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Data Review Brings Major Setback In Higgs Boson Hunt
Velcroman1 writes "The quest for the elusive Higgs boson seemed over in April, when an unexpected result from an atom smasher seemed to herald the discovery of the famous particle — the last unproven piece of the physics puzzle and one of the great mysteries scientists face today.
Scientists with the Tevatron particle accelerator at Chicago's Fermilab facility just released the results of a months-long effort by the lab's brightest minds to confirm the finding. What did they find? Nothing. 'We do not see the signal,' said Dmitri Denisov, staff scientist at Fermilab. 'If it existed, we would see it. But when we look at our data, we basically see nothing.'"
What are the implications of such a particle not really existing in the first place? In terms of how we think our universe works?
Sometimes not seeing what you expected is worth seeing in itself...
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I have a much cheaper device in my backyard that's good at finding nothing.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Don't worry. Even after we find the Higgs or show that it doesn't exist, there's still plenty we don't know.
Good on them for trying and not looking for false positives. This is science, it's not easy or quick. I hope they stay encouraged and keep pushing human knowledge forward.
Good job!
Why do you suppose it is that whenever there's a science related story posted to slashdot, it's always followed by a link to foxnews with some hyperbolic title like "Heartbreaker: Major Setback in Quest for God Particle"?
Maybe slashdot should start defriending some of its own bimbots.
When they don't find it at Fermilab, and they don't find it at the LHC, they'll just say we haven't got enough power yet, and we need to build another one with even more power.
The Higgs doesn't exist. The arguments for it sound just like the arguments of the 'ether' back in the 1900's. The standard model is wrong. Go back and fix it with pen and paper before spending a few trillion dollars trying to figure out why scientists can't do math.
If it's a God particle, and no evidence is found, then the answer is obvious: believe harder.
At least we got a cool name for a LAN technology out of that one.
Let's just throw a few more $billion$ at it.
Floating point precision is slightly different between powerpc (64 bits and fused multiply and accumulate instructions) and x86 (80 bit internal results)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
The description above is poorly worded. The article it's pointing to is talking about a disagreement in results between two experiments -- DZero and CDF -- at Fermilab. A few months ago CDF had acquired data which seemed to indicate the existence of a particle with a mass of ~150GeV/c^2. The DZero results do not see this. People are investigating why this is happening.
For sure --- I've been reading Dr. Dobb's Journal of Tiny BASIC Calisthenics & Orthodontia for years and yet no publicly funded research money has ever gone to this cause. It is beyond a crying shame.
Really? For something as elusive as a Higgs boson, they expect a "months long effort" to completely and definitively find it? And when they don't, they have the balls to say that "we are sure it does not exist since we did not find it"? Sounds like those theoretical physicists have turned up their ego to maximum volume, maybe they need to focus more on the science and improve their experiments, rather than making ridiculous statements like this.
It's the God particle, fercrhissakes. What do you expect it to do, be born of a virgin, get baptized by the guy who does the intro to Monty Python, perform miracles and then get pinned to a cross and made into a symbol of martyrdom for a program of worldwide warfare and occupation? If I'm the God of this world, you're never gonna find me, so put that in yer crotch and post it to twitter...
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
the Higgs Boson sabotage the data
They will not find the Higgs boson for gravity is an emergent force
> I doubt you can collide subatomic particles in a controlled environment in your backyard.
Of course I can. That's where I keep my old dryer. I have long hypothesized that the Higgs Boson is responsible for the disappearance of my socks... it is an interesting particle, ineffective against sock/antisock pairs, leaving unpaired socks in its wake, explaining the unaccounted for shortage of antisocks in the universe.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
"So what was it, anyway? Something completely unknown and unexpected, Denisov said, which is what prompted Fermilab to drop everything and assign its top scientists to uncover an unfortunate truth: Someone forgot to carry a zero."
The new result from the Tevatron is _not_ a search for the Higgs boson.
One of the experiments (CDF) at the Tevatron saw an excess of events which was investigated by the other experiment (D0). Today D0 published their results, which say that they see nothing. This is independent of the Higgs searches, even if the excess seen by CDF had been confirmed, a standard Higgs boson would not explain it.
"I'm pretty confident that towards the end of 2012 we will have an answer to the Shakespeare question for the Higgs boson, to be, or not to be?" Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director general of CERN, said at Britain's Royal Society."
Id be perfectly okay if you wait until 2013 to get your answers. Its not that I believe all these December 22,2012 things its just that
some idiot who forgot to carry their zero might be stupid enough to rush something and accidentally cause some sort of catastrophe. Lets all just
shut down all the accelerators on December 14th,2012 and give everyone a holiday until January 7th, 2013.
