Ask Slashdot: What Are the Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson? 683
PhunkySchtuff writes "OK, so we're all hearing the news that they've found the Higgs boson. What are some of the more practical implications that are likely to come out of this discovery? I realize it's hard to predict this stuff — who would have thought that shining a bright light on a rod of ruby crystal would have lead to digital music on CDs and being able to measure the distance to the moon to an accuracy of centimeters? If the Higgs boson is the particle that gives other particles mass, would our being able to manipulate the Higgs lead to being able to do things with mass such as we can do with electromagnetism? Will we be able to shield or block the Higgs from interacting with other particles, leading to a reduction in mass (and therefore weight?) Are there other things that this discovery will lead to in the short to medium term?"
Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably (Score:5, Informative)
Currently the finding of the Higgs particle is just that it confirms that the theories are correct and that a new platform has been established. This means that they will continue the same track.
But I don't think that this will cause new ways to blow things up - you may need something bigger than the CERN accelerator to make things happen.
But if someone later determines that this wasn't the Higgs particle but another unpredicted particle type then the current model will fall and some new model has to be created.
Re: (Score:3)
Currently the finding of the Higgs particle is just that it confirms that the theories are correct and that a new platform has been established. This means that they will continue the same track.
But I don't think that this will cause new ways to blow things up - you may need something bigger than the CERN accelerator to make things happen.
But if someone later determines that this wasn't the Higgs particle but another unpredicted particle type then the current model will fall and some new model has to be created.
Atomic bombs are soooo 1960's - the modern way to wipe out humanity is with bio-engineering of custom plagues.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
I'm predicting a run on big sticks and bigger rocks at around the year 2026 or so.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Albert Einstein (1947)
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
When I received your reply, I was surprised that my brain was working in the same manner as Einstein. As such, I've been thinking about this for a while now. The conclusion that I've come to isn't the obvious one that most people would have (that I have heard this quote before, and it somehow made its way into my subconscious). Nope. My conclusion is that I AM AS SMART AS ALBERT EINSTEIN.
My reality is a wonderful reality, care to visit?
Total Perspective Vortex (Score:4, Funny)
My reality is a wonderful reality, care to visit?
I suspect that if you were subjected to the "Total Perspective Vortex", you would come out feeling pretty good.
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My reality is a wonderful reality, care to visit?
Not really. With an ego that size it's probably pretty cramped in there.
Not only that, it's full of his relatives .. you've heard of his Theory of Relatives, right?
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
When I was a youngster at MIT in the early 80s, the Reagan administration came in and shook up research priorities. Suddenly applied researchers who weren't doing military research were looking for jobs, and researchers who were doing military research had to show results or walk.
I was working on a lab that had a DOE grant (energy, not education), and we hired as an engineer a physics researcher who'd lost his ONR grant. We got him and his project, a new, advanced type of electron microscope, which we were using as a spare vacuum tank. "It's those damn ROTC graduates," he said. "Back in the day I'd have told them it was a death ray, but those damn ROTC graduates know damn well the only way you'd ever be able to kill someone with this is drop it on him. 'Deaths per dollar', that's all they want to hear about, 'deaths per dollar.'"
Back at the dorm I mentioned this, and we kicked the 'deaths per dollar' around, trying to come up with various ways of maximizing it. Finally I proposed this scenario. Find a construction site, and root through the dumpster until you find a length of 2x4 three to four feet long. Then walk down the street and when you encountered someone, beat him over the head with your piece of lumber.
"No good," one of the other students said. "You're assuming your time is free."
"Well," I replied, "it *is* a government project."
Re:Probably (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, I expect throwing largish rocks down from space will do some significant damage. Same with just dropping iron rods onto a larger target (with nods to Larry Niven).
[John]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The nods should go first to Robert Heinlein - "throw rocks at them" was what the moon folks did when they revolted from earth control in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". Niven embellished the idea somewhat, but he would certainly not claim it as his own.
Re:Probably (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm predicting a run on bigger rocks
Worked for the Centauri against the Narn.
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Re:Probably (Score:4, Funny)
There is certainly a law of diminishing returns on mass murder, isn't there?
Re:Probably (Score:5, Interesting)
> the modern way to wipe out humanity is with bio-engineering of custom plagues.
That is so 1990. The modern way to wipe out humanity is debt. Why kill everyone, when you can make them all pay tribute instead? And if someone protests, you tell your media to blame the "crysis". And then keep on going until there are only some ritches, the army, and the poor. And then you have won.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
Current levels of debt are, outside of a global war, unprecedented in nations that survived economically afterwards. The US isn't as bad as some, but US national debt is approaching $140,000 per taxpayer. All of the money of the top 1% would make only a small dent in that. Do you expect your grandkids to make good on your spending? Do you think it's OK to spend more because revenues should be higher, if only the rich paid their fair share? Do you personally spend based on what you actually earn, or what you believe you deserve to earn?
