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Higgs Boson Detected?

Posted by michael on from the now-you-see-it dept.

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.

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The boson kludge by thermopile · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's like the 'hunt' for the neutrino, and scientists have been following that methodology ever since.

    In 1930 or so, Wolfgang Pauli noticed that in all interactions, this strange combination of variables (what we now call spin) stayed constant through those interactions. But he couldn't fully explain beta-decay, or when the nucleus of an atom spits out an electron ... this 'spin' wasn't conserved.

    So, Pauli invents an incredible particle: it has little or no mass, hardly ever interacts with anything, but carries spin. It helped his equations balance.

    Naturally, most of the scientific world scoffed at his idea at the time: it implied that hundreds of trillions of these things would be flying through space every second. AND they were undetectable?!? Quite a stretch.

    But history bore him out, and neutrinos exist. You can see a history of the neutrino here, for more info, including current discrepancies with our understanding of neutrinos.

    Quantum mechanics kinda developed the same way ... crazy math with weird conclusions went AHEAD of experiments, and those experiments bore out the math 5 or 10 years later. I believe the same approach is being taken for the matter in the universe (WMAP predicitons), as well as the higgs boson.

    Just my 0.02 euro.

    --

    "Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound

  2. The particle explains nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:The boson kludge by JAPrufrock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. The real stuff by JAPrufrock · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a recent overview article on the status of Higgs in the LEP data (refinement and rehashing of stuff that's not really new anymore). Go to http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-ph/pdf/0402/0402231. pdf The total LEP experiment sigma comes out as less than two for a 115 GeV SM Higgs. That's not compelling. However, some VERY nice "gold-plated" 4-jet events were seen in the ALEPH detector, and it seems like there's a good chance that 115 GeV will be a good place to look in LHC. Speaking of LHC, here's a webcam that lets you look at the ATLAS detector being built. :) http://atlaseye-webpub.web.cern.ch/atlaseye-webpub /web-sites/pages/UX15_webcams.htm