Sorry, the summary and title is just plain incorrect. This announcement has nothing to do with the Higgs.
A few months ago, CDF claimed that they detected a new particle which could not be the higgs, but was speculated to be a new particle. As explained here, it wasn't possible for the new particle to be the Higgs.
Today DZERO announced that they did not see any signal where CDF claimed to see one. So one of the two projects has an error in their analysis.
More info orig, new announcement, DZERO refutes, another source, even another source
I don't know why it is always referred to as "The elusive Higgs boson" when Einstein was able to so clearly point to its existence decades ago:
Einstein proving that the Higgs boson can be found anywhere
You like this http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq
I salute Major Setback and hope he can be helpfull in the hunt of Higgs boson.
The cynic would emphasize the fact that their mysterious findings came just when the Tevatron experiment was asking for a prolonged run, and the funding that would imply. I wouldn't discredit the researchers there in any way, but their findings were most probably enhanced out of proportion by other forces due to the situation. Also, it's not economically/physically feasible to hinder future projects just so we can go all-in on the Higgs boson. There are more discoveries to be had in higher energy ranges - if the Tevatron could _just barely_ see a _glimpse_ of _something strange_ - the next generation of accelerators/detectors should be able to give a crystal clear image. New technology is needed to go forward.
(The cynic can also look at history and learn from LEP's final days at CERN - also last-minute mysterious findings ("Is it Higgs!?") in time of the shutdown.)
If the Higgs particle is in LHC's energy range (which is truly spectacular in relation to available technology) as a mechanism related to the known particles in any way and thus detectable by our usual means, the LHC _will_ find it. It's not just the max centre-of-mass energy that is higher. The LHC will be able to crank out magnitudes more statistics than previous experiments, and that's where the money really shows. In many ways, statistics is the main thing in particle discoveries, not just being able to squeeze over the particles rest mass.
That also implies that if it is _not_ found - something fundamental is to be found. Another interaction/extra dimensions/exotic SUSY theories/... . "Nothing" will really mean something if that's the result of the LHC in this area.
To the ones who discredit the entire SM - it has been succesful in predicting many things throughout history. To call it "wrong" is a philosophical misunderstanding in my POV (but philosophies are in a way "wrong" to call "wrong" or "right" :-) ), combined with a skewed image of what its supposed merit is. No one (in the know) believes it to be the ultimate theory of everything, there are surely deeper theories at higher energies. Maybe the mass mechanism is hidden in those theories (which _would_ be groundbreaking, and a field day for theorists all over), but the SM will at most receive some corrections, not a total scrap. It has shown itself useful at the current energies. So did Newton's laws of motion in their time. That won't change, even if we find the equivalent of SR/GR for particles. The SM is just a special case at certain energies - but that is not to be underestimated.
Translation: I have blinders on, can only see in one direction and would, if in charge, starve key areas of basic research whose benefits we cannot guess at this time.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0Amt30_QVQ
Stuff always turns up under the sofa. They should just build a gigantic sofa. I don't think it has to be electric or magnetic or anything. Maybe slightly bigger than the average sofa, with a TV in front of it and people sitting there on a regular basis. Higgs boson will show up under there sooner or later, you see.
dumass scientian's (Score:?)
by Anonymous Coward writes: on Friday June 10, @01:09PM
Why they can't be like JESUS and gt it right firs't time, stedden chppin and chainging?
Let's get things straightened out. About a month ago the CDF experiment at the Tevatron at Fermilab found a "bump" in their data. It was statistically significant and was unexplained. This "bump" cannot be the Higgs boson from The Standard Model because it has the completely wrong cross-section. This was a fully public result from the CDF experiment.
About the same time there was a "leaked" abstract from an internal note from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC which claimed to have a signal for a Higgs boson. This was never a public or published result.
Now today we have an announcement from the D0 experiment at the Tevatron that they looked into the CDF bump and see nothing. This isn't a set back for the Higgs since it was never about the Higgs. The ATLAS leaked abstract has never been confirmed even by ATLAS so lets not get our underpants in a knot. Lets also not conflate the two since they don't have anything to do with each other.
Actually, the D0 announcement is about attempting to confirm the discovery by CDF of a new particle that would not be the higgs.
