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Been following this since the LHC's construction was finalized. No news to me, though I was a bit extra giddy on the 4th =)
They're handling their press releases with the greatest of finesse.
I'm still however slightly ashamed at being an American on that particular day and I wonder if it might have had something to do with a bit of a challenge to the US as to the date of the press release. Because up until 1993 there was a Super Collider that was even bigger than the LHC planned to be built in Texas, they hit cost overruns for the project to the tune of a 12 billion or so for completion and they cancled it even after spending 2 billion dollars already...
The US is falling so far behind in true fundamentally pure research and it saddens me.
This is actually old news to me the confirmation is just frosting, as when the LHC made their initial statement last year, a layperson reading it could realize it was just politics, they'd found it they just needed the data to remove the error rate.. I think the way they're stating it as the discovery of a boson that could be the Higgs or related to it as perfect as the amount of press the Higg's as received as being called the 'God particle' They're distancing themselves from that hyperbole efficiently while still sharing one of the more important discovers in fundamental physics in anyone's lifetime.
I wonder... What comes next? The LHC will produce generations of incredible data, and many more fundamental discoveries as it's processed... I really do wonder though. Could the whole world get behind a truly big LHC type project simply for the need to understand better?
Stuff like this gives me hope that there is a target that humanity can set it's sight on and at least hit with a good graze that we might be able to come together in an even bigger way to understand even more.
I am reminded of this adage, "You look for what you know. You find what you look for." In the case of particle physics, the word "know" should be replaced with "suspect."
Do we know that the Higgs boson actually exists, or was something that fulfilled our expectations created by the design of the experiment? Did the experimenters run a "negative control?"
We find the words:
"ello" and "ow"
We then theorize that if we put an "H" at the beginning of each word, we'll have two English words:
"Hello" and How".
This works out pretty good for us, so we keep it that way but do more experiments to try to discover if it is really an H or not.
The Higgs has been theorized but not experimentally found yet. The experiments are now being conducted to try to prove that it really exits or not, one way or the other. It may really exist or it may not exist.
Yeah good point ha ha. And with that additional data then we might theorize that the letter(s) are between "C" and "H", so if we find a "Z" it's probably not correct.
To take the analogy one step further, it is more like we find the sentence:
"ello, ow are you today?"
and we theorize that "ello" and "ow" are typos and are really "Hello" and "How" (ie we theorize the existance of an 'H'). That's why it is believed that the Higgs is a good bet because it fits in so nicely with other physics. Since that sentence is not physics it would be harder to fit another single letter for both words, but with real physics it's not as clear until after a large amount of data comes in. Even then they make mistakes though
Do we know that the Higgs boson actually exists, or was something that fulfilled our expectations created by the design of the experiment? Did the experimenters run a "negative control?"
That's why they're stating that they have discovered a new particle, this is observed fact, they were very careful not to call it the Higgs boson directly though the current models strongly suggest that it is. The media is who is calling it the Higgs.
Things are never as simple as they appear especially when they're looked at in greater detail so this isn't the final piece of any puzzle, it is simply a strong suggestion that the current models of the known universe don't have to be thrown out and that fundamental mathematics has proven without a doubt that theory can aim science in a manner to discover fundamentally new things which weren't observed before, the physical devices to test the theoretical math are becoming practical.
There's a virtual guarantee that as technology progresses that things will become more complicated, but that a particle has been discovered in the range of where the Higgs Boson should theoretically exist is statistically likley with 5 sigma precision, as more data is collected over time they should hit 6 sigma or better before the LHC shuts down for repairs. And there are possible upgrades that could occur in 2018 which would increase the LHC's collision energy by an order of magnitudel creating a higher chance of the new particle collisions creating even more data, and possibly finding new things.
They're 99.99966% sure this is not a statistical fluke... and that percentage will just increase with more data, though the LHC will be shutting down next year for repairs it has quiet a bit of data left to collect. They'll probably announce something more firmly stated by the time of the repair shutdown.
The really big thing is to keep this sucker running at red line as long as possible collecting as much data as possible because these datasets can be used to probe in more detail many physics questions, given a large enough dataset, possible signatures of the nature of dark matter could show up. As the mathmaticians ponder all this new data new ways to analyze the data will show up and we'll learn even more, perhaps discovering other not before seen interactions, especially after the proposed power upgrade.
I just hope they keep getting good data and useful models out of this sucker, because if they do, within my lifetime we may see projects that are even bigger than the LHC, not so much so in the ring super Collider aspect but I've heard that the next big tester could be a massive linear collider. What's important is to keep the public interested enough to not make them screen when they see the bill that's going to show up on their taxes when governments go to build these devices which essentially don't 'do' anything.
