Slashdot Mirror
CERN May Have Found The Higgs Boson
Hilbert writes: "Scientists working at the LEP collider at CERN believe they have found evidence of the existance of the Higgs boson, one of the more elusive particles under investigation. BBC's got the story." Ironically, this important discovery (or possible discovery) comes weeks before the collider used to make it is scheduled to be shut down. Can you say "the dilemma of prior investment"?
Well... was it not Einstein that said "Imagination is more important than knowledge"
I'm not saying these guys are dreaming this stuff up. I'm saying that theory is important to scientific discovery. Many theorized the atom to exist long before anyone could prove it. I get sick and tired of people slamming the scientific community because they don't have the intellect to comprehend what is going on.
Hell... I can't comprehend it but, I don't pretend to know otherwise. These people have knowledge you could not even begin to grasp.. Wake up... Don't critisize that which you don't understand. Respect science and people of knowledge because in the future, my grandchildrens granchildren will be reading about them in science books, whereas you and I, won't even get an honorable mention.
So you don't feel this sort of research has any value, eh? :) I feel sorry for you. Really, I do. You obviously don't have much imagination.
:)
Think of the fruits that this sort of research has already given us: transistors, electricity, etc., etc.. You think anyone 200 years ago could have even remotely imagined what life would be like today? Doubt it. So why do you think this Higgs particle is any different? It could very well lead to an entirely new stage of human evolution.
Don't judge so quickly. Unless you can see the future, I don't think you should have such a negative opinion. But hey, who knows? Research like this might one day let you see into the future, for all we know. Have fun
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
> For instance it's easy to imagine repulsion forces as a result of exchanging some particles, but it's impossible to explain attraction that way.
Actually... If you take the uncertainty principle into account, you can explain attraction this way. Let's say we have a Higgs particle of a precisely known momentum, p, and this Higgs particle is going to mediate the exchange between particle A and particle B. The Higgs particle leaves particle A in a direction directly away from particle B, with momentum p. But because the momentum is exactly p, the position becomes uncertain (meaning the particle actually exists in multiple locations for a moment). Then since one of the locations where the Higgs particle can exist is at particle B, it is able to essentially strike particle B from the other side.
For those unfamilar with the concept, the reasoning went something like this: if light is a wave (this is before the particle/wave duality became accepted), then it must be transmitted by something we cannot see, since you can't have waves in a vacuum. Thus, there had to be some sort of "luminous ether" which tranmits light waves. This has been disproven of course, but the Higgs Boson seems to be a similar apporoach to explaining the mass of particles.
'Course... Just as disproving the "luminous ether" theory by experimentation brought us to our current understanding of quantum mechanics, I suppose there's no reason not to try to verify the Higgs' existence.
--Fesh
"Citizens have rights. Consumers only have wallets." - gilroy
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Well, I too wish they wouldn't have killed SSC, but I think that your kidding yourself if you think that Texas was chosen for purely techical reasons. I think its pretty well established that a large part of the reason that Texas was chosen is that the Speaker of the House was from Texas (Jim Wright?). And then later when the cuts needed to be made the Wright was gone due to some scandal or another. (Forgive me if the facts aren't exactly right - that the way I recall it anyway).
Anyway the SSC was definitely a great case study in the problems of politics and Big Science.
--
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Here's the Cover Blurb copy:
It's a very good book, and published a couple years before this incident. Well worth a read. His entire site, since it's in frames, is at http://www.sfwriter.com/.
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
Well, there are many good reasons to get rid of the imperial system, but this isn't one of them (I hated it when we had to use them in some engineering classes - the conversions are such a mess).
Anyway, the pound can be used for both mass and force in the imperial system, but its really 2 different units. The pound mass (lbm) and pound force (lbf) are two separate units. A pound mass weighs one pound force on Earth. But, there is another, better unit of mass in the imperial system - the slug. One slug is the mass that is accelerated 1 ft/s^2 by one pound or force.
--
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Yes, really.
The CERN facility is being replaced, but the full replacement will take years. Many of the people whose careers or career advancement depend on results from an "obsolete" facility like the LEP will be adversely affected when the instrument is taken down. Yes, some of them will be among the best and brightest on the new project, the LHC, but others...won't.
