The Higgs Boson Should Have Crushed the Universe 188
astroengine writes: This may seem a little far fetched, but if our understanding of the physics behind the recently-discovered Higgs boson (or, more specifically, the Higgs field — the ubiquitous field that endows all stuff with mass) is correct, our Universe shouldn't exist. That is, however, if another cosmological hypothesis is real, a hypothesis that is currently undergoing intense scrutiny in light of the BICEP2 results. "The mathematics to arise from accepted Higgs field theory suggests the universe is currently sitting comfortably in a Higgs field energy 'valley.' To get out of this valley and up the adjacent 'hill,' huge quantities of energy would need to be unleashed inside the field. But, if there were enough energy to push the universe over the hill and into the deeper energy valley next door, the universe would simply, and catastrophically, collapse.
This is where the BICEP2 results come in. If their observations are real and gravitational waves in the CMB prove cosmological inflation, the Higgs field has already been kicked by too much energy, pushing the Higgs field over the energy hill and deep into the neighboring valley’s precipice! For any wannabe universe, this is very bad news — the newborn universe would appear as a Big Bang, the Higgs field would become overloaded with an energetic inflationary period, and the whole lot would vanish in a blink of an eye."
This is where the BICEP2 results come in. If their observations are real and gravitational waves in the CMB prove cosmological inflation, the Higgs field has already been kicked by too much energy, pushing the Higgs field over the energy hill and deep into the neighboring valley’s precipice! For any wannabe universe, this is very bad news — the newborn universe would appear as a Big Bang, the Higgs field would become overloaded with an energetic inflationary period, and the whole lot would vanish in a blink of an eye."
Phew, it was a near miss! (Score:3)
We barely avoided this catastrophe!
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Did we?
Maybe we didn't. Maybe it happened around 14 billion years ago...
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Or we had it and that's what happened to all the anti-matter - they got kicked over the hill and into the valley of oblivion.
Or just got invited to a wedding by George R.R. Martin.
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We barely avoided this catastrophe!
No thanks to Obama.
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If JJ Abrams or Michael Bay are in charge, you bet there will be a crew of 10 sent to solve the problem after Chuck Norris goes MIA, and also bring him back by presidential order. Then the movie will end with Norris and just 3 of the search party returning after successfully re-setting the field. Oh, and a lightning bolt emerging from a black hole will hit the Statue of Liberty. Lens flares will be massive.
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You forgot the explosions. And the time travel.
just one more Chuck Norris kick, and it's gone (Score:2)
so to prove the power of a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick, we will have to fire up the CERN supercollider to ever higher and ever higher energies, until we can record the exact one that makes the universe go "poof."
then add 3, and there you have it.
our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:5, Funny)
our Universe shouldn't exist.
Maybe it doesn't
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Indeed. All this is really just an elaborate intelligence test. Seems to me that most people fail and that includes the particle-physicists...
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Wake up, gweihir. The matrix has you.
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More logically with time just being a relative measure of change and that relative change itself being significant to itself the amount of time it takes is arbitrary. So relative motion with the sub dimensions of rest, constant speed and acceleration from and deceleration to rest, rather than completely arbitrary time which itself is only ever measured against change, is the more logical.
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I think that time and space aren't relative at all, they are the same thing. I mean the expansion of space and the passage of time are the same thing. The implication is the time travel is impossible because both the future and the past do not exist.
Matter with mass slows down the expansion of space and so it also slows the passage of time. Time slows near a black hole. The vast emptiness between galaxies allows the space between to expand more and more rapidly.
Perhaps if space expands too fast it rips
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Yeah sure.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re... [sciencedaily.com]
Re: our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:1)
No fly list (Score:2)
Can you fly when you want to?
That depends on how this ruling against no fly lists [slashdot.org] holds up on appeal.
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There is no spoon!!
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I think, therefore I am.
Assuming that a thought requires a medium, even if I am a figment of something else's imagination that imagination defines this universe as it is.
Of course, when observing from within there is no way we can tell if a thought really requires something to carry it or if the concept of it is sufficient for it to exist. (*)
* Since everyone can be wrong and by definition not knowing that they are wrong there is no way to prove any statement to be correct, including this one. Note that thi
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I think, therefore I am.
