Race For the "God Particle" Heats Up

SpuriousLogic writes "CERN is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, its American rival claims. Fermilab say the odds of their Tevatron accelerator finding it first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best. CERN's Lyn Evans admitted the accident which will halt the $7B Large Hadron Collider until September may cost them one of the biggest prizes in physics."

Comments

How do you give odds for that?

[drinkypoo]

Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system. Without any data to base your odds on, you're just making some shit up. Not only is their level of precision low, but there is zero confidence.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing wrong here. As they say - it's 50-50: they either find it, or not.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Prof.Phreak]

Also, what are the odds the particle doesn't exist AND they find it?

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Hogwash McFly]

1/0

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[ByOhTek]

What data are they lacking? The math and physics from other experiments that suggest that the Higgs Boson exists, along with a lot of details about it? Or the fact that it is by far the simplest solution to a number of phenomenon? Remember, much more often than not, the simplest solution that fits the math tends to point to the correct answer.

Oh wait. They aren't lacking those.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Gromius]

somebodys not a Bayesian :)

Anyway theres pretty reasonable indirect evidence for the Higgs, lets just say to make all our measurements consistant, it would be nice if a fundamental scalar existed around 115 GeV. And it would be even nicer if it generated all the masses in the Standard Module while it was at it. There is certainly enough to have a reasonable Bayesian prior.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Smidge204]

The great thing about scientific theory - real scientific theory - is that is has predictive capabilities. Theory predicts that the Higgs exists. If the theory is correct, they feel that their experiment has a 50% to 96% chance of finding it.

And if they don't find it, it would actually be a bigger deal than if they do. It means something was off either in the experiment or the theory, and that means it's back to square one!
=Smidge=

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[0xdeadbeef]

Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system.

So it's one, then?

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[PopeRatzo]

Also, what are the odds the particle doesn't exist AND they find it?

Probably pretty good. After all, God doesn't exist, but millions of people are finding Him all the time.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whooooosh!

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Atrox666]

Technically until they fire it up isn't the particle both found and not found?

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[CrazedSanity]

The problem with searching for something that only theoretically exists is that it is profoundly easier to prove that something exists (by finding it) versus proving that it does not exist ("we've done a lot of searching without result, but we cannot conclusively say this [x] does not exist"). If they find it, yay search is over. If they don't... well, they'll probably just keep looking until they rip a hole in the space/time continuum or create a blackhole that rips the Earth from existence... I'd rather them find it as not.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[BrokenHalo]

Guess I asked for that... ;-)

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[The_Wilschon]

What they mean (yes, I'm on CDF, and beginning my own segment of a Higgs search analysis), is that there is a 50/50 chance that the Tevatron will have acquired sufficient data for us to be sensitive to a Standard Model Higgs at reasonable mass ranges (115 - maybe 300 GeV/c^2). Thus, if it exists (the SM Higgs specifically) we'll be able to tell it is there, and if it does not exist, we'll be able to say with a high level of confidence that it is not there.

To discover the Higgs, we must show that given a theory without the Higgs, our data would only occur 1 in 2 million times we did an experiment like this, (5 sigma significance, standard for particle discovery) and of course the the difference in the data is consistent with a Higgs.

To exclude the Higgs in a certain mass range, we must show the opposite: if there were a Higgs, our data would only occur some very small percentage of the time (I can't remember the exact significance, but it is less stringent than discovery, again standard).

LEP already excluded masses below 114 GeV/c^2, and the Tevatron has excluded a small mass range around 160 or 170 GeV/c^2.

However, all that said, I disagree with the apparently official Fermilab line (50/50). We have a small chance of excluding all the available mass ranges, but the amount of data needed to go from excluding it if its not there to discovering it if it is there is huge. We would need several times as much data as we will have unless we keep running for quite a bit longer. Maybe we can get a chunk of the gov't stimulus package? ;)

Without any data to base your odds on, you're just making some shit up. Not only is their level of precision low, but there is zero confidence.

