The LHC, the Higgs Boson, and Fate

Reader Maximum Prophet sends a piece from the NY Times by the usually reliable Dennis Overbye reporting on a "crazy" theory being worked up by a pair of "otherwise distinguished physicists": that the Large Hadron Collider's difficulties may be due to the universe's reluctance to produce a Higgs boson. Maximum Prophet adds, "This happened to the Superconducting Super Collider in the science fiction story Einstein's Bridge. Now Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, are theorizing that it's happening in real life." "I'm talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

Comments

That's Groovy

[Philip K Dickhead]

I think casting Keanu Reeves as Neils Bohr was a stroke of unmatched brilliance.

Lady GaGa is, of course, a surprise as "the loathsome particle". She does a good Burlesconi imitation, all thing considered...

Re:That's Groovy

[bertoelcon]

I heard the lady gaga has both, but Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't the best source.

Re:That's Groovy

[Anonymous Coward]

If she'd just enter some Olympic competition we could find out definitively.

Re:That's Groovy

[Anonymous Coward]

She. Her real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and she went to a girls-only catholic school as a kid.

Where her penis made her the most popular shemale on campus.

Perfect...

[neurogeneticist]

So I can tell my wife that I cannot cook dinner tonight because the result would be so abhorrent that nature might send an agent back in time to destroy me before I can create it. Ergo, any movement toward making dinner could very well result in my demise...so let that be on her conscience.

Re:Perfect...

[StikyPad]

You can tell her, but she'll probably stop listening after "because," at which point she'll begin recalling everything you've ever done wrong, and start reeling them off in a run on sentence not unlike this one, taking the collective, including your most recent attempt to get out of making dinner, to mean that you don't love her, which raises the question of why you're even together, except that you obviously just want your needs satisfied while she does EVERYTHING, and you don't even care.

Either that or she'll just start making dinner without saying anything, in which case you're in *real* trouble. If so, DO NOT EAT THE FOOD, because it's probably poisoned, but also don't let her know that you're not eating the food, because it will only be taken as an insult to her cooking and further enrage her.

vulcans already knew time travel.......

[sofar]

but seriously, if it came back through time we should be able to detect it.

Re:vulcans already knew time travel.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we just haven't made on ye&*Q#&*(Q#%*(& NO CARRIER

Ah, 2024...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when that happened to me, in 2024...

Life hasn't been the same until.

Re:Could happen

[OECD]

What did you say?

FSM did it

[jollyreaper]

I'm thinking noodly appendages are involved.

This is a stupid theory

[eln]

Everyone knows the time traveler's objective in going back in time is not to kill his own grandfather, but rather to BECOME his own grandfather.

Re:This is a stupid theory

[FlyByPC]

So time travel just involves a trip to Appalachia?

Re:This is a stupid theory

[bmo]

I'm my own grandpaw.

I'm My Own Grandpa
( Lonzo & Oscar )

It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know,
But it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

Now many, many years ago, when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her, and soon they, too, were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life,
My daughter was my mother, cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad,
And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother
Of the widow's grown-up daughter, who, of course, was my stepmother.

Father's wife then had a son who kept him on the run,
And he became my grandchild, for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother, and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandmother, too.

Now if my wife is my grandmother, then I'm her grandchild,
And everytime I think of it, it nearly drives me wild,
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw
As husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!

I'm my own grandpa.
I'm my own grandpa.
It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so,
Oh, I'm my own grandpa.

Re:This is a stupid theory

[AP31R0N]

Ohh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. "I'm My Own Grandfather"!

To say...

[smooth wombat]

that the Higgs boson is abhorrent to Nature is ridiculous.

Please don't anthropomorphize particles. They don't like when you do that.

Re:To say...

[adonoman]

It's OK, the summary is only anthropomorphizing Nature, which doesn't mind being anthropomorphized at all. It's mass-imparting, universe-annulling particles that Nature abhors. Unless of course Nature IS a Higgs boson, in which case we should be very worried about living in a self-loathing, suicidal universe that is only kept intact by the fact that if it didn't stay intact, we wouldn't be here to notice.