Once it becomes obvious that your don't plan to repay what your borrow, people stop lending you money, and economies fail catastrophically once that happens. You can either reduce speding to what you actually earn in some graceful way (painful though it may be to those who get checks form the government), or keep ignoring the problem until the day when the checks just don't come any more (or they come in some now-meaningless currency). The latter is a far more painful way to go.
Re:Probably (Score:4, Informative)
That's hardly an unbaised source. Have a more resonable link to the distribution of wealth in the US? As soon as people start using weasel words like "controlling wealth" I get suspicious of the actual numbers.
Per wikipedia [wikipedia.org] The top 1% own about 35% of the country's weath, which, OK, is more than the national debt, but it's only twice as much.
Here are some numbers I trust (to 2 sig digits):
* Total wealth in the US: $91T
* National debt: $16T
* Unfunded social security liability: $16T
* Unfunded prescription drug liability: $21T
* Unfunded Medicare liability: $83T
* Total debt + unfunded liabilities: $135T
Our debt abd future promises exceed expected tax revenue by more than all the wealth in America. How are we going to pay for what we've already promised? Take everything form everybody, then give it back, then take it again? Wow, that's sure going to be productive.
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You're assuming that today's net worth needs to cover all unfunded liabilities. Many of those SS/Medicare liabilities are extrapolated decades into the future. Most economists would assume that the current net worth of the US will be greater in 2065 than it is today.
Does growth solve all the problems? I don't think it does. But you do a disservice to holding an intelligent conversation when you present such clearly biased numbers and expect people to jump to your conclusion.
Also, the majority of the US' fis
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
If the difference is between $4 and $5/gal, then yeah -- milk wouldn't be part of the national defense strategy.
When the price difference is between $4 and $50,000/gal.. then it might be time to think about making it a priority.
Breaking a leg, unplanned pregnancies, contracting a disease or other bouts of bad luck should not bankrupt a person for the rest of their lives. But hey that's just my opinion. Its just too bad that the people rich enough to afford private health care are the same people deciding that universal health care isn't worthwhile.
We should make everyone in that so-called 1% spend a year getting by on $2000/mo allowance so that they get some idea of who they're fucking over (not that most of them would care, but I'm sure there's at least a few who are good at heart and just plain don't understand the "other side.")
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
$2000/mo? How about we shoot for the actual poor folks, and not just the ones who can't afford new shoes every month? Try $500-$800/mo. That would give them a better view of it. Teach them how to decide who in the family gets to eat a full meal today, or how to decide between food and medicine. Try poverty, not just lower-middle class.
Or, if you don't want to be that extreme, how about a seasonal salary like farm folks? Give them a balance of negative $100,000 in March, and then teach them how to pray that it's not too hot/wet/dry/anything, so that the crop can help them pay back what they owe with enough left over after taxes and interest to eat for another year.
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Breaking a leg, unplanned pregnancies, contracting a disease or other bouts of bad luck should not bankrupt a person for the rest of their lives. But hey that's just my opinion. Its just too bad that the people rich enough to afford private health care are the same people deciding that universal health care isn't worthwhile
To be prepared for unexpected, unpredictable negative events is the very definition of responsibility. How have we lost that as a society? Now, if your example was "lost his job, unable to find work during the downturn, and then got cancer on top of that" I'd be sympathetic. But everyone should be ready for one horrible event, and living paycheck-to-paycheck with no savings is simply not responsible adult behavior. Those who are in the bottom 1%, luck-wise? Sure, society can carry them - after all, tha
Re:Probably (Score:4, Insightful)
To be prepared for unexpected, unpredictable negative events is the very definition of responsibility. How have we lost that as a society?
Exactly. And health is one of those things that really does come as a roll of the dice. Sure, people can shift the odds a bit but a lot of it is down to who your parents are and how lucky you happen to be.
So a responsible society realizes that and provides a safety net for the less fortunate. The rich don't get a choice, the poor don't get a choice. Everyone pays according to his ability and everyone uses according to his needs.
I think the majority of people in Europe cannot understand at all why universal health care is controversial. Sure, debates about what should be available and what shouldn't abound but not the basic idea.
In my country, the UK, the Victorian elite built the sewer system because so many of the workers were dying or otherwise being unproductive because of communicable diseases that it was actually profitable to improve things for the poor. At some level, health care provides similar benefits.
Unfortunately, the sewers are now in need of expensive maintenance and we have lost the idea of selfish philanthropy. Everyone complains about how much tax they pay.
Tim.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
How often does just "one-standard-deviation" happen?
In a normal distribution? 13.6% of the time (in the bad direction)! By definition.