Now, further progress demands the building of the LHC, while limited resources require the shutdown of the LEP, and people will get caught in the middle. This is exactly how Big Science works, and why people have long felt uneasy about the entire process. Scientists are, thankfully, only human. Their careers are of finite duration, and their specialized knowledge can become obsolete in the wake of further progress.
And, it goes without saying, this is just as true in genomics, neuroscience, geoscience, computer science, or any other rapidly advancing field.
Babar
I'm no physics guru so here comes a possibly dumb question. Why is it that when it comes to recent physics discoveries or research that they often seem to involve some sort of accelerator, or collider? Why is it necessary to have things go really fast or crash things into each other to find things out?
Personally I wonder if it might just be a jealous attempt to compete with the increasing popularity of NASCAR racing.
same scientific level as evolution - a piece of pseudo-science that cannot be proven by experiment.
Do I smell a theology troll in our midst? Hmmm, for a moment I'll play along as though this isn't.
By your logic, if I may be so bold as to call it that, you would only have experiments performed on those theories which have already been proven. Just exactly how does one go about proving a theory without performing experiments? If something has already been proven, what is the point of experimenting with it any further?
Ahhh, but then I get down to this...
For those of us who have no need to find out the Truth, this kind of waste is deplorable.
Oh the subtlety in the giveaway on this. Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth. Ya see folks, the Bible didn't cover nuclear physics, therefore none of this stuff really exists. Furthermore, since the Bible already tells us everything we ever needed to know about how the Earth came about this experimenting is completely useless.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Well at least it will be replaced. I live in Texas and I remember when congress decided to can the supercollider project here because they wanted to cut spending back in 1992-93. I felt as if the US had entered the dark ages. The project was based in Texas because it is flat, there are no earthquakes, etc... They dug a 12 mile loop under the earth and spent millions of dollars to get it built.
The project was not far from completion when congress discontinued funding. The law states that the land would have to be put back in it's original condition, meaning the removal of miles of steel and filling in the holes and returning the environment back to normal. It cost more to remove the damned thing than it would have to finish it and keep it running for a year. Talk about cutting spending and increasing the stupidity.
They could have left that project and let others take it over, but you know congress! Anyhow, I'm glad the Swiss care about science. We Americans care about fame, fortune, football, or what some Hollywood star is doing in the privacy of their own home. Things of consequence don't matter here... only money, power, and politcs... Benjamin Franklin would keal over in his grave if he could see America today.
If pro is the opposite of con then what is the opposite of progress?
Cern is not Swiss. It is 50% in Geneva, 50% in France. It is funded by many European countries. Their scientists (and also US scientists, I believe US also pays some part of Cerns budget) have access to the facilities.
Those essays were very interesting.
If, as one of them states, the Higgs field is a little like the electromagnetic field, two questions immediately arise. First, is the Higgs field the same everywhere in the Universe? And second, perhaps we can learn to manipulate it?
If the Higgs field "causes mass", maybe its different in other areas of the universe. Maybe this could explain the "dark matter" problem - perhaps there is no missing matter, but the Higgs field is stronger in other places so everything just has more mass "out there".
If we could make a device that modifies the Higgs field, would that have the effect of changing the apparent mass of objects within the field?
Would it perhaps be possible to make a "Higgs Ray" that projects an extra-strong or extra-weak Higgs field, thereby changing the mass of objects in the beam?
Fun to speculate. Could some of you particle physicists hanging out here say if this is possible? Thanks!
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
I remember an article in the Dallas Morning News from the time period. It stated that some of the tunnels were sold off to mushroom farmers. Apparently the conditions in the tunnels were just right for fungi.
It would have been a marvelous scientific instrument. Most sad that it got canned. Atleast we got some mushrooms out of the deal, though.
--Lenny
As far as I know (I am a student in CS at the ETH in Zurich and my Physics prof works at the Cern) the LEP is shutdown because it is being replaced by a new collider, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in the next few years. Browseing through my notes I found a little chart.