Re:To say...

[Rhacman]

hmm... not to change the topic or anything, but which chan should I post a rule34 challenge on regarding an anthropomorphized Higgs boson?

Bad Theory, Good Fiction

[rsborg]

This "theory" is horribly bad, inconsistent with modern concept of time and light-cones, but would make a kick-ass book or movie. Hollywood, you know what to do!

Re:So...

[nametaken]

Psssh, the lengths they'll go to with these silly excuses. I say stop being lazy and get the damned thing working already!

Re:Einstein's Bridge

[Yvan256]

Don't you mean Scyence Fyction?

Re:first!

[SlashDotDotDot]

even the mighty slashdot is speechless!

Apparently, several posts that came after yours traveled back through time to prevent you from being first.

Learned it watching Lexx

[oldnotold]

Didn't everybody learn about Higgs by watching the last season of Lexx?

Whenever Something Doesn't Work

[eldavojohn]

It's because it would have lead to time travel:

• Duke Nukem Forever: A brilliant physicist spending his days masturbating pauses to download the latest copy of Duke Nukem Forever only to realize it's the worst game ever made. Unable to 'unplay' the game, he sets his mind to developing a way to travel back in time in order to prevent himself from playing the game and instead spend his time doing better things (like masturbating). Unless Duke Nukem Forever can never be released due to unexplainable problems!
• Hurd: A revolutionizing operating system is delivered to MIT's labs only to allow the physicists 100% computational up time and serious efficiency. Unplagued by BSODs and kernel panics, the lab flourishes to the point of developing a way to time travel. Unless Hurd is development is never completed!
• Steorn's Free Energy: Currently a large hurtle in faster than light travel is the energy required to move the tiniest amount of mass at that speed. Steorn's perpetual motion machine would have provided that energy ... unless their debut in London fantastically flopped and stymied them resulting in an international laughing stock.
• ReiserFS: Had nothing to do with potential time travel, Hans just got out of control and killed his wife.

I dunno

[should_be_linear]

Did anyone tried to fix LHC by waterboarding main scientist? Today I was trained at my workplace to think outside the box.

Re:Original concept from "Doomsday Device"

[H0p313ss]

It turns out that by connecting an accelerator capable of destroying the universe to a computation depending on random numbers, one could in principle solve problems that are otherwise intractable. I termed this "doomsday computation"

Was that right after you published your paper on Bistromath?

Timecube reveals itself in mysterious ways!

[Beelzebud]

Next they'll tell us that we live in an electrified universe!

Re:Einstein's Bridge

[MiniMike]

its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Yeah, leave something like that to Hollywood. In the movie version, the LHC would travel back in time to kill its grandfather, but would miss instead killing the Tevatron. Hilarious shenanigans
or a car chase (probably both) would ensue.

Please just leave it as a book, if you like it.

Re:So...

[darien]

I find it pleasingly apt that the signature beneath this unparsable phrase is a description of a syntax...

Re:pull the other one

[Tablizer]

But the great thing is, they propose an experiment to *test* whether this is happening.

But the test device requires 50 million cats. Where are we gonna get 50 million cats?
     

Re:Original concept from "Doomsday Device"

[Anonymous Coward]

I also discussed this idea in the context of novel models of computation in my MIT Ph.D. thesis, Games, Puzzles, and Computation (section 8.2; also published as a book by A.K. Peters).

OK, ok, you win. Blah blah MIT PhD thesis. Smart arse.

Schrodinger's Cookies

[Tablizer]

I'm talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future.

As proof of this, the NY-Times article can only be read by some observers but not others.
       

Re:Almost...

[Normal Dan]

That's what they did with the tower of babel. They didn't have space all figured out just yet so they just gave everyone some encryption. Also, when the hubble came out, they didn't have deep space done quite yet. (They did, but it was having some rollover errors.) So they decided to break the mirror a little bit.