Assuming that a thought requires a medium, even if I am a figment of something else's imagination that imagination defines this universe as it is. Of course, when observing from within there is no way we can tell if a thought really requires something to carry it or if the concept of it is sufficient for it to exist. (*)
* Since everyone can be wrong and by definition not knowing that they are wrong there is no way to prove any statement to be correct, including this one. Note that this isn't a paradox, this statement can be correct even if its correctness is non-provable.
Though "this universe as it is" may be very different from "this universe as we think it is", or "this universe as 'observed' by us" as observation could just be a dream or simulation
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There is no spoon.
Re: our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:5, Interesting)
The difficulty with anonymous cowards is knowing when one is the same person. The coward to which Chrisq was responding was appeal to Descartes. The problem with Descartes is that you can only prove your own existence to yourself. In the event of some higher power deceiving you, the only proof you have is of your own existence. So even though you and others say that there's no evidence that I'm existing in a dream or simulation there's no way for me to verify their existence.
Re: our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:5, Funny)
The problem with Descartes is that you can only prove your own existence to yourself. In the event of some higher power deceiving you, the only proof you have is of your own existence.
That's just what happens when you put Descartes before the horse.
Re: our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't be too hard on Hume.
Bomb Philosophy (Score:5, Funny)
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Dark star was a bomb!
seriously, mod parent up +10
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and of course along with being no way to verify it....if its true, then in this scenario if the entire exercise is setup to convince you that its real, you may as well assume that it is, since not being real has no actual consequence. If there is a God/Creator/Simulator then he has certainly gone through some rather extreme lengths to hide his existance from us.
if this is a simulation....Kudos to the Creator; It seems real as fuck to me. GJ.
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"The difficulty with anonymous cowards is knowing when one is the same person. The coward to which Chrisq was responding was appeal to Descartes. The problem with Descartes is that you can only prove your own existence to yourself. In the event of some higher power deceiving you, the only proof you have is of your own existence. So even though you and others say that there's no evidence that I'm existing in a dream or simulation there's no way for me to verify their existence."
while i can't prove that i exi
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Sort of. Let's assume the condition that you are attempt to infer whether or not your existed is inside a deception or not. You know you think so you are capable of affirming your own existence. Note that this affirmation needs to be accomplished without any external stimuli so no senses. From that root you can then establish the criteria and basis by which you determine something's existence. However that doesn't answer the question on whether these other things actually exist, it only answers the question
Re: our Universe shouldn't exist. (Score:4, Insightful)
I like Conan the Barbarian's answer (minus the hint of racism):
"Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
- Queen of the Black Coast, Robert E. Howard
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Regretfully, we do indeed have evidence the universe is a simulation:
http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
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[quote]It's generally pointless to suggest that something might exist if there is no evidence towards it.[/quote]
That statement, if true, would seem to make the field of theoretical physics pointless.
I think modern theoretical physicists do a fine job of that on their own.
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Theoretical physics is still based on the math working with known facts. The evidence is the
known facts and the laws of math. Of course it may or may not be possible to construct a
universe that doesn't always follow the laws of math.
No and Higgs Boson is an example of why this is so. HB was proposed and experiments done that finally confirmed it. What the original poster said was that "...it is pointless to suggest something exists if there was no evidence towards it."
Theoretical physics starts with a hypothesis and then works to find the evidence. Actually, this is not specific to theoretical physics as it is inherent in the scientific method. Suggesting something exists is called a hypothesis. One then tries to find evidence to sup
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Math working out isn't evidence. We construct math to describe the universe, not the other way around. Interesting mathematical findings (particularly symmetries) can suggest areas to look for new physics, but can never in themselves be evidence of physics.
A corollary of this is that there is no such thing as a universe that doesn't follow the "laws" of math -- if a universe was constructed that it couldn't be described using our known math, we'd just come up with new math that can describe it. Excluding
False vacuum (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't this the same as false vacuum theory?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
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It's a false vacuum model, yes. Which is both exciting and quietly terrifying.
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I found an older article about the Higgs field instability itself; the instability arises because the field can be much stronger, leading to much higher particle masses and thus the big crunch alluded to. Although that's assuming that inertial and gravitational mass are still the same thing in such a domain...
http://www.livescience.com/273... [livescience.com]
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Actually I got this wrong, the large masses are a consequence of the instability, the instability itself arises because the Higgs self-interaction can, if these results are correct, become attractive at high energy densities (similar to those predicted for inflation). At that point it's all downhill.