Beams Energy Luminosity
LEPe+ e- 200 GeV10^32cm^-2 s^-1
LHCp p 14 TeV10^34
Pb Pb1312 TeV10^27
So in the end, the new Large Hadron Collider can accelerate those little bugger's up to much higher energies, thus probably alloweing other new particles to be observed (or confirmed) Oh and by the way, the Cern's at www.cern.ch See ya
There's been Charm, Up, Down, Strange, and others I forget. In 10 years time will we discover that Higgs boson is made up of Shoe, Ni!, Migrane, and That Stuff Behind The Fridge?
How do they name particles? The boson is named after Bose (the physicist, not the audio system). So how is a Higgs particle different from a normal boson, and how are particle names decided?
:)
A physicist told me that Bose deserved the Nobel, but didn't win due to politics. (In any case, it's probaly cooler to have a subatomic particle named after yourself rather than win the Nobel.)
On another note, from the article:
"Such a Higgs signature may have been seen in several unusual events observed recently at Lep. "
Yeah, such as a cut in funding.
w/m
You've kind of hit upon the whole reason for making these theories in the first place. In the time when quark theory was developed, and even somewhat today, the "model" for elementary particles was often criticized as "zoology" -- a mindless listing of all the wondrous variety of particles with no explanation of why there are so many, or why they behave as they do.
The Higgs theory is one among many that starts by guessing at an explanation for what is seen, then develops a rigorous model for the explanation, which leads to a prediction of what will be seen if we keep looking.
The prediction isn't so much a recipe for finding the particle as it is a police sketch of the suspect. And the experiments to find the particle are only "designed" to find it in the same way that a microscope is "designed" to find bacteria -- if the bacteria doesn't exist, the most powerful microscope in the world won't make it seem to.
After all, the experiment is quite crude in concept: bash particles into each other at high enough speed that lots of energetic things fly out, then watch for the suspect by recording all the trails these energetic things take, which will tell you their mass, charge, spin, and what they decay into. If one of them fit's the suspect's description, you've confirmed the theory.
The problem comes with the negative result -- if you don't find the particle, or don't see your favorite strain of bacteria, that doesn't mean they're not out there. But if you keep on increasing energy (magnification), and you run enough experiments, you can at least determine how rare the beast is.
I hope this answers the question and gives some credence to the idea that there's not a circular logic going on.
Disclaimer: there may be some property of matter that we haven't seen yet that gives better insight into how things occur, and the experiments are NOT designed to see that -- of course, without a negative or confusing result, we have no reason to believe such a property exists.
Other disclaimer: just because there is a critter that fits the description of the Higgs, doesn't mean there isn't another theory that also explains its existence -- it does mean that that theory probably is equivalent to Higgs' theory in some situations, just as Newton's theory of gravitation makes the same predictions as Einstein's theory of relativity within a certain range of observations.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.
The fact of the matter that it is very easy to get statistical fluctuations of this magnatude in high-energy physics. (insert obligatory comment about the accuracy of political "polls" here) And in the higgs search at CERN they have frequently seen extra events just at the end of their range. (The mass of 114.9 GeV is barely within the range of the accelerator to see at its current energy)
If the higgs exists, it will be found by the LHC. It's enticing to think it's barely beyond LEP's reach, and if the LHC finds it there, the LEP people will bemoan not being able to extend LEP's run just a little bit longer...
Disclaimer: IAP (I Am a Physicist), and have worked on the higgs analysis at CERN (but do not currently). How come more physics people don't post to slashdot? I know you guys read it. ;)
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
You're looking for water in the desert. Allow me to quote briefly here...
if it can't be proved by experiment, it isn't science at all.
This is a statement that can only be made by someone without the first foggiest knowledge of what science is, much less how it relates to theology. Even the simple minded have a rudimentary understanding that science is not truth, but rather the search for it. Despite what Jon might otherwise lead you to believe...
Science has a lot to offer mankind
...his follow up post confirming my suspicions really brings the point home of what he is.
What kind of fool do you take me for? - just begging for a follow up snide remark not provided.
But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
Here is the first real clue to the true nature of this person, although it leaves us with one of two possibilities. He is either someone blindly parroting someone else's rant, attempting to present this as his own, or he is simply trying to egg folks on to reply to him. I suspect that our troll here is probably a healthy dose of both, not quite understanding what the heck this article is talking about, but using enough summarizing from it to try and denounce science as a humanist endeavor.