Quite the contrary, sir, and I do somewhat resent remarks like these, although I understand they were made in haste in your frenzy to get first post. We have a tremendous amount of data, and we have theories that describe exactly what we're looking for. It's almost just a statistical game now. Our level of precision is in fact quite high (although not as high as is achievable at a lepton collider), and as I said above, we have excluded some potential Higgs masses to a high level of confidence.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[The_Wilschon]

As I said above, no, they're not. I happen to disagree with their numbers, as I can't see how we're going to get the amount of data necessary to improve our sensitivity sufficiently. Remember standard deviation goes as 1/sqrt(n), so to double our sensitivity we need to collect four times as much data as we have now. We need to more than double our sensitivity. But we can tell by just how much we need to improve (although I can't remember off the top of my head), since we have very precise theoretical predictions, and can compare our data to those.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[The_Wilschon]

Ahha, I should have RTFA. I've been complaining in other comments that no, we won't find the Higgs. But this is a much lower standard. 2 or 3 sigma significance I can definitely believe. We call this evidence for the Higgs, but not discovery. Discovery requires a 5 sigma significance signal (PRL standard).

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Gilmoure]

Oh don't bring cats into it. Next thing you know, you're herding them (or not herding them) and either way, it's a big, fat, hairy mess.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Alex Belits]

It's not 1/404

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[mysticgoat]

Yeah.

We know that the observer is an integral part of the experiment; at this level of physics there is no such thing as a third party observer.

But I understand that we cannot assess in advance the degree of effect the observer will have on an entirely new experiment.

Which leads me to the uncomfortable recognition that we might create the Higgs boson as we get better at looking for it.

What is uncomfortable about this is the way it raises the question: "If we are literally making it up as we go along, is this really the way we want the Universe to be?"

Are enough of the right people asking themselves that?

:-)

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Jawn98685]

Probably pretty good. After all, God doesn't exist, but millions of people convince themselves that they are finding Him all the time.

There. Fixed that for you.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, God doesn't exist ...

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist [or /.er] states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible [or nonexistent], he is very probably wrong."
-- Arthur C. Clarke's First Law

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[John Hasler]

They aren't searching. They are performing experiments for which current theory predicts certain results.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[mzs]

Here is a nice graphic of what you described about the exclusions for a light-mass Higgs:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/higgsexclusionplotfy08.jpg

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[nappingcracker]

Just because you haven't found Him doesn't mean He doesn't exist, I can't find most of the constellations in the night sky but apparently they exist.

Same logic applies to:

• Flying Spaghetti Monster
• Invisible Pink Unicorn
• Zeus
• Celestial Tea Kettle
• Reincarnation
• The Matrix
• Thor
• The Turtle and The Elephant
• Xenu
• Many other things

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[bitrex]

From my own personal, ah, experiments, I can only confirm the nonexistence of Xenu and possibly reincarnation.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[bcrowell]

Giving odds for finding a theoretical particle is like giving odds on finding life in the solar system. Without any data to base your odds on, you're just making some shit up. Not only is their level of precision low, but there is zero confidence.

Nope. Here's how it works. Other observations show that the Higgs has to have a mass between 170 and 285 GeV/c2, with 95% confidence. Assuming a given Higgs mass, Fermilab can do Monte Carlo simulations of the results of their experiments, and they can determine a probability that the signal will show up in their data, and show up with a certain level of confidence. For instance, the article says, "And the chances are even higher - 96% - if its mass is around 170GeV (giga-electron volts)." What this means is that they set some level of statistical significance that would make them confident enough to publish a paper claiming to have found a Higgs. They expect to have some noisy spectrum with a fairly crappy-looking peak sticking up out of it, and they're willing to publish if the statistical significance of that peak passes some predetermined statistical test. Okay, so they run the Monte Carlo simulation 10,000 times, putting in a Higgs mass of 170 GeV. Out of those 10,000 simulations, 9,600 of them produce a simulated peak, at the right energy, that passes their criteria for statistical significance.

It's also possible that the Higgs doesn't exist. There are models that are consistent with that, and also consistent with the experimental data. However, there are fairly model-independent reasons to believe that something new must happen in this energy regime, and it's likely that any experiment that can probe that energy range will detect the whatever-it-is.