It all makes sense if you don't think about it.

Re:Could happen

[jeffshoaf]

Depending on how you reconcile the two, you may not get an actual black hole. (You will get something that behaves quite similarly, but not exactly the same.)

A really, really dark brown hole?


Hmmm... Maybe I need to change my sig for this post!

Re:Einstein's Bridge

[HeronBlademaster]

Aw, man, I just stopped crying about that. Why did you have to remind me?

I'll be in the corner in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, holding back tears and watching "Sci-Fi"-branded reruns of Star Trek if you need me.

Re:Could happen

[KeensMustard]

Goat C. Worst. Syntax. Ever.

Re:Einstein's Bridge

[cupantae]

Please just leave it as a book, if you like it.

Yeah - get on to Dan Brown and tell him that (the) God (particle) is going back in time to save us all. As long as it's a book, it's good, right?

Re:pull the other one

[SmurfButcher Bob]

> Where are we gonna get 50 million cats?

My ex-wife's house.

Even you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, even you didn't include his wife in the count!

Re:This theory is not to be taken seriously

[need4mospd]

Wizards.

Re:Back in high school creative writing class ...

[Orne]

I had a high school english teacher who gave me a C+ on a book report on The Time Machine because I failed to mention the nuclear war... that occurred only in the 1960 movie version, not the book.

In retrospect, this should have been self-evident to the teacher, since the story was written in 1895, before Bohr suggested there was even such a thing as an atomic nucleus in 1913.

Needless to say, I had my grade corrected.

Re:pull the other one

[LordofEntropy]

Well, we all know that the hard part about herding cats is staying on the tiny horses.

Re:Boson in time

[Philip K Dickhead]

Well, ultimately I need to know if I'm buying any more cat food.

But it's already disproven

[tomhudson]

might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather."

Been there, did that, and I'm still (POP!) ...

Re:Could happen

[fbjon]

Neat! Thus, Goat C++ is an Orifice-oriented superset of Goat C, with iffy streams.

Some might say that makes sense without the "Goat", too.

Re:Could happen

[Sulphur]

We shouldn't be looking at Schrödinger's death until we solve the mystery of cats.

--

Point the Higgs Bosonator at tomorrow Jeeves, I need a settled bet.

Re:Could happen

[bckrispi]

Well "according to relativity", quantum mechanics shouldn't exist either...

Re:Could happen

[The Archon V2.0]

Goat C. Worst. Syntax. Ever.

Look at it this way. If the number of (one-syllable-name + one-letter) rappers and hip-hop artists continues to increase, then eventually all possible names will be taken. So, unless that trend fades, someday there will be a fresh new urban act called "Goat C". Fate, twisted master that it is, will make this person famous. Just in time for you to have kids or possibly grandkids. And they will ask you if you've seen Goat C, because he's awesome.

And then you will be horrified.

Then the TV ads will start about how Goat C will be appearing live at your local arena. You won't be able to tune it out like other ads, simply because of the surprise the first time you hear it. Every time you hear the baseline that opens the ad, every time you hear his music, everywhere you turn, you hear people praising Goat C or exhorting you to pay money to see Goat C.

Then he will make a remix of your favorite song. So your favorite song will be forever linked to Goat C.

And that is when the nightmares begin.

Re:Back in high school creative writing class ...

[Gruturo]

I had a high school english teacher who gave me a C+ on a book report

My high school english teacher gave me a C++ instead

Regards,
Bjarne Stroustrup

Then why can't I win the Lotto?

[woolio]

I am also finding that there is a very high correlation between the multiverses where the LHC doesn't work and those in which I do not win the Lotto and become a billionaire.

While correlation is not causation, I have to wonder... Do I only win the Lotto in the multiverses where the LHC works correctly?

Re:Get a grip

[Arthur Grumbine]

You're just saying that because you're fat. And fat people, as everyone knows, are jollier than everyone else. Don't blame wall0159 for being a skinny over-sensitive clod!