In short, I wouldn't hold your breath for an in depth response to your post. The moderators nailed this one perfectly (Score:-1, Troll).
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
The main result of Gates Bogon absorption is a loss of contact with reality.
Not really.
You see, although the CERN facility is scheduled for closure, the REASON is that it is being REPLACED by a bigger and better facility.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Au contraire, mon ami. I use the capital "t" to distinguish between "Truth" and "truth", and it doesn't necessarily have to do with theology.
Perhaps you do, but it's certainly not a commonly used form of the capitalization. In addition, this was but one factor in spotting the troll out from under his bridge. The context of this clue was also quite important.
Then there was the resultant data from my experimental post which confirmed my now proven theory.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Yeah, funny was my intent.
I've been modded pretty harshly when trying to be funny lately. I'm not sure if people are just more defensive because of trolls maybe.
I mean, what is it with all of the different particles that these people seem to want to invent at every opportunity? Higgs bosons,technicolor particles, partons, selectrons, squarks, winos, zinos and dinos, they're all on the same scientific level as evolution - a piece of pseudo-science that cannot be proven by experiment. And as far as I knew, if it can't be proved by experiment, it isn't science at all.
A lot of these particles were actually "invented" to make theoretical physics agree with experiments. A good example is the neutrino: its existence was first postulated in the 1930s to account for the conservation of energy in beta-decay (without neutrinoes, a little energy was missing), and since then a lot of experiments have been done that confirm their presence. In the case of Higgs bosons, squarks and the like, these particles were postulated to keep theory in accordance with other experimental data (like particles having mass, and the existance of gravity). But having a theory that works doesn't automatically mean it's true, and that's why people like to observe these particles in an experiment. A confirmation of the theory would be nice, while proof that the theory is wrong would make people come up with a new theory that does agree with experiments.
- Kite
`But gravity always wins.'
- Radiohead
in 1993 the British Minister for Science challenged particle physicists to explain in one page or less what the Higgs Boson was and why they were so eager to find it.
http://hepwww.ph.qmw.ac.uk/epp/higgs.html
:wq
>And sure, it's glamorous to write about things like the "Big Bang" whereas people like I who live good lives following the Lord's teachings are seen as being less worthy of respect.
make it people who live their lives following your god's teachings without ever questioning those teachings, who I see as 'less worthy of respect', and I'll give you the point. It's not for religion, but for not thinking
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Higgs bosons are responsible for particles having mass. The inertia of an accelerating particle (supposedly) stems from its interaction with the Higgs field. Imagine if we could control that interaction.
Oh well.. I'm getting tired of work so I'll just render myself massless and get home immediately.
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I can try. :)
About 30 years ago, particle physicists were trying to explain the way the world worked. Murray Gell-Mann and others developed a basic mathematical structure that could explain why people kept seeing all sorts of new particles every time they went looking. First, there was the electron and the proton. Then, Chadwick found the neutron (in 1932, I think), and the numbers kept growing. Soon, there were hundreds of so-called "elementary" particles and their antiparticles, and that was just more than anybody wanted to deal with.
Gell-Mann, Feynman, and several others soon realized that these could all be brozen down into about a dozen "elementary" particles, if you assumed that some of the ones we were seeing weren't actually elementary, but were actually composed of a small set of other particles, which Gell-Mann named quarks. They found a set of rules that could be applied to the way quarks combined (for the inclined: it's group theory, specifically the SU(3) group) that predicted which particles should exist, and which particles they could decay into.
The theory lacked one thing: an explanation for why things have mass. They could prove the theory worked in many cases, but in certain processes, the predictions for the probability of certain reactions happening were infinite. (Anything outside the range from 0 to 1 is impossible.) This made them very nervous, and was a rather large problem.
Higgs made a suggestion that worked. If there was another particle, which came to be known as the Higgs particle, then there would be other terms in the equation, which exactly matched the existing terms, apart from a negative sign. These extra terms correspond to the mass of a particle, which is why it's said that the Higgs boson is responsible for giving things mass. With this inclusion to the theory, the predictions began to match what was seen in the lab. The only thing that was missing was the Higgs Boson.
