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.'"

Comments

Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[halivar]

What are the implications of such a particle not really existing in the first place? In terms of how we think our universe works?

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Religious people will say "We told you that God isn't a particle".

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Richard_at_work]

If it exists where people are looking for it, it will confirm certain current theories. If it doesn't exist where people are looking, it damages certain current theories. If it doesn't exist at all, it calls for a complete rethink on many things.

Basically, if the Higgs Boson exists where people think it does, it means our ideas about how the universe is constructed are well founded and once again science has provided evidence to back up its theories. If it doesn't, then that opens up doors for radical rethinks on those ideas, meaning possible new directions in which to go and new theories to seek evidence for.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[m50d]

The elegant standard model of particle physics only works because the particles don't have intrinsic mass (they get their mass from coupling to the higgs field). This allows a symmetry between the three "families" of particles (electron/muon/tau, neutrino/mu neutrino/tau neutrino, up/strange/top, down/charm/bottom etc.)

So if there is no Higgs boson then we're certainly missing something. I'm not sure if it's possible for the Higgs field to exist and not carry particles; certainly you'd normally expect for particles to be able to form in a field. If there's no Higgs field then either some other mechanism gives particles mass (and I'm not aware of any real proposals) or the standard model is wrong (which it probably is wrong, but we're short on replacements). If the standard model collapses, that puts us back to having 20+ different "fundamental" particles, all discovered through experiment, with no real idea of how they're related or how many more are out there.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Anonymous Coward]

First, to be clear: the Fermilab people haven't shown that the Higgs boson doesn't exist. They just didn't find it.

If the LHC doesn't find it, then we can start saying it doesn't exist. That would pretty much invalidate the standard model of particle physics, which is the currently best-accepted theory we have (because it gets most things right). If the standard model is wrong, it opens the door for other physical theories to be considered. Right now we're not taking those other theories so seriously because they all get one thing or another wrong, but if the standard model is also wrong about the Higgs, then there's no particular reason to favor it over other theories that also get one or two things wrong.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Paracelcus]

Perhaps some aspects of current physical science need to be re-visited? Like maybe the Euclidean point that was the initial state of the universe was not a point at all? Maybe there is no need for a Higgs Boson?

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Anonymous Coward]

God is a wave.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Richard_at_work]

Some aspects of current science always need to be re-visited, and science in general isn't touchy about doing so.

There may not be a need for Higgs Boson as you suggest, but the current theories suggest that there is - which is why its being looked for. No one has yet come up with a credible alternative that doesn't first throw out the entire current model, and quite honestly its currently cheaper to spend the money looking for the Higgs Boson than it is recreating the entire current model from scratch and coming up with evidence to support the change.

But the chance that the Higgs Boson might not exist is not a reason not to look for it - because looking for it will either prove it does exist, or that it doesn't exist where we thought it did. Both outcomes are beneficial, and just because we didn't find it doesnt mean the money was wasted - the fact that it wasn't where we thought it was is great science in itself, because it brings new data to the table.

Plus of course the chance that other discoveries may be made during the hunt for the Higgs Boson.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Are you sure? When I look at him through my two windows that are spaced apart he looks like a particle...

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[halivar]

As a followup question (again, I ask out of ignorance): is it even possible for the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle to be falsified?

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Mr_Huber]

Currently, things weigh more than they should. The mass of a particle is a function of the kinetic energy of the particle and it's component parts, if any. If we run the numbers, we get good masses for some particles, not good masses for others. A proposed solution to this problem is the Higgs field, a nonzero field that permeates space. Anything coupling with this field gains additional mass through interaction with the field.

Picture a person at a party. Normally, they are free to move through the party fairly easily. Now make that person famous. Admirers flock around, and the celebrity has trouble moving. Nonfamous people are particles that do not couple with the HIggs field. Celebrities are particles that do couple with the field, surrounded by a paparazzi of virtual Higgs particles.

Nice theory. It fills a gap in the standard model and now the math all works. So now we have to find the particle. You need the mass of a particle to find it in an accelerator. Roughly (very roughly), you need to create collisions where the sum energy of the little explosion is about that of the particle in question, then watch a statistically large number of those to see if something matching your particle appears. If it does, it's off to Stockholm for dinner with the king. If not, it's back to the drawing boards.

