Search for the Higgs boson narrows

[Chris]

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider say a signal that suggested they might have seen "hints" of the long-sought Higgs boson particle has weakened.

New results to be presented this week at a conference in India all but eliminate the mid-range where the Higgs - if it exists - might be found.

Physicists will now search for the boson at lower and higher energy ranges.

It is much more difficult to detect new particles in these ranges, however.

Nonetheless, LHC researchers still believe they will either have found the Higgs by the end of next year or confirmed that it does not exist in the form proposed by the current theory of subatomic particles and their interactions, called the Standard Model.

"These are exciting times for particle physics," said Sergio Bertolucci, the research director at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), which runs the LHC.

"Discoveries are almost assured within the next 12 months. If the Higgs exists, the LHC experiments will soon find it. If it does not, its absence will point the way to new physics."

The Higgs particle was postulated by physicists in 1964 to explain how other sub-atomic particles have mass. It remains the only major particle in the Standard Model yet to be observed, and its discovery or elimination is one of the LHC's chief objectives.

The collider is a giant accelerator machine housed in a 27km-long (17 miles) circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border.

BBC News - Higgs boson range narrows at European collider

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Good thing Clinton cancelled the SSC.

 

[Truthmatters]

Superconducting Super Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


General heavily criticizing the Super Collider for its high costs and poor management by officials in charge of it.[6][7]






Congress officially canceled the project October 21, 1993.[8] Many factors contributed to the cancellation: rising cost estimates; poor management by physicists and Department of Energy officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the Soviet Union; belief that many smaller scientific experiments of equal merit could be funded for the same cost; Congress's desire to generally reduce spending; the reluctance of Texas Governor Ann Richards;[9] and President Bill Clinton's initial lack of support for a project begun during the administrations of Richards's predecessor, Bill Clements, and Clinton's predecessors, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. However, in 1993, Clinton tried to prevent the cancellation by asking Congress to continue "to support this important and challenging effort" through completion because "abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science".[10]

 

[Chris]

If they don't discover a Higgs, it will be very interesting.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

And we're supposed to give a shit ?

If it doesn't exist, it's actually a pretty big freakin' deal. It means the current model is wrong and a lot of Physics as we know it is going to get tossed aside for something new. Considering the forum you're posting in, I shouldn't have to explain what a big deal that would end up being. But for the record? It would be huge.

 

[editec]

Search for the Higgs boson narrows

Those careless particle physicists!

If I'd lost the Higgs Boson, I'd have found it by now.

Whenever I'm looking for something, I just backtrack until I figure out where I left it.

 

[Chris]

Search for the Higgs boson narrows

Those careless particle physicists!

If I'd lost the Higgs Boson, I'd have found it by now.

Whenever I'm looking for something, I just backtrack until I figure out where I left it.

That's what they are doing.

They are backtracking to the Big Bang.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "If dey don't blow up the world first...

Hunters of Higgs boson to make announcement
Mon, Dec 12, 2011 - EXPLAINING IT ALL? Last week, scientists at Cern hinted they may have seen the elusive particle, sparking excitement over the lab’s pending special seminar

Physicists are bracing themselves for news that the most sought--after fundamental particle of modern times has been glimpsed at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. The leaders of the teams spearheading the search for the Higgs boson at Cern, the European physics laboratory, have called a special seminar to announce their findings tomorrow afternoon. They will describe progress in the hunt for the missing particle, which has been the most glittering prize in particle physics since it was predicted in 1964 from equations drawn up with pencil and paper by Peter Higgs at Edinburgh University.

The Higgs boson is the last remaining piece of the Standard Model, the set of mathematical rules that describe how all the known particles in nature interact with one another. “It is difficult to think of alternatives that are consistent theoretically — and with everything observed to date — that don’t involve the Higgs mechanism,” said Lisa Randall, a physicist at Harvard University. “I think the most likely answer is a conventional, light Higgs boson. When asked what I thought the odds were in a popular lecture, I surprised myself by saying 70 percent. I’ve even bet chocolate based on those odds,” Randall said.

The Higgs boson is the signature particle of a theory that says the vacuum of space is filled with an invisible field that stretches to every corner of the universe. The field is thought to give mass to fundamental particles, such as the quarks and electrons that make up atoms. Without the field, or something like it, these particles would weigh nothing at all and hurtle around at the speed of light. There would be no atoms as we know them, nor stars or planets. Earlier last week, the scientific director at Cern, Sergio Bertolucci, hinted that the lab might have seen the elusive particle, adding weight to rumors that were already spreading on physics blogs.

MORE

 

[waltky]

V-e-r-r-y inter-esting - but are dey cern-tain?...

Strong signs Higgs boson has been found: CERN
14 Mar.`13 - Physicists who last summer triumphantly announced the discovery of a new particle but held back from saying what it was, declared on Thursday there was now little doubt it was the long-sought Higgs boson.

Latest analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, where the boson was spotted as a bump on a graph early in 2012, "strongly indicates" it is the Higgs, said CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Physicists believe the boson and its linked energy field were vital in the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago by bringing flying particles together to make stars, planets and eventually humans - giving mass to matter, in the scientific jargon. The particle and the field, named for British physicist Peter Higgs who predicted their existence 50 years ago, are also the last major missing elements in what scientists call the Standard Model of how the cosmos works at the very basic level.