There have been various theoretical limits placed on the mass of the Higgs. It's massive enough to be hard to find, but just barely within the reach of some of the current accelerators, such as Fermilab and the LEP. The results reported at CERN may or may not be part of the random background events. Currently, the LEP is supposed ot shut down in late October/early November to make way for the LHC, the new, high-energy collider that should be able to find the Higgs boson, assuming the theories are correct. (Most of the LEP physicists have jobs on the LHC, so those of you writing this off as a reaction to unemployment just don't have all the relevant information.)
Anyway, all the experiments are saying is that the events they've seen may or may not be the evidence needed to support the only theory we have that predicts mass. They need to take another month of data to know for sure.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
Actually there are no particles during interaction. Particle is an abstraction. Sea of particles is an abstraction. Even single field is an abstraction, but it is proper math object and we should have some starting point anyway. So while talking about discovering Higgs particle we actually mean discovering Higgs boson field. This field interacts with other fields so, that this fields behave like having mass. This is because of some math and there's nothing more about it.
And don't compare mass and weight here: while we believe in General Theory of Relativity, object weight and object resistance to accelerate (mass) is the same thing.
---
Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources
Can you say "last gasp Hail Mary gamble for redemption?" Never believe fantastic "initial" results from a project about to be cancelled which need "just a bit" more government money in order to "confirm" them.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I don't think it will have to come to that, the dilemma I mean. After reading the story I get the impression that both devices work on a allmost identical scale yet this one, suddenly, discovers something that may proof to be the upcoming Higgs allthough it can't seem to provide any hard evidence to back up this theory. I allways get an eerie feeling when reading such stories. Sure, its a very random factor we are dealing with, no doubts there. But I do have the impression that their timing on providing us with the "if ... maybe ... money ... close down" news wasn't coincedence in any way. Neither would I be surprised if the upcoming Higgs isn't going to be discovered in this machine between now and December.
Bottom line; it is people we are dealing with and normally people like to keep their jobs. Being a scientist doesn't change this fact. I'm a little disappointed that the article didn't give us any more "inside" information on that subject; what are these scientists going to do when the device shuts down? Any other projects they can work on? Are they going to the States to help these guys out? Or do they get the 'sack' in a "everyone for himself" situation? Once you know the answer to these questions you have a little more insight on the question 'is this for real'. In this case this article is mere decoration IMHO; no real news value.
Liberalism is socialism. Conservatism is slavery. And if you are representative, libertarianism is stupidity.
Yup. One thing that I've never been to understand is why do some people (aside from Trolls) love to think that Science is the work of the devil? I believe in God and Science. I just think God is not so limited as to be captured in one little itty bitty book. Science, IMHO, is merely the process of discovering the little rules that God has put into place. Scientists just have to becareful to use their discoveries to benefit society so that such discoveries can continue. (Ie. Accidently releasing a potent virus into a residental area would probably be within the "bad" ideas).
Sig it.
Ironically, this important discovery (or possible discovery) comes weeks before the collider used to make it is scheduled to be shut down.
This is common. In fact, many discoveries are made after an experiment has ceased running. The reason of course is that creating the data and analyzing it are two separate, but very intensive, tasks. We don't have enough people to do both at once. While the thing is running you do particle ID and so on so that you know the thing is doing what it's supposed to. In general, the cycle is design, implement, and analyse, while about 2.5 of these steps running in parallel.
It is amusing that LEP has found Higgs, since that was a large part of LHC's job. But of course there is still a great deal of measurement to be done! Furthermore there is plenty of b and t physics for LHC to look at.
Q. How do particle physicists figure out how PCs work?
... )
A. They smash two of them together at very high speeds and study the bits that fly out.
(some of you have probably heard this
:wq
Having seen only the histograms from a talk given to the cern program advisory committee, I think they're a little bold. The claim for a signal rests on proving that they know precisely each background in each detector (there are four seperate dectors) and that they know how to add these backgrounds together.
I would not be a bit surprised to see the "signal" disappear after more data. That said it is intriguing enough to keep running for the extra time they ask for.
By the way the guys running the experiments do not have to fear for their jobs. There is plenty to do to get the LHC up and running
Since no one else has done it yet, I'll put in an advertisement for CERN:
You would not be reading this website today without CERN. The World Wide Web was invented by Tim Burness Lee from CERN and was given its initial boost by Particle Physicists as means to aid their international collaborations.