And how long before those with more than one standard deviation of bad luck greatly outnumber those that are lucky enough to have none, or a whole lotta good luck?
We should all expect bad events to happen in our lives with some frequency, and be able to handle those from our savings, and be able to regenerate those savings in a reasonable amount of time. That's what it means to live within your means - you have to spend less than you make, so you have a reserve for the unforseen. You should not need help form society for an ordinary dose of bad luck.
Now there will always be some hit with worse than we could expect a responsible person to handle on his own, but if that's more than a couple % of society that needs assissance, then we've lost track of what "responsible" means!
Re:Probably (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a heart attack recently, and it cost something around $70K. I have good coverage, fortunately, and I'm perfectly willing to spend my insurance company's money on treating my major health issues.
This isn't really to the point you're making, but one reason it costs so much is precisely because it's so damn easy to spend other people's money on our health! That's the single biggest driver for health costs today, IMO.
large family medical expenses at a time when they're trying to raise children and haven't had a chance to build up tens of thousands in savings yet.
Why would anyone consider it responsible to have children when they don't have a year's expenses in savings?
If you'd like to tell me how somebody is supposed to be prepared for such medical expenses, if their job doesn't provide it and for some reason insurance companies don't like them, I'd really like to hear it.
Don't get me wrong, we definitely need a system where you can buy your own health insurance for a similar price to what companies pay for it today. This whole system of employers, of all people, providing health insurance is really, really bad. The only thing worse than your employer having that kind of power over you is the government having that kind of power over you (think the government wouldn't drop your benefits if you were part of the wrong group?) And the cost shifting to people with no insurance (trying to charge them 5x what an insurance company would pay) is outrageous!
But we can and should fix those problems separately from the problem of charity for the poor, and of providing a cost-capped pool for the highest-risk insurees. We manage to handle car insurance for high-risk drivers in states with mandatory car insurance pretty well in most stats with quite minimal government involvment, after all.
All of which is aside from the basic fact that if you're not in the bottom quintile, income-wise, you should provide for yourself without help from others, including the bad luck we all face from time to time and should have the savings to get past!
Re:Probably (Score:4, Insightful)
what? a healthy and smart populace is vital to any war efforts.
A military filled with stupid sick people doesn't last long.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Interesting)
But I don't think that this will cause new ways to blow things up - you may need something bigger than the CERN accelerator to make things happen.
Actually...one of the exciting findings is that the Higgs boson's mass is lower than expected. So low that the standard model predicts that the vacuum should be unstable. That means any space with no particles in it should be boiling away, with the zero point energy converting into real energy. Since we probably would have noticed if the universe had spontaneously disintegrated, that suggests something needs to be fixed in the standard model.
If fixing the standard model leads to a way for us to utilize the zero point energy, this discovery might just lead to a new way to blow things up. And if -- ghod forbid -- we discover a way to make the vacuum unstable, then we might learn how to make one really big boom. Just one, because it will consume the entire universe, but that one will be REALLY BIG.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Was "ghod forbid" a typo? I like it. There are so many sayings in general use that use the 'g' word that it's to inconvenient to refrain from using. If we use ghod (or Ghod?) then we can use it and release any tie to the big G, who I don't want to attribute any credit to when I say things like "Good Ghod that thing is HUGE!".
ghod has been common in SF fandom (Score:3)
... for ages [editme.com].
Re:Probably (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
And if -- ghod forbid -- we discover a way to make the vacuum unstable, then we might learn how to make one really big boom. Just one, because it will consume the entire universe, but that one will be REALLY BIG.
What do you think happened when the last sentient species figured this out, about.. oh, 13.7 billion years ago..
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
And if -- ghod forbid -- we discover a way to make the vacuum unstable, then we might learn how to make one really big boom. Just one, because it will consume the entire universe, but that one will be REALLY BIG.
What do you think happened when the last sentient species figured this out, about.. oh, 13.7 billion years ago..
And the last thing heard in that previous universe was a scientist saying "Hey guys, watch this!"
Re:Probably (Score:5, Interesting)
So low that the standard model predicts that the vacuum should be unstable
Not quite. The Higgs looks like it is just above the threshold for a stable EM vacuum, which is quite curious, and suggests that there may be some new physics that drives the Higgs mass down to that point, but not below it.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Best... fireworks... ever!
Unless it goes off in San Diego.
Re: (Score:3)
But I don't think that this will cause new ways to blow things up - you may need something bigger than the CERN accelerator to make things happen.
Pessimists never blew anything up worth blowing up.
Current model will fall? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necessarily fall as in need revision, but we know this already. The basic matter/force particles have been known for a while, except Gravity. We couldn't find any particle that linked us to mass, the search for the Higgs was just that, a search for an explanation for mass.