But the CERN statement stopped short of claiming a discovery - which would clear the way to Nobel prizes for scientists linked to the project - and floated the idea that this might be an exotic "super-Higgs" offering a key to new worlds of physics. "It remains an open question whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model ... or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model," said CERN, a large complex on the edge of Geneva. "Finding the answer to this question will take time."

Although some CERN physicists privately expressed irritation at the continuing refusal to - as one said - "call a Higgs a Higgs", others argued that this could only come when the evidence was all totally irrefutable. If it is not what one CERN-watching blogger has dubbed a "common or garden Higgs" but something more complex, vistas into worlds of supersymmetry, string theory, multiple dimensions and even parallel universes could begin to unfold.

WHAT KIND OF HIGGS?

 

[PoliticalChic]

V-e-r-r-y inter-esting - but are dey cern-tain?...

Strong signs Higgs boson has been found: CERN
14 Mar.`13 - Physicists who last summer triumphantly announced the discovery of a new particle but held back from saying what it was, declared on Thursday there was now little doubt it was the long-sought Higgs boson.

Latest analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, where the boson was spotted as a bump on a graph early in 2012, "strongly indicates" it is the Higgs, said CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Physicists believe the boson and its linked energy field were vital in the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago by bringing flying particles together to make stars, planets and eventually humans - giving mass to matter, in the scientific jargon. The particle and the field, named for British physicist Peter Higgs who predicted their existence 50 years ago, are also the last major missing elements in what scientists call the Standard Model of how the cosmos works at the very basic level.

But the CERN statement stopped short of claiming a discovery - which would clear the way to Nobel prizes for scientists linked to the project - and floated the idea that this might be an exotic "super-Higgs" offering a key to new worlds of physics. "It remains an open question whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model ... or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model," said CERN, a large complex on the edge of Geneva. "Finding the answer to this question will take time."

Although some CERN physicists privately expressed irritation at the continuing refusal to - as one said - "call a Higgs a Higgs", others argued that this could only come when the evidence was all totally irrefutable. If it is not what one CERN-watching blogger has dubbed a "common or garden Higgs" but something more complex, vistas into worlds of supersymmetry, string theory, multiple dimensions and even parallel universes could begin to unfold.

WHAT KIND OF HIGGS?

Berlinski puts it in perspective:

1. Surely its discovery meant something? The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics demanded its existence, after all; and the demand was met. If it took forty years and more than $16 billion to discover the thing, physicists could with satisfaction observe that the public got what it paid for, the first step, of course, in demanding that the public pay for more of what it got.


2. The discovery was announced; the story reported; and then there was silence. Physicists endeavoured, of course, to maintain the impression that they had discovered something of inestimable value. They were game. Writing in The Daily Beast, Sean Carroll predicted that the Higgs Boson would "revolutionize physics," and if this is what physicists always say, then at least they seem never weary of saying it.


3. …there is always God. The discovery of the Higgs Boson does nothing to confirm his existence, Krauss argued, therefore it must do everything to diminish his relevance. And so it does. The Higgs Boson, he wrote, brings "science closer to dispensing with the need for any supernatural shenanigans all the way back to the beginning of the universe -- and perhaps even before the beginning, if there was a before."


a. About this declaration, since it countenances a before before a beginning or a beginning before a before, all that one can say is that Krauss has covered his bases. The Ineffable Higgs - Evolution News & Views

 

[Truthmatters]

that is why you hate sceince

 

[California Girl]

that is why you hate sceince

This is why posters mock you.

 

[PoliticalChic]

that is why you hate sceince

If you need me to explain to you why all the fuss is nonsense, let me know....

....but pay attention here:


The Higgs Boson walks into a church.

The priest says "We don't allow the Higgs Boson in church!"

The Higgs Boson say..."But without me, how can you have mass?"

 

[CrusaderFrank]

that is why you hate sceince

Democrats cancelled the SSC and the US Manned Space Program, were against Reagan's now successful space based missile defense defense and believe in AGW like a Cult

Which Party hates science?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

that is why you hate sceince

If you need me to explain to you why all the fuss is nonsense, let me know....

....but pay attention here:


The Higgs Boson walks into a church.

The priest says "We don't allow the Higgs Boson in church!"

The Higgs Boson say..."But without me, how can you have mass?"

A physics joke!!

 

[PoliticalChic]

that is why you hate sceince

Democrats cancelled the SSC and the US Manned Space Program, were against Reagan's now successful space based missile defense defense and believe in AGW like a Cult

Which Party hates science?

Science???

Is that what Ms. Truthie was trying to say???


She said 'sceince'....I thought she hated those sit-in-the-dark-and-speak-to-the-dead things!!

 

[PoliticalChic]

that is why you hate sceince

If you need me to explain to you why all the fuss is nonsense, let me know....

....but pay attention here:


The Higgs Boson walks into a church.

The priest says "We don't allow the Higgs Boson in church!"

The Higgs Boson say..."But without me, how can you have mass?"

A physics joke!!

Some helium gas wafts into a bar.

The bartender says 'we don't serve nobel gas in here.'

The helium doesn't react.


Don't get me started, bro!