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Higgs Boson Detected?
Travis McGee writes "A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics - the Higgs boson - may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak. The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter. The report was published in Nature magazine and the BBC has an article." The last time the elusive particle was in the news was 2001.
- less than 3 sigma deviation from background: ignored
- 3-5 sigma deviation: evidence for
- 5+ sigma deviation: discovery
At 9% chance he's wrong, it sounds like he's at around 2 sigma. Which is pretty much ignored by the scientific community. Which is why the LEP was shut down to make way for the LHC.The funny thing is this article in the "related links" section: 'God particle may not exist'
In that December 2001 article, we have statements like this: "Their conclusion is that there was nothing in the data at all to suggest the Higgs is out there - certainly not at energy masses of up to 115 Gigaelectronvolts (GeV), way past the level of 80 GeV where the boson was expected to show itself."
Contrast with March 2004: "Dr Renton cites indirect evidence taken from observations of the behaviour of other particles in colliders that agrees with the figure of 115 gigaelectronvolts for the mass of the Higgs boson."
The great thing, though, is how science done right is self-correcting. As soon as this boson was declared unlikely, researchers apparently began to attempt to prove that it did exist. Now that there's a theory that it exists, more researchers will begin trying to prove them wrong. Eventually, with all the facts out in the open, science will discover something approaching the ideal theory, which will likely be something unexpected.
It's like Microsoft vs. open source... find a bug in Windows, and it takes 9 months to patch it. Find a bug in Linux, and someone will patch it the same day...
(Obligatory disclaimer: I'm no physicist, and talk of "energy masses" and "gigaelectronvolts" makes my head spin. May as well be talking about Vitamegavegamin.)
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
So, the standard model defines 16 particles. But if there are only those 16, then none of them have mass, so there must be another one, that magically provides mass for the others. Weird. You can't make this stuff up, folks... err... oh, wait.
Nice try. Apart from the fact that the article's description of the role of the Higgs in generating masses isn't quite correct, there's your implication that this is some what frivolous. Well, if you evaluate scientific theories by the accuracy of their predictions, an argument can be made that the standard model of elementary particle physics is the most successful scientific theory of all time -- ranging from making correct predictions of electrodynamic phenomena out to absolutely absurdly large numbers of significant digits, to making predictions about the numbers of certain types of particles that will exist ("there will be one more light neutrino species, but no more after that") -- subsequently confirmed.
There are a lot of things you can fairly criticize particle physicists about; but suggesting that the standard model is removed from reality isn't one of them.
Reminds me of the "dark energy" idea: "Well, we can only find 1/3 of the matter that we know should exist, so the rest is.. well, it's just the dark energy that we can't detect!"
Like many people, you've got "dark matter" and "dark energy" confused (I personally hate the "dark energy" term, and wish Michael Turner (I think it was him) hadn't coined it; but we're stuck with it now). And while either of them may someday turn out to have been a wrong turn in the history of cosmology, neither is an unfounded concept.
The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass
More correctly, the existence of the Higgs boson validates an assumption in a theory and theory is what claims to explain why all other particles have mass. The important thing to remember is that these are theories that are explaining things; real world particles explain nothing.
Hm. Go learn some of the math involved, and come back when you understand that there really are some compelling reasons for Higgs to come into the picture. Or are you aware of something that's been overlooked? You have a good reason that photons are massless and W/Z bosons aren't? Can you tell me why electrons weigh less than taus? Can you tell me how "mass" comes about? That plus the fact that the possibilities include standard model Higgs and SUSY Higgs, light Higgs, heavy Higgs, MSSM doublet Higgs, all in different variations... We didn't ask for all these particles to show up. We're just trying to figure out what we're seeing in nature.
there's your implication that this is some what frivolous.
I'd love to agree with you, but the Standard Model's Higgs mechanism has absolutely no authority to avoid the term "frivolous." In a lot of ways, it is.
The Higgs mechanism is done in the simplest way possible to generate masses - it uses a scalar field, which is the simplest field you can use, and, curiously, of which there are no other examples in nature - leptons and quarks are spinors (fermions of spin-1/2), photons/gluons are vectors, and even gravitons, if they exist, would probably be tensors.
There's no reason to desparately cling to the Higgs mechanism, other than we have no other way of generating mass that theorists 'like'. And, to be perfectly honest, this 'detection' does raise eyebrows - it's at the edge of LEP's detection, and it's only a 3 sigma (or so) detection. Now, that's not saying that Nature can't have been cruel to us and put the Higgs right at the edge of LEP's detection range, sure - worse things have happened. But it's a little suspicious.
Also, the Higgs "boson" has predicted nothing - anything that does symmetry breaking in a similar way would predict exactly the same thing.
(Sorry - I hate the fervent adherence to the Higgs, especially when we've looked, looked, and keep having to shove the mass up 'just a little higher' to the next accelerator range. I also hate the fact that no one else thinks that maybe a fundamental scalar just isn't possible for some subtle reason we don't understand. This would allow much more complicated Higgs interactions which people have typically ignored based on simplicity arguments. People said "if LEP doesn't find the Higgs..." and now people are saying "if LHC doesn't find the Higgs..." - what's next?)
("there will be one more light neutrino species, but no more after that")
To nitpick, the "N=3" discovery is only valid in the energy range of interest. You have to generate the lepton partner as well, so while the neutrino species could still be light, the lepton partner could be ungodly heavy, and thus outside of the detection field.
It would have to have odd mixing angles, sure, but a fourth family isn't out of the question.