The problem is, the theory doesn't predict the mass of the particle. It doesn't even say if it is one particle, a family of similar particles or a family of different particles. So there's a wide spread of masses to examine. And all the masses are really high, far higher than any other existing accelerator could reach. So we have the new CERN experiment, slowly scanning the possible masses, looking for the particle.

If we don't find that particle, then we're back to square one, why are some particles heavier than predicted? For decades, we've assumed it was some sort of variant of the Higgs boson. But if that's not the case, it's back to the blackboard for more theories.

In general, this is a problem for particle physics. Finding or not finding the particle will affect chemistry, biology and general astronomy not at all. It might or might not have an affect on cosmology, but that's hard to say without a particle to talk about. More interesting for cosmology is that while searching for the Higgs, the experiment might come across more esoteric things, such as evidence for supersymmetry. Evidence for supersymmetry would automatically generate the prime number one candidate for dark matter. And nailing down the properties of dark matter would give us another probe of the Big Bang.

More information than you wanted probably, but I hope it helps.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[halivar]

Thanks. I think I grasp the rudiments of it now.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[cfc-12]

It means the universe has disappeared and been replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Richard_at_work]

Depends on what you mean by "falsified".

Can the LHC team fake it? Certainly they can, but it would be a complex fabrication - if their results showed that the HB fell outside of the limit of anything other than the LHC then independent verification would be impossible until another collider in the LHCs class could be constructed to run the same tests. In the mean time, as support for their findings, the LHC team would be pressed to release the raw data from the collisions - terabytes of data that would need falsifying to support the findings.

Would a falsification stand up for long? It depends how well it was done - science has several times been caught out by well done fakes to support one theory or another, but ultimately they have all fallen to scrutiny - or have they? Well, if any haven't, then they are standing up to scrutiny - what does that mean? :)

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[oh_my_080980980]

"If the LHC doesn't find "

If the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) didn't find it, we could almost say it doesn't exist. But unfortunately we never built it.

7 TeV (LHC) is too small to say there is no Higgs Boson. 20 TeV, which the SSC would have had, would be ample to say definitively there is no Higgs Boson.

So far the Standard Model is proved VERY successful. The Standard Model predicted monopoles. No one believed that was correct and then recently they discovered monopoles! So the Standard Model has a long track record of being correct. The problem is our technology is not sufficiently powerful enough to est all its predictions. It will take time.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[DerekLyons]

quite honestly its currently cheaper to spend the money looking for the Higgs Boson than it is recreating the entire current model from scratch and coming up with evidence to support the change.

Not completely true - because the new theory must first account for known phenomena, and thus can use existing data (and at virtually zero cost).

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[marcosdumay]

Yes, it is expected to be in a certain mass range, have a certain spin (zero), a certain electric charge (zero), a certain color (none - "color" refers to strong force charge), and so on. The LHC can sample all the "places" it is expected to be, and can prove it doesn't exist. Now, of course, somebody can come after that with a different theory, with a different particle and name it after Higg.

IANAP by the way.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[oh_my_080980980]

Ummm yes. That's the point. You really need to research this. In order to find particles you need certain energy levels to smash protons and anti-protons together. The resulting debris from the collision is captured with these special measure devices. The debris trail shows you particles from the collision and from this you can determine if you saw a Higgs Boson. The problem is you begin to need higher and higher energy levels. The Higgs Boson needs a very high energy level to begin to see it, something around 20 TeV. So if you don't see it at 7 TeV, it does not mean it does not exist. If you don't see it at 20 TeV, then you have a problem because the models say you should see it at that energy level.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[halivar]

If you don't see it at 20 TeV, then you have a problem because the models say you should see it at that energy level.

That answers my question succinctly. Thanks.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[gumbi west]

tip: google Karl Popper.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I think he meant falsified in the scientific sense as in "possible to disprove through experiment."

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Richard_at_work]

The data might be there, but you just sent thousands of scientists off on a theoretical goose hunt and cast doubt on every large scale experiment currently running.