I am reminded of this adage, "You look for what you know. You find what you look for." In the case of particle physics, the word "know" should be replaced with "suspect."
Do we know that the Higgs boson actually exists, or was something that fulfilled our expectations created by the design of the experiment? Did the experimenters run a "negative control?"
...
I'm with you on that. These theoretical physicists annoy me. The come up with an idea that is almost totally conjecture, then look for a "blip" in a spectrum and rush to pat themselves on the back that they have proved it is true.
I'm not saying their work is useless, far from it, I just get a bit on edge with the "We've discovered the X!" type attitudes.
Well when you have equations that work out in practice when you make one constant equal to say 1.234 then you start to look for a reason why this particular number actually works so well in real life. It makes it seem like if it only takes that one number to make all those equations work then there is probably something to it and it is a true set of equations. If you can actually find 1.234 in nature then you've got it. If not, then it makes the equations look bad.
So you find 1.235 but cant yet find 1.234, so you figure you're close to finding 1.234. You may never find 1.234, but it makes sense to think that you will.
I am hoping the discoveries will aid in finding some form of anti gravity so we can make air travel much much safer. A single crash takes out hundreds of people sometimes even though it is 'statistically' safer than driving.
There is no question that repeating discoveries in different laboratories and with different scenarios is important to establishing facts. Einstein's predictions were validated in many laboratories.
An inherent problem with "big science" is that unless you also have an LHC of comparable or larger power, you can't repeat the work. I am not criticizing in the least the scientific integrity and genius of the people at CERN. I am simply saying that unique results from unique equipment pose a special problem for verification. CERN is a very expensive piece of equipment. Those who provide its funding expect some new results. That pressure cannot be ignored.
Good point, and wow, you know i had to wonder about the fact that the announcement came on the Fourth of July. I live really far away from the LHC and couldn't help but think that sounded like spooky action at a distance.
Mr RB, you're not reading the articles from the scientist then, all you're reading is the media hype. None of these scientists are actually claiming the discovery of the Higgs, try watching the video of CERN's actual announcement. The error for alternative possibilities besides the simple Higgs for the standard model is still wide open, and there's still plenty of room for super Symetry models which have multiple types of Higg's of which this may only be one, or after the LHC's upgrades they might find something totally unexpected at higher energy levels.
There is no question that repeating discoveries in different laboratories and with different scenarios is important to establishing facts. Einstein's predictions were validated in many laboratories.
An inherent problem with "big science" is that unless you also have an LHC of comparable or larger power, you can't repeat the work. I am not criticizing in the least the scientific integrity and genius of the people at CERN. I am simply saying that unique results from unique equipment pose a special problem for verification. CERN is a very expensive piece of equipment. Those who provide its funding expect some new results. That pressure cannot be ignored.
I really don't believe I'm hearing this? You guys really didn't read up on this that well! This wasn't a discovery announced based on one experiment, it's three separate experiments in two separate colliders that all agree with the SAME blip.
The LHC confirmed identical results on both the Atlas detectors AND the CMS detectors (they operate on fundamentally different detection methods)
A few weeks ago similar information (with less precision but that showed a blip in the same region) was released from data that was being post-processed from the Tevatron Collider.
There is no question whatsoever of any kind that a new boson has been detected, that is all that CERN really said. EXACTLY what it is is still a bit wishy washy though. The dust from this will settle a bit the LHC will be collecting data for the rest of this year and processing that will help a bit, it will start back up after some repairs and in a few years there's a massive power upgrade scheduled which will drastically increase the amount of data and generate new possibilities to look for in the data.
Yeah some of us might be sounding like nothing has been accomplished when it seems clear that at least one or more new particles have really been found and at least one of them is a boson. I just thought it was too much of a coincidence that it came on the Fourth of July, so maybe they waited to announce it. We'll just have to wait to find out more but all this looks very promising so far.
Thanks for clarifying that Sceadwian. I just don't understand enough to know that they have actually found something. What bothered me is that they may also be in the same situation.
I have a few twitter feeds that provider better links to science articles with some real meat to them instead of the dumbed down stuff the public gets. Not overly technical and they explain in much better detail, stuff that would make the general public roll eyes in the back of their head. They're bassically looking at an area the size of a dollar piece (relative) and as the data keeps coming in they're trying to get down to the milimeter scale in ordwr to really nail down what this particle is or is not.
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