Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

First Definitive Higgs Result In 7 Years

Posted by kdawson on from the you-want-mass-with-that dept.

PhysicsDavid writes "In a suite of new results about the Higgs boson, Fermilab presents the first new definitive evidence on the (lack of) existence of the Higgs boson since the Large Electron Positron collider shut down in 2000. Fermilab hasn't found the Higgs, but can rule out a certain range of masses for the particle that is believed to create mass for all the other particles of nature. Other Higgs news suggests a new likeliest mass range of 115 to 135 GeV for the Higgs. These results were among those presented at the ICHEP 2008 conference currently wrapping up in Philadelphia."

3 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. there there... by curious.corn · · Score: 0, Troll

    ... those convenient epicycles are still eluding observation, isn't that strange

    (ducks and crawls back to the cave, wondering about plasma instabilities)

    --
    Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
  2. US particle physicists are bad losers by damburger · · Score: 0, Troll

    There seems to be a desperation in the news coming out of Fermilab recently, as they scramble to discover something, anything, before the LHC comes online and puts the US squarely in second place for particle accelerators.

    You had your chance, and you blew it. Perhaps the SSC was jinxed by the idea of naming it after Reagan. We shall never know.

    --
    If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  3. Re:Higgs by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 0, Troll

    > Knowing the mass of the higgs is important

    No, it's not. An inexpensive 35% efficient solar cell is important. A working AIDS vaccine is important. A battery with >1 MJ/kg is important. The mass of the Higgs is completely unimportant.

    It's a meaningless number in a theory consisting entirely of meaningless numbers. "115? Wow, I'm glad it wasn't 112! I might have had to turn another knob in ST!" The entire theory is nothing more than a collection of measurements tied together by a bunch of unrelated "theorettes".

    If someone can show me a real-world use for this waste of talent, I'm all ears (don't say "transistor", that's basic QM. Think really hard and try to find a use for the _standard model_). I've been asking this question for ten years and it's been a big FAIL so far.

    And to think that the Sokal affair was considered such a great joke... it seems to me that HEP is just as ridiculously navel-gazing as post-modernist deconstructionist crit-lit, but the latter doesn't cost billions of dollars.

    Maury