Data already gathered might not cost anything, but the effort to come up with a new model which fits the current data plus the new results which invalidated the old data might cost billions of dollars in time and further experimentation. Or it might result in a small tweak over a couple of days.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[ProfMobius]

They discovered monopoles ? Do you have any reference for that, because I'm pretty sure it would give the finder a direct nobel price.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Khashishi]

Only a small fraction of scientific theories would be damaged by not finding the Higgs Boson.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[slimjim8094]

Falsifiability is when you describe an experiment that would show your theory to be false. Falsifiability is a requirement of a valid hypothesis. Gravity would be falsified by showing that objects with mass didn't accelerate towards each other - if you could show that, you disprove gravity. Evolution is falsified by watching a species spring from nothing. Creationism can't be falsified because "it's all God" - anything that happens that you didn't expect, God could've done - which is why creationism isn't science.

It's not about fabrications or hoaxes. The GP's question (I hope) is whether somebody could construct an experiment that shows that the boson *doesn't* exist, at least not as we understand it.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[GameboyRMH]

Picture a person at a party. Normally, they are free to move through the party fairly easily. Now make that person famous. Admirers flock around, and the celebrity has trouble moving. Nonfamous people are particles that do not couple with the HIggs field. Celebrities are particles that do couple with the field, surrounded by a paparazzi of virtual Higgs particles.

Analogy of the Year candidate!

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[halivar]

I didn't see any cars in that analogy...

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[DerekLyons]

The data might be there, but you just sent thousands of scientists off on a theoretical goose hunt and cast doubt on every large scale experiment currently running.

No I didn't. I started with one guy, or a couple guys that get a flash of inspiration over a beer, or a handful at a weekend BBQ or a conference. You're correct in assuming there is unlikely to be a large scale assault - you're incorrect in assuming that's the only possible route.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[__aamnbm3774]

I'm still shocked by this outrageous quote from the summary

the last unproven piece of the physics puzzle

maybe according to the Current standard model...maybe...but hardly the last physics phenomenon that exists, even at microscopic levels.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[GameboyRMH]

There's a separate category for Car Analogy of the Year.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[symes]

No mod points, so wanted to say thanks!

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Dr. Eggman]

You're correct, at present we've only managed to find quasi-monopoles.
Large-scale cousin of elusive 'magnetic monopoles' found

I'm eager to see if the MoEDAL Experiment manages to pull of a find of true magnetic monopoles, though.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[maxwell demon]

They discovered monopoles ? Do you have any reference for that, because I'm pretty sure it would give the finder a direct nobel price.

I think one was found in Redmond. :-)

On a more serious note, maybe he confused it with the the discovery of magnetic monopoles as quasiparticles.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[equex]

Hold your horses people..doesn't the LHC kind of assume that we know how this works, and that it's safe to turn it to full power? Some people have claimed that the black hole that is created will NOT grow in size, because 'we understand this so shut up' , essentially. Does this discovery (or lack thereof) mean we have to reconsider the LHC?

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[OakDragon]

I thought he meant "is it possible to prove the Higgs Boson doesn't exist?".

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Richard_at_work]

Riiight - because every scientist in the world instantly gets together and decides precisely which small group of them owns the problem, and the rest of them leave it alone? No.

It may end with a flash of inspiration at a BBQ, but it certainly doesn't wouldn't start there. The moment a major theory is invalidated, every scientist working on a research project is going to investigate as to how its going to affect them, and many will work on the problem themselves.

Science isn't done by committee, its done by people who are interested.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Paracelcus]

Actually the H/B is one of the main reasons why the current model falls apart as you get closer to the B/B!

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Anonymous Coward]

If the Higgs doesn't exist, then unitarity constraints cause the W-sector coupling to become extremely large at an energy scale somewhat smaller than 1 TeV. The resulting bound state plays a role very similar to the Higgs,in that it breaks the electroweak symmetry, but it does it through a dynamical process rather that an elegant spontaneous one. Its physical properties will be similar to a Higgs. This is why Chris Quigg says the Higgs will be discovered whether it exists or not.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Suiggy]

It means we have to look to alternative microscopic theories to explain gravity, such as emergent entropic gravity and the holographic principle.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[slew]

Ok, here's the higgs boson car analogy...