What is not possible is that the correct description of physics consists of the standard model minus the Higgs. Such a theory doesn't have the necessary self-consistency and consistency with well-established experimental results.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[x2A]

"I can divide by zero"

No you can't, whilst extrapolation may seem to imply the answer is infinity, division by zero is completely illogical thus has no place in mathmatics.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[NoobixCube]

To put it another way, reminding people of the way they were taught to divide in primary school, dividing by anything is splitting it up into that many groups. Exactly how can you divide something into zero groups? The answer isn't infinite, because that would imply creating more stuff to put in those groups. If you divide by zero, whatever it is your dividing has nowhere to go.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[PaganRitual]

"through patterns in chaos. People looking through history (either global, national, or personal) can find patterns that show either an intelligence manipulating the events or an incredible string of luck and coincidence."

Good news everyone! We've discovered god! Turns out it was just confirmation bias under another name.

Re:How do you give odds for that?

[PaganRitual]

Unfortunately all that is filtered by each person as they look at it ... We see the evidence of God, you would see Luck.

Wow, you just get better and better. Unfortunately? It's not unfortunate, it's close to proof that there isn't actually a god and people that have fortunate events happen to them that were out of their control attribute it to a god because they feel more comfortable than the harsh realisation that the universe decided that it wouldn't kill them ... yet.

Two houses sit next to each other near an airfield. A out of control plane hits the second house, killing all but one member of the family inside. The family in the first house spend the rest of the week praising god and the rest of their lives preaching his glory to all. The remaining member of the second family spends the rest of his week mourning and there rest of his life questioning god to himself.

See also : the pilot of the plane and their family. Pilot dies/God questioned Pilot lives/God praised delete as applicable.

race?

[period3]

Why is there a race? Why aren't they working together to find it?

Re:race?

[arndawg]

Why is there a race? Why aren't they working together to find it?

Races are good. I don't think we would have gone to the moon so fast if it wasn't a race between usa and russia.

Re:race?

[MyLongNickName]

From a purely human point of view, competition makes us try harder. You may not like it, but it is the truth.

From a purely scientific point of view, repeatability is an important thing. Having more than one experiment confirming the results isn't just a good thing, it is a requirement of science.

Re:race?

[bockelboy]

It's a very friendly "competition". While it *may* be possible for the Tevatron to locate the Higgs before LHC turn-on, it doesn't negate the fact that the LHC will use energies an order of magnitude higher than the Tevatron.

Fermilab - which is where the Tevatron is located - also has a huge number of people working on CMS - one of the LHC detectors.

Most of the "US vs Europe" mentality and the "OMG we're losing our physics crown to some other lab" is a sidebar injected by the media and politicians. Otherwise, it can be very dry (aka, non-newsworthy) work punctuated by moments of "Eureka!"

Re:race?

[Gromius]

they are and they arent. Fermilab is a big contributor to the LHC (although some of the contributions did go bang, hmmmm) and will play a big role in its future. Lots of scientists are on both an LHC experiment and a Tevatron experiment (although they tend to be senior, PHD students and postdocs who do most of the work tend to be on only one). It would be actually hard for the labs to work together more than they actually are. But there is also definately a little bit of a (friendlyish) race on to be the first ones to see it. In the sense, we'll help you as much as we can but we also want to beat you, its a little odd to explain.

Re:race?

[wisty]

On the other hand, Newton tried to cover up the Calculus, just so he could have the edge over other natural philosophers. Some competition is harmful. It depends.

Re:race?

[yttrstein]

Because science isn't done for the discoveries alone my friend, it's done for the *recognition* in exchange for discoveries. I understand that I could very well be down modded for this sort of opinion, but I've worked in too many research facilities to see it any differently.

Now boil your brain on the fact that the very same thing exists in medical research, and feel the creeping horror at what that implies.

Re:race?

[Vectronic]

As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.

You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?

We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.

Re:race?

[arndawg]

As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.

You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?

We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.

I personally believe if you get a too large group of people. Some will end up not being heard, not work so hard because they feel redundant or just end up wasting a lot of time because of communication trouble. The competition aspect will probably motivate workers more and they will probably work harder. For ex. I think 1 programmer putting in 10 hours of effective work is more effective than two programmers working 6 hours each. There's a overhead in collaboration.

Re:race?

[genner]

As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.

You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?