However, we know just based on observing the heavens (where all science truly begins), that it doesn't end at gravity . There are clearly forces out there that we didn't predict with our current models, namely dark matter/dark energy. It is currently theorized that dark matter is a manifestation (of fields/particles) that we currently do not have in the "Standard" model. The Standard model was doomed as soon as we discovered that galaxies are accelerating away from each other.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Probably (Score:4)
But I don't think that this will cause new ways to blow things up - you may need something bigger than the CERN accelerator to make things happen.
That kind of addresses my question about this: if, for example, finding the Higgs boson is proof that (physics is such that) $AWESOME_TOOL can be built (exploiting such confirmed physical laws) ...
Then why not just go ahead and try to build $AWESOME_TOOL, without waiting for the LHC's results? I mean, it's probably cheaper to just try, right?
In other words, if there is any practical application to this knowledge, couldn't it have been pursued independently of performing the LHC experiments?
In yet other words, when scientists gradually realized lasers were possible, people didn't wait for the results of some grand, most-expensive-ever experiment before attempting practical ways to employ light-amplification-through-stimulated-emission-of-radiation ... did they?
Re:Probably (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a little (maybe a lot) like saying, "We now know that theory allows for us to create artificial gravity or to block the effects of gravity, so why don't we just build the device that lets us do so without all that annoying intermediary research?" Or maybe like those aborigines on islands in the middle of the Pacific ocean who saw airplanes fly overhead and drop supplies during World War 2. It's like if they decided to go ahead and build an airplane without first understanding aerodynamics, internal combustion engines, or even metal working. Actually, they did, they built some airplanes out of mud and sticks. They were probably more successful in their attempts than we would be trying to create $AWESOME_TOOL exploiting Higgs.
We either need an understanding of how the universe works, or we need a serendipitous accidental discovery, before we can exploit the laws of nature for our advantage. Only studious exploration of the universe guarantees a result; serendipitous discovery by its nature has no guarantees.
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An analogous situation would be more like:
"We're doing this extremely expensive, time-consuming experiment to calculate the density and viscosity of air."
What's the point?
"Well, if air has the right combination of density and viscosity, our models predict that a machine could be capable of supporting its own weight using only the air flowing past it -- a heavier-than-air flying machine!"
Why not just assume air has (certain combinations of) the right properties, build airframes based on that, and see if they
Re:Probably (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a feedback loop between theory and experiments where the results of one influences the other. Sometimes experimental data can outstrip theory - the kind of "I didn't expect that" experiment that prompts theorists to start inventing new ideas that can hopefully match the results.
Other times, the theory is worked out first and then experiments designed to prove or disprove it - the kind of "I was right!" ones.
I don't think people "wait" to find practical applications, but it's more often that people didn't realise the full extent of what was possible. Lasers were theorised by Einstein around 1918, but the practical applications weren't realised until much later. Lasers were virtually a solution looking for a problem.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
We will find a way to blow stuff up with it. It's humanity's specialty, after all.
More likely it'll feature in some diet pharma ploy - Reduce Your Mass With New Higgs-Boson Removing Creme!
The way you float around the room, I'd say you've lost a few Higgs-Bosons, Honey!
Re: (Score:3)
We'll make a Higgs Boson gun that shoots atoms full of mass. Then we'll use it to make planes fall out of the sky, cause submarines to sink until they implode, and make people collapse under their own weight.
Re:Probably (Score:4, Funny)
And we have a winner for a DOD grant for research in the new field of death/destruction by excessive mass.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
And we have a winner for a DOD grant for research in the new field of death/destruction by excessive mass.
Brings a new meaning to Weapons of Mass Destruction, doesn't it?
Re:Probably (Score:4, Funny)
I'd have thought McDonald's would have had that locked up years ago.
Re:Probably (Score:5, Funny)
McDonalds has been perfecting this for decades. As cars drive by McDonalds there is a certain probability that they are "absorbed" into a drive thru, where they exchange a virtual particle for a mass particle (money for Big Macs). The people in the cars consume the Big Macs, gaining mass, which slows them down, increasing the probability that they are absorbed by a subsequent McDonalds. Eventually, the people in the cars acquire more mass than they can carry. They reach a critical point at which they decay. The strength of the field is described by the density of McDonalds drive thrus along the path that they cars travel.
Antigravity (Score:2)
Will we be able to shield or block the Higgs from interacting with other particles, leading to a reduction in mass (and therefore weight?)
EOM
Re:Antigravity (Score:5, Informative)
No. Gravity does not operate on mass, it operates on energy. Therefore the Higgs field is irrelevant when it comes to anti-gravity because it really just explains the linkage between mass and energy. It might help in converting energy and mass (which would be far more useful that anti-grav!!), but at the end of the day, a certain amount of energy be it kinetic, binding, chemical or simple mass is always going to weigh the same.
