einstein, but all of these topics were used as springboards in his miracle year to further develop photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, a
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"can be" != "are", and you know what? Religion can be as bad as science. The Vatican does some fairly important astro work.
... science comes up with something good on occasion but the LHC is not one of them
And you can explain definitively why that's so? I'll make popcorn.
No really. I'm making popcorn.
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Let me ask you, are MRIs something you consider useful? The work done by scientists to get the superconducting magnets setup and working on the tevatron resulted in knowledge and skills needed to make the superconducting magnets used in MRI systems. The work at the LHC provides cutting edge experience working with superconducting magnets and power systems, ultrahigh speed electronics, distributed storage and computing systems, high bandwidth networking and that's aside from the purely scientific benefits.
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Yeah, those "huge" sums of money to fund the entire LHC project. $10 billion eh?
Let's put it another way - would you prefer to have the whole LHC project in its entirety, or 2 weeks of the Iraq War?
Have the troops come home a couple of weeks sooner than planned and you get the LHC for free!
Re:Source for the bizarre CERN-mania today? (Score:5, Informative)
It means there are now tight limits on where it could possibly be. No-one is claiming it's been found (well, other than the tabloid press you mention who've been doing the damndest to do exactly that), but that now there are only narrow ranges where it could lie. The nice thing is that they *are* ranges. I'm old enough to remember when all we could say about the mass of the Higg's boson was that it was above something like 100GeV, and now we know that if it does exist, it's in increasingly narrow sections of parameter space.
What I'd like is that it isn't there. Partly because I've never been entirely comfortable with the Higg's (or in some respects the direction of particle theory since about 1970 or so), but mainly because if it is there I'm liable to lose a bet I'd much rather have won.
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There are some "unoficial and unconfirmed" anouncements that some 3 sigma events were found... Well, and there are some anouncements that the Sun will raise tomorrow.
Why people would consider any of those news, I can't explain. (Except, of course the people that want and have the means to test the 3 sigma events. For them, that information is usefull.)
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The Guardian and the BBC are hardly tabloid-class but they're still hyping the announcement. Both feel something important is going to be said, though both also say that no physicist actually believes so.
The news is likely of some sort of signal that doesn't meet the 5 sigma requirement of a discovery but which does look promising. As The Guardian notes, most of the other announcements of the "excluded range" kind have been given by junior staffers and not the top brass, which means it has to be something b
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the energies are much too low right now to have discovered the Higgs boson.
Please make that: "the amount of data is much too low [...]". The energies are fine.
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So what's the news here? If you exclude it from range X, doesn't that still leave ranges Y and Z and the potential for not finding it at all? What's new?
Well, consider the problem of where can planets be with respect to their star and still sustain life as we know it. It's narrow: too close, too hot; too far, too cold.
The fact that there is a range left can gives you big insights into what the physical world has to look like just because the Higgs cannot be in a given range (or we would have seen it).
More generally, this is the only thing science can actually do: reject hypothesis. We are always left with some possibilities. But we progress by discarding po
what does a Higgs look like? (Score:5, Informative)
I read recently they are still studying an energy bump in the final runs of the Tevatrron. Whether it really exists and possibly a new particle.
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You are bang on.
A Higgs boson in our detectors (disclaimer: I am one of the people searching for that darn thing in one of the LHC experiments) is borne out starting by saving the "right" combination of particles detected in a given collision. Then we see if the particles detected (leptons, photons, etc) in each event resemble what the Standard Model theory predicts. In most cases we need to accumulate a lot of collisions until we can say that there is something.
It's a rare beast. Patience is needed and som
I guess ... (Score:3)
Oh gawd (Score:1)
I think a survey should be taken if we really believe that a Higgs particle exists. What if a Higgs effect is made up of hundreds of particles that when considered in whole look like Higgs? Because our anthropomorphic models predict the particle does not mean we will find it in nature. Gravity is a similar concept, but very useful despite not knowing what gravity is.
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Been done [guardian.co.uk] and the consensus is that Nobel-winning physicists like ponies and limericks but not Higgs bosons.
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I think a survey should be taken if we really believe that a Higgs particle exists.
That's not how science works. Science is about collectively investigating different models in the quest for one that fits with experimental data. Ideally a single scientist with a better model ought to be able to overthrown the consensus of the global community. In practice that sort of thing often takes a long time. Einstein famously won his Nobel prize for his down to earth discoveries about the photoelectric effect, not for relativity, because back then a lot of the science community hadn't had time to a
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Actually there are models that do that, and it would be called a "composite Higgs". If there's a composite Higgs I pay out less in my bet than if it's a single Higgs. It's still a Higgs though.
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We don't "believe" a Higgs particle exists any more then we "believe" oxygen is a bi-radical molecule with two unpaired electrons that occupy a pair of orbitals...
As scientists, we form theories and models to explain the observations we make and find the ones that fit. When we found that G = H -TS we didn't set it as immutable fact, merely that the equation has stood the test of time over many repeated experiments and observations of real world experiments.
I say "I believe" in an imprecise manner - it's mer
Higgs has been discovered!! (Score:2)
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Who questioned God? Why is even God being brought to this discussion?
The Dec 13th seminar (Score:3, Informative)
Page where the Dec 13th talk material will appear:
http://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=164890 [indico.cern.ch]
We Haven't Failed (Score:1)
They say the data helps narrow the region of the search because it excludes some of the higher energy ranges where the Higgs boson might be found
"We haven't failed a thousands times. We've just found a thousand ways NOT to make a Higgs Boson"