No if we had worked together things would still be tied up in a international comittee and at best we would have a non-binding resolution to send a strongly worded letter to the moon stating our intentions to visit it someday.

Re:race?

[The_Wilschon]

In fact, a large number of the Tevatron people are also working to some degree on an LHC experiment. I'm on CDF, and planning to do some work in the not too distant future on a CMS track trigger.

Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet?

[cjfs]

It's annoying on so many levels.

Re:Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet?

[master_p]

Ok. How about the Allah Particle?

Re:Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet?

[Sponge Bath]

...time to change the hearts and minds of those close to them.

As someone who does not believe in the magic bearded man in the sky and has been pestered for years by those who do, I say to them: please stop. It got old a long time ago, and nothing you say will make me worry about being punished by a supernatural booger man for my failure to adhere to modern human interpretations of ancient human originated scripts.

Re:Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet?

[g2devi]

> That is not true. It is based on different axioms than science, but not on lack of evidence. I

Correction. The axioms of science arose from the Judeo-Christian world view, so science has the same axioms. The main parts of the scientific method are:
(a) the universe is orderly (because it was designed by an orderly God.) so it's possible to discover its regular laws
(b) man is rational (because he was designed by a rational God and man is in the image of God), so it is possible for us to discover the universe through reason and observation
(c) it is ethical to manipulate the universe (i.e. the universe is not God)
(d) man can be irrational (because man is fallen) and delusional (due to pride and arrogance as a result of the fall) so he needs checks and balances (like the scientific community and statistical methods) to know truth.

Now the secular world drops off the reasoning Bacon and others used to formulate the scientific method, and many Christians don't bother looking up their own history and the assumptions of their own faith and assume that "science is worldly, so it's bad", but that's humanity for you.

What you're referring to when you say "different axioms" is not science but logical positivism, which states that the universe, matter/energy and natural law are all that ever existed or ever will exist and there is nothing outside of "nature" (As an aside, "nature" used to mean "God's will" but now means something far more limited.).

Logical positivism is completely compatible with some forms of Deism (i.e. God is a programmer of this "Game of Life" we call the universe, and he never debugs tweaks his program or otherwise interacts with the game), Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, Taoism (if you assume that Yi/Yang forces can be measured and quantified), and Greek Mythology (Greek Gods are just Q-like aliens which are a product of creation). But it is fundamentally opposed to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, and many other metaphysical theories.

Fortunately, science is neutral ground where these metaphysical theories may have dialog. Some metaphysical theories (e.g. Stoics who think Reason can be perfected so we don't need to do experiments, just philosophize) might think that some axioms are redundant, and some might think that some axioms are irrelevant (e.g. the world is just an illusion, so discoveries about the world are little different than wasting your time discovering the physics and science of WoW or a dream).

But for those that wish to discover their world, whatever the reason, science is a common language.

We just have to make sure that it stays a common ground.

Re:...its a 50-50 chance

[drinkypoo]

Wow thats a worse investment than that stimulus package

You mean it in jest, but the "stimulus package" (aka handout for the rich) is going to provide more ammunition for the robber barons to shoot at us with, whereas these colliders are going to lead to developments in science whether they find this particle or not.

It's all about cash

[gzipped_tar]

CERN needs money badly. By crying out "The Yankees are catching up!" they hope the politicians would hear and pay them more fresh euro.

In this economy, do you really believe the scientists care that much about the God Particle? If your answer is yes, do you really think it's "yes"?

If they lose jobs and food, how can they go on chasing the Higgs particle?

Re:It's all about cash

[Eravnrekaree]

Its very important for us to improve our data base and understanding of physics. While for some it may seem abstract it is often the case that data which at first seems to be inconsequential and a curiosity plays a critical role in developing some new technology. Understanding how atoms work for instance, gave rise to many new inventions that were probably not anticipated originally, such as understanding how transistors work.

Science is very important to solving our economic problems and collecting data allows science to better understand the universe and be able to develop better technologies. I am one who thinks we need to prioritise resources on science and education funding (especially our badly neglected gifted programs to allow high IQ students to fully develop their maximum potential and go through their course as fast as they wish) , and environmental protections.

LHC still important

[haleyeah]

Yeah, but can the tevatron create black holes or rip the fabric of the time/space continuum? GO CERN!