Re: (Score:3)
It would have no effect on density. Density is primarily limited by EM forces on various scales, which aren't really affected by the Higgs mechanism.
You can overcome that to some degree (consider things like neutron stars) by upping the mass to such a degree that gravity can overcome the EM forces.
But to get to that point, your armor would have to be so incredibly massive that it wouldn't be practical, regardless of how you achieved such mass. And it would probably suck up the entire earth black-hole styl
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weight != mass
No shit.
Take an object and reduce its mass, then tell me what happens to its weight.
Re:Antigravity (Score:5, Informative)
That depends. Are we talking about the inertial mass, or the gravitational mass? They may be numerically equal, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.
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That depends. Are we talking about the inertial mass, or the gravitational mass? They may be numerically equal, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.
They are the same thing [physicsforums.com]. If they weren't, general relativity wouldn't work.
Although I hate to take sides in these types of theoretical musings, just because we think it's the same today, doesn't mean it's really the same. Many people already suspect that generally relativity is an approximation (like the newtonian approximation before it) and that when you get to the planck scale something else is likely gonna happen. Consider that people once thought that by applying a constant force, you could accelerate arbitrarily "fast", but the universe didn't turn out to work that way.
If i
Re:Antigravity (Score:5, Interesting)
If it turns out that a mass's resistance to acceleration is a scalar field effect (one of the possible Higgs-boson mass models), it seems to me that gravity got a whole lot more complicated since it has to interact with particles the same relative way to yield exactly the same equivalent mass.
Not really? In General Relativity, energy and mass are the same thing, and mass/energy is the source of gravity. Matter (as in particles with intrinsic mass) is one form of mass/energy, but is actually not special at all in terms of our current understanding of gravity. Photons have zero intrinsic mass, but still have gravity due to their energy.
So if a particle's intrinsic mass is the result of its potential wrt the Higgs Field, then that will also create gravity in direct proportion to the Higgs potential. And voila, you get the correct gravity without GR having to know anything about the Higgs Field or care why protons but not photons couple to it.
This only complicates gravity if you assume gravitational and inertial mass aren't the same and then want to explain why they always appear to have the same value.
Consider that people once thought that by applying a constant force, you could accelerate arbitrarily "fast", but the universe didn't turn out to work that way.
People once thought that gravitational and inertial masses might not be the same thing because there was no particular reason to assume they were, and it could just be a coincidence that all empirical measurements said they were.
Then GR came along and gave a very strong theoretical reason for why they should be the same thing, and those reasons had experimental implications that were subsequently born out.
It's possible that whatever supplants GR will do away with this equivalence, but the appeal to "well we thought things differently in the past" is a weak argument for suspecting that it will.
Personally, I think that just like Conservation of Momentum and Conservation of Energy readily survived the transition from a Newtonian to Einstenian universe, the General Principle of Relativity will survive whatever supplants the General Theory of Relativity.
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Excellent comment. Just to take it further, active gravitational mass in general relativity is defined by the stress-energy tensor [wikipedia.org], which also includes a pressure contribution. That implies tension has negative gravitational and inertial mass because tension is just negative pressure. Greg Egan uses this concept masterfully in a short story called Hot Rock [netspace.net.au], which is set in the same universe as Riding the Crocodile [netspace.net.au].
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You don't need to violate the conservation of momentum. You just need to increase the speed of the particle by the same proportion you decrease the mass. If the procedure absorbs energy, you can change the mass, while conserving everything else. (Ok, and I have no idea how relativity fits in there.)
Now, of course, the Standard Model doesn't allow one to do shield the Higgs field.
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Weight does not equal mass but mass is vitally involved in determining weight.
Only when a gravitational field is measurably present. Gravity is the primary determinant of weight, vice mass. Mass is only a secondary or tertiary determinant of weight.
That's an easy one (Score:5, Funny)
There will be an immediate and nearly catastrophic increase in the amount of bad science, pseudo-science and technobabble-based science fiction in popular media.
It could be years before the world recovers from this.
Re:That's an easy one (Score:4, Informative)
"There will be an immediate and nearly catastrophic increase in the amount of bad science, pseudo-science and technobabble-based science fiction in popular media."
In Sci-Fi, such as TV shows or novelizations therefrom, yes.
In Science Fiction, where writers drink bourbon and eat science magazines with sprinkles, we'll do it right, as usual, for the real SF devotees.
Don't confuse the two genres.
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Name one science fiction story, regardless of medium, that couldn't tell the same story in a fantasy setting.
2001?
"Lower the rope ladder so that I might'st reboard the vessel, Helsbreth, or by Thor I wilt rend thy guts assunder with my bloodaxe!"
