Hawking Bets Kane $100 That There Is No Higgs Boson

limpdawg writes "Stephen Hawking bet Gordon Kane of the University of Michigan $100 that the Higgs Boson does not exist."

Comments

bid 75, ask 77, last 76

[mlinksva]

The Foresight Exchange gives a ~3/4 chance that Higgs Boson will be discovered on or before January 1, 2005 12:00:00 GST. Hawking made a rich bet.

Re:Only 100$...

[bofh31337]

The Higgs Boson particle is supposed to explain where mass "comes from". The problem with a particle explaining mass is that all particles must have mass, thus each Higgs Boson particle would need another particle which would need yet another particle. Most people tend to ignore that interesting paradox. Either way, I don't think we'll know until the Large Hadron Collider comes online at CERN in '05.

Re:Only 100$... Warning: -1, pedantic.

[renehollan]

btw, in America, the $ goes before the 100

Er, no.

In the United States of America, the dollar sign comes before the numeric amount.

In most parts of Canada (part of the North American continent, and thus America), the same is true.

In Quebec (by law), and possibly other predominantly French parts of Canada, the dollar sign comes after the numeric amount (the period is replaced with a comma, and the thousands separator is a space -- go figure).

So, please, do not say "fucking Canadians" (though, we do do that from time to time). Please say, "fucking Quebec government".

Hawkins is quite a gambler

[josepha48]

Apparently this is not the first bet that Hawkins has done. He bet someone already that blackholes do not exist and he lost the bet. Good thing he is a good looser. I think he likes betting to get the other scientist to come up with proof.