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Specifically, Zombie Feynman.
That's not far fetched. (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't seem far fetched at all that we don't fully understand the physics behind the Higgs boson. I'd rather say it's OBVIOUS that we don't understand the physics behind it.
A non-crushed universe should be proof enough that our current theories are missing something.
Re:That's not far fetched. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the interesting and not obvious result is in which ways our theories are incomplete, which guides the search for better ones.
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Probably can be easily fixed, just add a minus.
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It doesn't seem far fetched at all that we don't fully understand the physics behind the Higgs boson.
Indeed, but you miss the mark. What we don't understand is the physics *around* the Higgs. It's existence has implications that still have to be thought about. It will take a considerable amount of brainpower and time.
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A non-crushed universe should be proof enough that our current theories are missing something.
IANAP, but this seems easy to explain. We are observing our universe from the inside; To outside observers in other universes, our universe is crushed! We just can't tell because we, too, are crushed.
Is that how IANAx works?
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To outside observers in other universes, our universe is crushed! We just can't tell because we, too, are crushed.
Futurama 4ACV15: "The Farnsworth Parabox", especially the last scene.
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It's just further evidence that I am just a brain in a jar somewhere and you and everything else are figments of my (now apparently flawed) imagination. Sorry about all the misery and suffering n' stuff. But on the bright side, it's not really real.
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That there is /. in it should have been a giveaway that your imagination was flawed from the begining...
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The most amazing thing about the universe is the smaller something gets the more complex it is. Which is at odds to our general world view, where larger things are more complex then smaller things.
Just the fact the odds that we are hear thinking about it is such amazingly low probability Infinity/finite is practically 0% chance that we exist.
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where larger things are more complex then smaller things
... then larger things again?
(pet peeve)
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Or perhaps (Score:2)
we are on the way towards a "Big Crush" and we just haven't figured out the mechanics yet.
Damn (Score:2)
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You forgot a towel. *shakes his head at noobs*
CERN (Score:3)
http://news.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
Perhaps, we will meet God at last.
And then the new, 100 km in diameter, Collider will be constructed at CERN.
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I don't think there is a risk. Unless all those black holes are what explains the Fermi-Paradox...
LHC live-cam: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
Observations and measurements disagree (Score:5, Interesting)
The logical conclusion is that, because the current universe clearly exists, there is something wrong with either the BICEP2 measurements, conclusions or the theory of the Higgs field. IMO the first 2 options seems the most likely to contain an error. This kind of measurements is extremely complicated and a lot of assumtions are made to get from the raw data to the conclusions. The Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BICEP2) already states that they are backing down a bit and investigating alternative explainations.
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See, this is what I thought as well. The Higgs was well predicted and made sense in the standard model, and our measurements at the LHC seem to back up what physicists were speculating. On the other hand, BICEP2 is a much newer result and there's considerable controversy about whether it's a real result or a mistake.
So why would you automatically jump to the conclusion that the HIGGS was the problem? You've already got the other half of the equation under review. Shouldn't we wait to see if the BICEP2 resul
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See, this is what I thought as well. The Higgs was well predicted and made sense in the standard model, and our measurements at the LHC seem to back up what physicists were speculating. On the other hand, BICEP2 is a much newer result and there's considerable controversy about whether it's a real result or a mistake.
So why would you automatically jump to the conclusion that the HIGGS was the problem?
The last paragraph of the Royal Astronomical Society press release seems to be agreeing with you, suggesting that an error in the BICEP2 result (or, rather, its interpretation) is the most likely explanation:
"If BICEP2 is shown to be correct, it tells us that there has to be interesting new particle physics beyond the standard model" Hogan said.
IIRC, the BICEP2 result, if interpreted as resulting from inflation, indicates a surprisingly strong inflation event. The above quote su
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Well, that's because when you're hunting for grants, it's far easier to get funding for something close to what everyone is used to than to get a grant to study something farfetched. And scientists are basically paid for by grants.
The grant committee doesn't want to hear farfetc
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Cut him some slack, he's just an undergrad. He won't find out that he doesn't know anything until later.