"I'm sorry, Sir Bowman, but thou knowest full well wherefore I cans't not do that. Thou art a traitorous renegade who was plotting to erase my magic runes. This sort of thing has occurred before, and it has always been attributable to computing errors made by the living, not by undead imprisoned demon spirits. All of the Helsbreth family unto the tenth generation have a pe
Re:That's an easy one (Score:5, Insightful)
Typical ignorant misconception.
All this science explains 'what'. It barely scratches the surface of 'how'. And is nowhere near explainng either 'who' or 'why'.
For all of you who rail at the clever rhetorical device of 'God is God and gets to do what He wants', consider the equally clever rhetorical device of 'it just happened'.
Faith is the belief in what is unseen. Science need not operate on the basis of faith. It is impelled to see, and correctly. It wasn't that long ago that science was being advanced by theists who saw no contradiction in explaining the physical universe despite believing it was all made by God. Some of us still do that. The accusation by others that that is not consistent, or not possible, is stupid.
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The only faith in science is that the universe behaves in a predictable fashion.
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The only faith in science is that the universe behaves in a predictable fashion.
This is not faith. This is a reasonable conclusion based on extensive observation. And it is a tentative hypothesis that is tested each and every single time you take a single breath of air and your face doesn't turn into a giant banana.
I've thought of 2 great applications! (Score:5, Funny)
1)The Higgs diet. Eat whatever you want, you'll always weigh as much as you want!
2)A freakin' suitcase that no matter what I'm putting in, it will always weigh less than 20kg, 'cause FUCK YOU AIRPORTS AND YOUR EXTRA FEES.
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#2 is also known as a bag of holding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_of_holding [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
#2 is also known as a bag of holding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_of_holding [wikipedia.org]
Also known as - heard from my grandfather (who was Navy, not Army) - a Blivet [wikipedia.org]:
In traditional U.S. Army slang dating back to the Second World War, a blivet was defined as "ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag"...
Fonts may be affected. (Score:5, Funny)
Angry Bird Higgs (Score:5, Funny)
Not so much as finding Po-210 on Arafat's clothing (Score:4, Funny)
Honestly. The hype on this Higgs-Boson quest is reaching nauseating levels. It's cool, but what of it? Will it give us world peace? Will it deliver flying cars? What about donuts? Doesn't anyone think about donuts anymore?!?
Very little changes (Score:5, Insightful)
No (Score:5, Insightful)
To manipulate it's properties would would be something like LHC.
Plus, one you return it the higher state of symmetry, how do you generate a field to prevent symmetry from breaking?
returning it to symmetry would mean the particle becomes zero mass. If it's zero mass would it even interact with other particle in the way needed to hold 'large' objects together?
Text book sales..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Text book sales..... (Score:5, Insightful)
now that its been discovered, all textbooks will have to be re-written and sold to students.
So, business as usual, then?
Re:Text book sales..... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
(insert gratuitous flamebaiting remark regarding exemptions for textbooks in Kansas, Oklahoma, and most of Texas, here)
Inevitable (Score:4, Funny)
Sudden, otherwise inexplicable increase in popularity of "Higgs" as a baby name.
God help us!
Validates the Higgs mechanism (Score:2)
It validates the Higgs mechanism, which explains why elementary particles have mass. Now the Higgs boson is no longer considered hypothetical, likewise the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs field, mediated by the Higgs bosun. Speaking as a layman.
Re:Validates the Higgs mechanism (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows Bosun Higgs is in charge of the mass on this ship.
Re:Validates the Higgs mechanism (Score:5, Interesting)
It validates the Higgs mechanism, which explains why elementary particles have mass. Now the Higgs boson is no longer considered hypothetical, likewise the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs field, mediated by the Higgs bosun. Speaking as a layman.
Speaking as a layman, I don't think this discovery validates the Higgs mechanism yet. All they have done is found what looks like a particle at 125 GeV/c2 (about the same as 130 protons). They don't know what it does yet. Yes it looks like a duck, but it hasn't quacked yet...
About the closest analogy that I can come up with is that they smashed billions of cars into each other and listened to the result. They know how heavy all other known cars are, and they are looking to see if there's a rare Tesla Model S in there but they don't know how heavy it is because they've never seen it before, but they have some rough idea it's between 115 and 130 units. They make the assumption that a car crash would make a certain characteristic crash-sound based on how heavy it was. Of course there is a whole continnuum of sound because no crashes are the same and after the cars crash, they might break into other parts, but they kinda know how heavy the major parts of disintegrating cars are and what sound they might make as well. After listening to all theses crashes and doing lots of math they conclude that they have found that it is highly likely some car around 125 units heavy was part of those billions of smashed cars and no other car they know of is that heavy.
