Higgs Boson Announcement at CERN

[Simulist]

If anyone would like to watch the live announcement from CERN about the Higgs Boson (a.k.a. "the God Particle," also a.k.a. "the holy grail of particle physics") on Tuesday December 13, 2011 at 8:00 AM (EST), this link should take you there.

My guess: there will not be an announcement that the Higgs Boson has in fact been "discovered," only an announcement that there is now "clear evidence of" the Higgs Boson.

And pretty soon we'll know if that's right.

[freemason9]

And pretty soon we'll know if that's right.

why do you say that?

[The Consul]

Man, if it is really true and it is really HUGE will we will get the message before it is sent?

[hanshan]

...

Man, if it is really true and it is really HUGE will we will get the message before it is sent?

un-huh...

prolly after it's unsent



edited once to change tense

...

[Jeff]

My guess: there will not be an announcement that the Higgs Boson has in fact been "discovered," only an announcement that there is now "clear evidence of" the Higgs Boson.

Wow, you're good!

The ATLAS detector’s presentation has now finished, and unfortunately the Higgs boson has not been discovered — but a statistical bump at 126 GeV strongly suggests (95% certainty) that something new and exciting will be found there. The team leader, Fabiola Gianotti, says that we should have something conclusive — either for or against the existence of the God particle — in 2012.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1087 ... -boson-yet

[DrEvil]

A pretty interesting article on what exactly it is they've been doing :

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/201 ... -higgs.ars

[Allegro]

.
More background on the Higgs boson. Notice, some
CERN scientists speak up, but so did a journalist.

_________________
The Higgs boson: What has God got to do with it?
Reuters | GENEVA | Tue Dec 13, 2011 4:00pm EST

“We don’t call it the ‘God particle’, it’s just the media that do that,” a senior U.S. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday.

“Well, I am the from the media and I’m going to continue calling it that,” said the journalist - and continued to do so.

The exchange, as physicists at the CERN research centre near Geneva were preparing to announce the latest news from their long and frustrating search for the Higgs boson, illustrated sharply how science and the popular media are not always a good mix.

“I hate that ‘God particle’ term,” said Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team of so-called Higgs hunters - an epithet they do not reject.

“The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that,” she told Reuters at a news conference after her colleagues revealed growing evidence, albeit not yet proof, of the particle’s existence.

Oliver Buchmueller, from the rival research team CMS, was a little less trenchant.

“Calling it the ‘God particle’ is completely inappropriate,” said the German physicist, who divides his time between CERN and teaching at London’s Imperial College.

“It's not doing justice to the Higgs and what we think its role in the universe is. It has nothing to do with God.”

The Higgs boson is being hunted so determinedly because it would be the manifestation of an invisible field - the Higgs field - thought to permeate the entire universe.

The field was posited in the 1960s by British scientist Peter Higgs as the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the Big Bang.

As such, according to the theory, it was the agent that made the stars, planets - and life - possible by giving mass to most elementary particles, the building blocks of the universe; hence the nickname “God particle.”

“Without it, or something like it, particles would just have remained whizzing around the universe at the speed of light,” said Pippa Wells, another Atlas researcher.

But Wells also has no time for theological terminology in describing it.

“Hearing it called the ‘God particle’ makes me angry. It confuses people about what we are trying to do here at CERN.”

According to people who have investigated the subject, the term originated with a 1993 history of particle physics by U.S. Nobel prize winner Leon M Lederman.

The book was titled: “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?”

Physicists say Lederman, who over the years has been the target of much opprobrium from his scientific colleagues, tells friends he wanted to call the book "The Goddamned Particle" to reflect frustration at the failure to find it.

But, according to that account, his publisher rejected the epithet - possibly because of its potential to upset a strongly religious U.S. public - and convinced Lederman to accept the alternative he proposed.

“Lederman has a lot to answer for,” said Higgs himself, now 82, on a visit to Geneva some six years ago.

But James Gillies, spokesman for CERN and himself a physicist, is slightly more equivocal.

“Of course it has nothing to do with God whatsoever,” he says. “But I can understand why people go that way because the Higgs is so important to our understanding of nature.”

[Ben D]

The Higgs boson is being hunted so determinedly because it would be the manifestation of an invisible field - the Higgs field - thought to permeate the entire universe.

Seems the Higgs field maybe the Ether field under another name!

[Gnomad]

Yeah, goes around, comes around...

[Hammer of Los]

...

I knew the world would eventually catch up with me.

I've been saying for years that every particle in the universe is simultaneously interacting with every other particle in the universe, no matter how proximate (or otherwise) in spacetime.

I've also been saying for years that the concept of the ether is long overdue a comeback.

Yes, its the unifying field. It is also the ineffable Force. It's kinda electro magnetic. Or something.

Who can feel the force?




...

[harry ashburn]

yes! yes! feel the farce! You HAVE been saying it for years. I've been hearing your voice in my head. Not only can the Higgs Boson CONFER mass, it can CONDUCT Mass on holy days!

[slimmouse]

much food for thought in the podcast vis a vis higgs bosun, the nature of the paranormal, many things which interest us as the RI community.

Why we may never find the god particle ;



Link to podcast

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/12/m ... isode-623/

[Hammer of Los]

...

yes! yes! feel the farce! You HAVE been saying it for years. I've been hearing your voice in my head. Not only can the Higgs Boson CONFER mass, it can CONDUCT Mass on holy days!

What a punchline!

You have a marvellous sense of humour Harry.

I think I like you.

You've been hearing my voice in your head, have you?

Thank heavens SOMEONE has been listening!

I'll just give up one of these days, you know.

I wish people would send me more pms. Or even an email.

I get lonely, you know. That's why I post and read here and elsewhere on the internet.*





* In fact so lonely am I for enlightened adult company, that I am slacking off on the present wrapping! My beautiful children have mountains of presents I need to wrap. I shouldn't be here shooting the breeze with you, but what the heck, it is xmas! I'll catch up with the gift wrapping late at night when everyone's asleep. I don't need much sleep these days.






...

[slimmouse]

Did they find it yet ?

Im led to believe, rightly or wrongly that theyre getting pretty damn close to eliminating all the remaining vectors within which, apparently this particular particle resides.

[jingofever]

Did they find it yet ?

Im led to believe, rightly or wrongly that theyre getting pretty damn close to eliminating all the remaining vectors within which, apparently this particular particle resides.

They may have found it. If not then they are close to eliminating the Standard Model Higgs particle but numerous other Higgs particles will still be possible. A good place to read about all of this is Of Particular Significance.