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?

[Atrox666]

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

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?

[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?

[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.

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

[cjfs]

It's annoying on so many levels.

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.

LHC still important

[haleyeah]

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

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.

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?

[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: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.

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.

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.