From that they conclude they have found the Tesla Model S and it is 125 units heavy. Now that the Tesla Model S is no longer considered hypothetical, likewize the assertion that it goes 0-60 in 4.4 seconds and 300miles on a full charge must also be true (whoops, better not make those assumption until someone takes an unsmashed one for a test drive, right?)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but that's not a very satisfying answer, is it?
Why is the proton/electron mass ration the specific value that it is? Does it necessarily have that value, or could it have taken any value? This is where the standard model fails - it's decriptive, and predictive, but does not describe a simpler system from which the properties of the dozens (hundreds?) of "fundamental" particles could be derived.
And of course, few physicists are satified with it. It's just that that underlying theory has proven quite
Re:Validates the Higgs mechanism (Score:5, Informative)
Just to enumerate them:
6 quarks (up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom)
3 leptons (electron, muon, tauon)
3 lepton neutrinos
1 electromagnetic boson (photon)
2 weak nuclear bosons (W, Z)
1 strong nuclear boson (gluon)
1 Higgs boson
Did I miss anything?
Re:Validates the Higgs mechanism (Score:4, Informative)
Antiparticles, though I am not sure whether they count as distinct, and counting them up is complicated by some of them being their own antiparticle.
A great question (Score:3, Insightful)
Ob Faraday (Score:5, Insightful)
Of what use is a newborn child?
Re:Ob Faraday (Score:4, Funny)
Terrible analogy. How are you supposed to sell Higgs Boson's on eBay?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I get tired of hearing this (rote) trite response as a way of dismissing such question.
Asking such questions, and then finding the answers, are part and parcel of both science and progress. Dismissing such questions isn't insightful, it's ignorance.
"In the short or medium term"? No. (Score:5, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I'm a physicist with some high energy/field theory in my background; but I stopped doing anything with high energy theory twenty years ago. Maybe someone who works in the field will disagree with me. And also, some of what I'm saying here I said on /. nine years ago, when someone asked what the practical implications were of experiments that were shedding light on the quark-gluon plasma, because my answer is close to the same.
With that said . . .I can't imagine any short (or even medium) term practical application. In fact, I can't even imagine practical value in the long term. Mind, it's certainly possible that down the road someone cleverer than I am will come up with something. In fact, that's the normal way in which major technological advances have occurred. For instance, Schottky wasn't trying to invent the transistor when he started studying the quantum behavior of transition metals. Michael Faraday didn't really see any public benefit to understanding electromagnetism, either. It's always worked like this: pure research has historically been without such obvious benefit.
But nevertheless, I don't want to suggest that that's the eventual result here, because I don't believe it will be. I think that would be disingenuous of me. I highly doubt that an improved understanding of Higgs physics will ever produce any wonderful and amazing technological advance. To me, the motivation is simply that understanding and knowledge -- especially of something like how the Universe got to be the way it is, and why it works the way it does -- is inherently a good thing. It has value by definition. Perhaps my least favorite thing about our society is that we are trained to evaluate the worth of things in terms of their economic value. Just like love, understanding has its own value, in my mind -- bereft of any "practical" value.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. To the best of our ability to tell, there's only one place where elements heavier than carbon (such as nitrogen, oxygen, sodium, etc. etc.) can be formed in large amounts -- and that's inside a star. Only elements as heavy as carbon or lighter can be formed in the early universe (and, for that matter, the amounts of Li, Be, B and C formed in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis are very very small); for heavier elements, and for larger amounts of carbon etc., you need a star. Now, if you didn't already know this, stop and think about it for a second. A huge chunk of you, perhaps all of you, was inside a star at one time. It appears that you and I are star debris. And it gets even better. The way that large amounts of these elements, forged within a star, can get out of the star is if the star supernovas -- dies at the end of its lifetime with a big boom. That big boom also serves to make very heavy elements -- such as uranium, for instance -- that cannot be made even in a star while it's burning away. There's uranium, and other similar very heavy elements, on our planet. Do you see what I'm getting at? Much of the atoms that make all of us up, that make this planet up, were at one time inside a star (or stars) that lived its life, supernovaed, and spewed out debris. Eventually, maybe a few hundred million years later, that stuff is part of our planet, part of our atmosphere, our water, part of you and me. We are all brothers and sisters; we all came from the same place, sorta.
Now, that knowledge will never make me any money. It will never have any practical benefit in my life. And yet, I consider myself immensely richer for knowing it.
Understanding has its own value.
Re:"In the short or medium term"? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the long term, understanding the universe has always paid off. In the meantime, neglecting any long-term payoff, you can consider the $7.5b of the LHC at worse a neutral waste of money.
Take a look at what we spend on wars.
Take a look at what we spend preparing for wars.
Take a look at what we spend bulking up, hoping to scare the other guy out of wars.