Just thought you could do with reminding :-)
Martin Sevior
Not everything that *could* make life worthwhile has been invented however. Lets go look at Star Trek for a moment. Those matter transporters would be pretty handy in reducing the amount of time taken for doctors to get to emergencies, or for food (from replicators of course) to be sent to areas with famines.
p g . 'nuff said.
The argument that we already have everything that makes life worthwhile has been made at every point in history. (30 years ago we'd have said, we can put a man on the moon but we can't get a bum off the street...)
Worse, in recent times this same argument is taken to its logical conclusion: the neo-Luddite 'return to a pastoral existence'. A pastoral existence in a world where rabies, smallpox, and TB are rife, could be argued to be no worse than the ills of the world now. But today our life expectancy is verging on 80; in pre-industrial societies life expectancy was closer to 50.
While we're on the subject...the arts are actually highly dependant on technology. Changes in painting techniques were largely driven by the availability of appropriate pigments, discovered over time. Film is pure technology. Large scale theatre can't be done with limelights, or sound systems.
Further, science can even BE art.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/jpeg/M16Full.j
god does not exist, and I dare you to prove me wrong, mr Erikson. The bible is a fictional book with heavy moral content, no more, no less. I happen to agree with quite some of the ideas behind it (let's face it.. religious or not "thou shall not kill" is not a bad idea), but not all.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Sure.
You'll understand when you're older. Now go and play with your toys!
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The reason for all this is, of course, the desperate search for the Higgs particle. Now they *might* have evidence for it - thats great. Whether or not they have found it, the LEP has proved to be worth of the investment.
The reason for the dismantling of LEP is that they want to start installing the parts for the forthcoming LHC accelerator (that will collide protons and anti-protons) - which is due to start operation in 2005, so its not like they are retiring LEP for no reason at all.
The idea that mass is the drag of particles through a sea of Higgs boson actually makes some sense if you think about it.
In a way, it's a similar idea to an object having weight because of the Earth's gravity acting on the mass of the object. It's the kind of idea that makes you change your perspective on physics. This idea of mass being the drag acting on particles moving through Higgs bosons is one that never occured to me before. Is mass then only a perceptual value or is it really a matter of (pardon the pun) how much stuff?
Also, I think people tend to confuse mass and weight because they think weight is how much stuff is in the object but it's actually mass. I mean, you feel the weight of something you hold in your hand because of gravity and the only reason the object remains stationary in your hand is because the muscles that force your hand and the object upwards is the same as the gravitational force downwards.
Although it does give one the impression that we are all underwater in a sea of Higgs bosons. Is it possible for one to drown?
Self Bias Resistor
"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
You are not a complete dolt. You're not even a partial dolt, as far as I can tell.
The main reason people have faith in the current theories is that they can predict experimental results that haven't been seen yet, that later pan out. That's why it's still around. There have been several dozen alternatives (at least), but they were all defeated by experiment. Well, most of them. There are extensions to the current theory, which do not contradict the Standard Model, but which can't be tested with current accelerators. (There are theories that can't be tested by accelerators that fit on earth, but most experimentalists pay little attention to those.)
With the Higgs boson, there is a chance the boson itself can be produced and directly observed. (This is not the same situation as quarks; they are identified by their decay products, ie what they make when they fall apart.) Physicists go by more than what is formed in these decays, though. Continuing the recipe analogy, it's like identifying a loaf of bread by its ingredients. If we see all the right ingredients (particles), in all the right proportions (with the right energy/momentum), we think we know which loaf that will make. If we can get the ingredients together (in an accelerator) at just the right temperature (energy), we can hope to make the loaf itself.
Unfortunately, many loaves aren't stable, and revert back to their ingredients quickly. Quarks are never seen as a loaf, but the Higgs can be. This is common with bosons. Others, like the W and Z bosons, were predicted before they were seen by the interactions of other particles. Their masses were predicted by looking at reactions which did not actually involve any Z or W bosons! Eventully, we found the right "oven temperature" to make the loaf show up, and stay around long enough to be seen as a loaf.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
If I understand the theory properly, my diet might already be over!
"No, I don't way that much, there are just way too many Higgs bosons in the bathroom where I keep my scale and that's increasing my mass!"