The supposed discovery of the Higgs was an unrelated thing by a group at the LHC... but most of the people who have gone back and re-analyzed that some data have found that there is no evidence of a Higgs either - it looks like the paper claiming a discovery jumped the gun (it was just a few people that were on that paper, although they were part of the LHC team), especially given that it's now understood that the Tevatron would have detected it independently if it were a real signal.
For more details semi-understandable to lay people, Cosmic Variance is a good source (just look over the two most recent posts that contain data plots).
The Higgs, the Theory of Everything, the End Times - all on hold again, apparently:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19550880/GUT-The-Grand-Unified-Theory-A-oneact-play-with-seven-blackouts
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
If it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing.
Proverbs 21:19
They didn't fail to find the Higgs-Boson; they succeeded in discovering a way that the universe does not work.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
FTFA-
So what was it, anyway? Something completely unknown and unexpected, Denisov said, which is what prompted Fermilab to drop everything and assign its top scientists to uncover an unfortunate truth: Someone forgot to carry a zero.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/10/heartbreaker-major-setback-in-quest-for-god-particle/#ixzz1OtshDEKJ
The summary *could* mention that "an atom smasher" was the LHC at CERN... for some reason we need to know that the lab checking the data was Fermilab, that Fermilab has the Tevatron particle accelerator and that Fermilab is in Chicago but we don't need to know the name, location or equipment of the lab conducting the actual experiment.
Hint: It's ok to acknowledge that important stuff happens outside the US.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
This would-be particle wasn't Higgs, at least not standard model, and few other theories predicted something like this.
Since the analysis was based on precisely determining background process shape, *most probably* the detector, which claimed a peak, didn't do it properly.
Now it's really an interesting artefact. Depending on slight shape change of simulation, you get a ghost peak at 140-150 GeV !? If CDF manages to reproduce this effect in their simulations, than their result will be less valid. It would be really interesting if something physical is so well hidden behind a steep and hard to estimate background. A mind experiment: If something really was behind such a shape, how would they be sure about it's existence?
I don't understand who you have modding you up that somehow got this to -1 Interesting.
I'm seriously beginning to believe that this guy is just spamming this crap looking for the elusive +5 Troll mod.
My name has never been more relevant!
My idea has always been that the Higg's particle is responsible for the recycling of the universe, which will occur when it is observed. When the announcement of its possible discovery was made I knew it was wrong because the universe still existed. My suspicion is that the scientists have come to the same realization and are now not really looking for the Higg's, just eating up the budget but staying away from the actual experiments that would be conclusive.
I can't stop laughing! I know why this happened but would rather not say ... Ha Ha Ha
The purpose of existence is to make money.
It's becuase in america and western europe everybody believes that those are electrons flowing in the wires, that the photon is massless with negative charge etc.
And those are only the basics! This has brought so much confusion. Having basics corrected, one can go very, very far with other knowledge we have now.
Official physics is today really behind and because there are too many scientists believing it, it is not possible to show them the real nature of the universe, human and so on.
Even details like absolute zero is fake, just like definition of temperature.
Long way guys!
See for yourself how open-minded you are:
Discovery of Electrino
There is explanation why we have relativity theory and why batteries gain weight when discharged and it seems that nobody else can give answer to that. ;-) Yes, we are, in, the, matrix!!! :D As everything down to molecular level is 100% predictable - videos to be relesed by the end of the year.
Polish scientist are working now 10 years on the above, and we have managed to consolidate those theories with something you would not expect in your sweetest dreams
Please mod parent up! Thank you.
If I remember some stuff I read a couple of months back, this bump on the tail of this particular distribution was seen in data taken at the CDF detector but *not* at D-Zero, which is a similar, complimentary detector on the other side of Fermilab's collider ring. So I suppose this isn't that big of a surprise. And now one supposes that LHC is back to being the only game in town for the Higgs.
Sad in a way. Does this mean Fermilab will be ramped down and decommissioned before long?
sigfault (core dumped)
The CDF result had nothing to do with Higgs and to claim the D0 analysis somehow affects the search is not only misleading but flat out wrong. If this is anything at all it is a leptophobic Z'
Higgs Boson does not exist. Tear this stupid brain wall down.
.. we atheists say : Ha, there is no god (particle).
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
'If it existed, we would see it. But when we look at our data, we basically see nothing
The goggels, they do nothing! Zhultz! Da da!
Alternative medicine gets plenty of funding. It's just that the things that researchers find to work cease being known as "alternative medicine", and are simply called "medicine".
And seeing the prices of all those herb extracts in Holland & Barrett, I doubt even those who persist in manufacturing "alternative medicines" are ever short of cash.