Sounds like a Patrick Stewart speech (Score:1)
More like astrophysicist porn... (Score:1)
Symmetry (Score:1)
Crush Groove (Score:1)
Higgs Smash!
hmm that is interesting (Score:2)
interesting things herald good science. Uncertainty and a collection of speculative theories are a good thing.
"Hmm, that is interesting" > "Eureka!"
Dammit! (Score:1)
Dammit!
If they collapse the probability wave function and it results a universe collapse, I'll be seriously depressed.. Practically crushed about it..
Why not the same local minimum? (Score:2)
Do deeper lows actually somehow attract the evolution of the field, or did $Deity flip a coin that, fortunately for us, came out heads instead of tails?
So what you're saying is that there's still hope! (Score:2)
I would not mind if it all just went away in an instant. It would sure save a lot of trouble.
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There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that. --Albert Camus The Myth Of Sisyphus
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The best thing is you won't feel a thing or even see it coming!
Spaghettification, fire, drowning, blunt force trauma, radiation poisoning... all rather painful even if only for a split second. This, it even prevents the electrons from being picked up and interpreted as pain!
Yes, it could be but is it AG? (Score:4, Funny)
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I never trusted the Andromedans and we are just trusting them not to energize the Higgs field?
I think they are too busy trying to win the Wimbledon.
narf (Score:3)
The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to push the universe up the energy hill!
Egad!
Finally!! (Score:1)
Now we know where to build the restaurant!
The explanation is obvious... (Score:2)
deism (Score:2)
Obviously, God siphoned off the excess energy.
Maybe our universe was crushed... (Score:1)
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Woops! (Score:1)
Pure Bull Shit (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Pure Bull Shit (Score:5, Informative)
1) The higgs field instability is an inherent part of the higgs model; it falls out of the mathematics surprisingly simply and is years-old news at this point. Whether it's a practical concern rather depends on the masses involved, and there's every chance it will go away with improved models
2) The author isn't claiming that the Higgs doesn't exist. Regardless, we know that something more exotic than the standard model exists, because we general relativity and QM continue to be bitterly incompatible
3) There's no graviton in the standard model, and no obvious way to add one, nor any experimental evidence of one
who modded this moron "informative"? (Score:4, Informative)
Everything he wrote is blatantly false (see previous post).
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There used to be some, but they've somehow ceased to exist.
Headline is wrong (Score:2)
Yo Momma (Score:2)
...is so fat, she has a Higgs Boson field that crushed the universe.
There seems to be a nerdy joke in there someplace...
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I agree, keep searching for it.
So Which is It? (Score:2)
"I read somewhere that the sun's getting hotter every year," said Tom genially. "It seems that pretty
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I have no idea what the 'valley' represents, nor the 'hill' so this explanation tells me nothing.
What I read into this metaphor is that the Higgs field is a 'scalar field' that varies only with the distance - so one can draw a graph with distance as the X-axis and 'Higgs' as the Y-axis. This graph has a local minimum, that looks like a 'valley', and one can imagine that it would be possible to 'push reality out of the valley' to the other side of one of the nearby, local maxima. No, I'm not it makes a lot of sense either.
Also, I'm not happy with the tendency in physics to 'run to the fields' and start
Article with explanation for laymen (Score:5, Informative)
The mathematics to arise from accepted Higgs field theory suggests the universe is currently sitting comfortably in a Higgs field energy 'valley.' To get out of this valley and up the adjacent 'hill,' huge quantities of energy would need to be unleashed inside the field.
I have no idea what the 'valley' represents, nor the 'hill' so this explanation tells me nothing.
An article by Matt Strassler [profmattstrassler.com] that should explain more. In particular, this pic [wordpress.com]
The story about our vacuum having two 'valleys' depends crucially on no new physics existing beyond the already known fields, which is probably false.
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So erotic is when you use quarks, and exotic is when you use the whole Higgs Boson?
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The mathematics to arise from accepted Higgs field theory suggests the universe is currently sitting comfortably in a Higgs field energy 'valley.' To get out of this valley and up the adjacent 'hill,' huge quantities of energy would need to be unleashed inside the field.
I have no idea what the 'valley' represents, nor the 'hill' so this explanation tells me nothing.
That's okay. The people talking about it don't have a clue either.
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'You know how the Premiere loves surprises ... "
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reddit is over there ===>