Let them find that particle first

[gmuslera]

One thing is to prove than a theoretical particle exist, and another to give the world a new (and somewhat clean) source of energy and/or world peace, all humanity together... well, at least if the resulting black hole is stable enough.

Re:No

[pz]

I agree with the grandparent post. It isn't the God particle. It isn't the be-all-end-all-explain-everything particle. Discovering the particle won't prove or disprove the existence of a deity. Using the term is annoying AND misleading.

they would say that, wouldn't they

[petes_PoV]

It's all about funding. If one establishment can make an unsubstantiated claim that attracts publicity and therefore money, then why not. It's not as if their scientific credibility (cough, cold-fusion) will be questioned. If so long as they don't say it's certain that they'll produce a given result, they can always claim "well, if we'd had more money ..."

Re:No

[MarkovianChained]

There are two leading explanations for why it was called the God particle:

1) It will explain how the universe was created (or at least bring us significantly closer), from a scientific standpoint. Finding it will not disprove the existence of a deity, nor will not finding it prove the existence of one.

2) It was nick-named that as a tongue-in-cheek 'We think this particle is everywhere but nobody has actually seen it.' (this came from an earlier Slashdot article, you can look it up for yourself later)

Hmm

[LizardKing]

If this is anything like the last time a scientist tried finding the clitoris it could be a long wait.

Re:No

[FTWinston]

It was referred jokingly to as "that goddamn particle" ... but the relevant newspaper wasn't allowed to print such obscenties. Hence they went with 'God particle' and the nickname stuck, in the media at least.

It's Pretentious More Than Annoying

[BigFootApe]

Let's just stick to calling it the Higgs Boson. God Particle is just a meaningless snippet that the scientifically semi-literate have latched onto because it sounds cool.

Just like Theory of Everything, actually.

You keep using that word.I do not think it means..

[denzacar]

...what you think it means.

Falsifiability: Which you don't have for mathematical axioms either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

another nice article

[mzs]

This is from the Symmetry magazine blog:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/hunt-for-the-higgs-kicking-into-high-gear/

There is a lot of talk about this recently because of the AAAS meeting in Chicago. Also here is another neat article (not related):

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/a-first-string-theory-predicts-an-experimental-result/

Re:No

[FTWinston]

the implications its existence poses

I have to disagree, its discovery has no implications whatsoever for non-physicists, apart from potential future technology.

Its non-discovery would excite most phyicists even more than its discovery, as that means that the standard model is wrong, and that there's a lot more theoretical work for physisists to start thinking about. At the moment, we have many very plausable models of the universe, and measurements are needed to help us see which are closer to the truth - measurements of the existance/nonexistance of the Higgs, and its mass(es), for example.

Frankly, I think a more appropriate name would be "the weakest link particle" as it will allow us to leave a variety of erroneous theories behind.

Again, I'd say that the Higgs has no more business being "the God particle" than any other particle; all particles of the standard model are crucial to the functioning of the universe, after all! And if we're going to be giving them more "memorable" names, then why aren't we rolling out "the Devil particle", "the fun particle", "the justice particle" and so on?

Lastly, what if it turns out not to exist? I can picture the tabloid headlines already: "LHC proves that 'God' doesn't exist"

People will appreciate what its about less rather than more so, if such concepts are given completely unfounded connotations to things completely unrelated. Gravitons would make a better 'God' particle anyway...

Where the percentages come from

[snowwrestler]

I'm not a physicist. But I know that the Tevatron, since it is lower-energy than the LHC, relies on aggregating the data from many collisions to produce a data set in which to look for proof of the Higgs. In the article they said that they already have 8 collision events which seem to provide good hints that the Higgs does exist. Presumably they will need many more good hints and/or a lucky collision that produces direct proof.

There is not unlimited time--the actual quote was a 50% to 96% chance of finding the Higgs FIRST (before the LHC). It seems like this could be calculated by estimating (based on performance so far) how many tries it takes to produce an adequate data set and how long each try takes. Divide into the amount of time left until the LHC begins operating at full capacity and searching for the Higgs (The article says about two years).

Of course if the Higgs does not exist then neither cyclotron will find it and all bets are off.