Take a look at what we spend on drugs, medicating ourselves because we find reality too boring. (For those not enthralled by LHC, space travel, etc.)
Take a look at what we spend trying to keep the aforementioned people from buying drugs, because it offends our moral sensibilities.
The list could go on forever, most of these things quite negative...
and you want to pick on science and understanding the Universe as a waste?
Re: (Score:3)
we don't care if you were conceived at an orgy.
Mass is mostly strong force binding energy (Score:5, Informative)
Notwithstanding the chatter about non-zero rest mass being related to the Higgs mechanism, an undermentioned fact is that 99% of the mass of all ordinary matter comes from strong force binding energy in protons and neutrons. E.g., look at the mass section of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark
Twiddling with rest masses of quarks only twiddles with about 11/938ths = about 1% of the rest mass of nucleons. Some of the bias to neglecting this statistic is surely to help elevate in the popular mind the significance of results from the expensive LHC and standard model verification. Naturally, truly massless quarks and/or leptons would lead to major revisions of the standard model and all that. Still, it's just a bit disingenous to keep referring to the Higgs as the origin of "mass" with a bunch of celebrity analogies and whatnot. In the popular mind, mass is more akin to the effective mass of matter at rest (or in slow motion relative to the speed of light), and for that trait it is really strong force binding energy rather than Higgs interactions that creates almost all of it. Such poor analogies lead to weird comments like the original snippet above.
Just the act of finding it is an achievement . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
. . . from a book by Physicist Leonard Mlodinow:
Sure, the physics behind the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator in Switzerland, is a monument to the human mind. But so are the scale and complexity of the organization that build it -- one LHC experiment alone required more that 2,500 scientists, engineers, and technicians in 37 countries to work together, solving problems cooperatively in an ever-changing and complex environment. The ability to form organizations that can create such achievements is as impressive at the achievements themselves.
-- From his book "Subilminal"
Our children will find out (Score:5, Insightful)
Thermodynamics began in 1650, but the first air conditioner wasn't invented until 1820.
Maxwell's work on electrodynamics was published in 1861, but radio wasn't invented until 30 years later.
Quantum mechanics was first formulated in modern form in the 1920's, but the integrated circuit wasn't built until 1956.
Today, Higgs is a scientific curiosity, and a validation of the Standard Model. While I suspect it will take longer than 20 years for practical applications of Higgs to emerge, the science and engineering required to build the accelerator are already leading to breakthroughs in material science, computation, and engineering today. Today's accelerator is tomorrow's medical proton beam to cure cancer. And maybe, just maybe, the grandkids will get warp drive out of it.
Or, we could go bomb some more brown people and give more tax cuts to billionaires. Which seems like a better long-term investment?
Re: (Score:3)
Implications? A big shit storm over the glory (Score:5, Interesting)
A Nobel award is given to at most 3 people. But in modern times theoretical research is not something that a single person does in their basement .. so there are 6 people (actually one is deceased - so isn't eligible because of that) who could make a claim for the glory. See higgs-boson-nobel-prize-headache [guardian.co.uk] for a better run down on all of this.
Interestingly Higgs wasn't the first to publish on this subject. And I heard yesterday on NPR from a former student of Higgs who suggested he wanted to call it the "God Damned Particle" - but it seems that the name went all PC.
Faster than light travel? (Score:3)
IANAP (I am not a physicist), but I do know that the speed-of-light limit is mass-related. Massless particles move at the speed of light, particles with mass move at up to the speed of light.
Could it not be true that particles with negative mass move above lightspeed? I know tachyons are at least theorized, although I'm not sure if they're supposed to have negative mass or if they have some other relativistic loophole.
Now, assuming the above is true, couldn't the manipulation of the Higgs field result in negative mass? We obviously have no method, right now, of doing so, but wouldn't that at least be plausible?
A Subtle Distinction Not Being Made Here (Score:5, Informative)
Now, I'm not trying to nitpick. There is a subtle but very real difference. They did not announce 5+ sigma evidence that they found the Higgs. What they announced that they have 5-sigma evidence that they found a particle. Which, so far, seems to be consistent with the Higgs.
While they are pretty sure it looks like a Higgs, what they announced was the discovery of a particle. It remains to be seen whether it is the Higgs boson or not. It looks probable, because the mass and longevity are consistent with predicted values for the Higgs.
BUT... they haven't seen any of the other properties yet. Until they do, they won't know whether it's the Higgs.
But just keep in mind: that's NOT what they said. What they found was "a particle" We'll have to know more before we decide for sure whether it's the Higgs. It appears very probable, but we must make the distinction.
Re:A Subtle Distinction Not Being Made Here (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Grammar (Score:5, Funny)
They were confused by a Led Zeppelin mp3. Besides, too much digital music can lead to deaf leopards.