Higgs Territory Continues To Shrink

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Higgs Territory Continues To Shrink

Posted by kdawson on Friday March 13, 2009 @04:02AM from the hoggamus-higgamus dept.

PhysicsDavid writes "Announced this morning by Fermilab, the possible territory for the Higgs boson has shrunk even further. Combined results from the CDF and DZero experiments at the Tevatron have ruled out the existence of the Higgs with a mass between 160 and 170 GeV/c^2 with 95% confidence. At 90% confidence the Higgs is ruled out between about 157 and 185 GeV/c^2. Here is Fermilab's press release. If the Higgs is to be found at the lighter end of the currently allowed range of 114 GeV/c^2 to 185 GeV/c^2, its detection will be harder than at the heavier end due to the kinds of signals that the Large Hadron Collider and the Tevatron will see. Some physicists think that a lighter Higgs will be easier to spot at the Tevatron as the background processes which obscure the faint signal are not as prevalent in those experiments."

12 of 118 comments (clear)

FIRST COMMENT by Anonymous Coward · 2009-03-13 04:08 · Score: 0, Funny

ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH!
Re:Abomination. by MightyYar · 2009-03-13 04:29 · Score: 1, Funny

Is incoherent writing something that they teach in crazy-school, or is it an entry requirement?

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W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wow! by Bruce+Perens · 2009-03-13 04:45 · Score: 5, Funny

This is so cool! I get a hadron just thinking about it :-)

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Bruce Perens.
1. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-03-13 07:43 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  This is so cool! I get a hadron just thinking about it :-)
  Too small to be seen with the naked eye, with a lifetime measured in nanoseconds, and the only evidence of it's solitary passing a few droplets left behind in the lonely vacuum of a cloud chamber?
Re:So ... worst-case scenario? by MouseR · 2009-03-13 04:51 · Score: 2, Funny

What did they expect after calling it the God particle? That it would just reveal itself out of oblivion?
Leave that to the creationists and remarket the Boson!
Re:Boring... by Metasquares · 2009-03-13 05:09 · Score: 2, Funny

Then they should have built the LHC in Soviet Russia.
Re:Easier vs. Harder by geekoid · 2009-03-13 05:15 · Score: 5, Funny

"...any data is greater than the zero the LHC will have accumulated."
BURN!

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The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re:Best case scenario! by Anonymous Coward · 2009-03-13 05:55 · Score: 2, Funny

Not finding the Higgs is the BEST scenario
Unless, of course, it really does exist.
Re:Boring... by Doctor+Jonas · 2009-03-13 05:57 · Score: 2, Funny

Then, in the Soviet LHC, the Higgs Boson would find you?
Lol by jayhawk88 · 2009-03-13 07:08 · Score: 2, Funny

At 90% confidence the Higgs is ruled out between about 157 and 185 GeV/c^2
Man I am going to win so many bar bets this weekend...
Re:Boring... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-03-13 07:14 · Score: 1, Funny

Yes. The subtle way the joke made its path toward your humor grand central part of your brain wasn't made any more enjoyable by your explanation of that exact same line. If anything, it made it repetitive, thus worse.
Re:Statistics by Anonymous Coward · 2009-03-13 11:35 · Score: 1, Funny

>> The moment statistics get involved, yes.
>And statistics always gets involved.
Not always.
Just ~99.8% of times.