Suppose you have car and emperically you figure out how to drift it into many different turns. In certain configurations, you notice a certain amount of differential side-slip and you collect data. You make a theory about drifting based on various combinations of tires (particles), and road surface types (fields). One thing that you notice is that you don't really know why there's certain side-slip angles with different treads, so you propose a theory that the coupling between the tires and the road surface is different between these situations and that affects the skid dynamics (apparent mass), that you experience. Okay now you have this great theory and a bunch of empirical data of skid dyanmics that works for you by assigning magic number (masses) to various combination tires and surface types.

But you wonder if you can find a way to predict the dynamics and you come up with this idea that this coupling is a fundamental relationship of the coupling between tires and road surfaces (kinda like friction). Your theory is that there is some interaction between the tire and road which is like "friction" caused by the tread design and tire deformation amount. So you devise an experiment to see if you can find the thing causing this "friction".

The higgs field is analgous "friction" and the search for the higgs-boson is analagous to the search for the source of friction. If you think of friction being caused by atomic forces, there is some range of forces that can cause the macroscopic changes in skid dynamics that you see empirically. Likewize with Higgs, the higgs-boson need to be found in a certain range of collision energy if it is consistant with the standard model to match the empirical data of obverved mass and coupling constants up to Planck scale energies (where gravity is more quantized and mass probably has different physics).

If we find the thing that causes atomic forces that is consistant with our theory of "friction" (with say the tread design, or say the tire deformation amount), then probably something else explains the skid dynamics that isn't "friction", but something else. So we have to determine by experiment what the skid dynamics are for each tire and road combination. Likewize, with w/o Higgs we are struggling to have a theory of mass, but that doesn't mean mass (and the resultant dynamical behaviour) doesn't exist, just we don't know why it exists and can't predict it from known theories.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Gbor]

Prof. Stephen Pollock considers the question of "what if there is no Higgs boson" in some detail in his course "Particle Physics for Non-Physicists: A Tour of the Microcosmos" ( http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspx?cid=1247 ). Lecture 19 is specifically about the Higgs, but I'd recommend the course in its entirety. It's fascinating stuff. Regarding the question, to keep it short, in his view even if there is no such thing as the Higgs boson, the Standard Model is not in any danger of getting obsolete. Should the Higgs prove non-existing (little side question: how do you prove something doesn't exists?), parts of the model dealing with the Weak Force ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_Force ) might need to be revisited and perhaps expanded upon. However, for the most part there is a huge amount of experimental evidence of its correctness, which has been accumulated in decades long of research.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[mburns]

The Kaluza-Klein model implies intrinsic mass for a charge, else the gravitational fields implied would self dissipate. Requiring a well defined and self stabilizing horizon demands the combination of one subluminal dilation horizon and another opposing superluminal dilation horizon.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[Patch86]

No. Not in any even remotely sensible way.

The LHC is, basically, looking for particles (the Higgs boson in particular). They look for them by colliding other particles together at very specific energies and looking at the results. There are lots of different theorised Higgs bosons, each of which would appear at a different energy level- so they're busy colliding things at all the relevant energy levels to see which one (if any) yields the Higgs. One run of the experiment at a certain energy level thought it spotted the elusive Higgs boson- re-runs of the experiment have found this detection to be a false positive.

This is exactly what is "understood" to be supposed to happen. It is all going essentially as it's supposed to be going (only, unfortunately, without yet making any discoveries).

None of that has anything to do with the creation or behaviour of black holes.

Re:Please explain to this non-physics-type geek

[TopherC]

I'm way behind on this discussion but it looks like people are misinterpreting this report. The CDF experiment at Fermilab had reported last April on a possible observation of a new particle. They say that it is *not* a Higgs candidate, but could be something else (even more startling than a Higgs, such as a supersymmetric particle). Something with a mass of about 140 MeV/c^2 appears to be decaying into W and two quarks. This report is here: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2011/today11-04-07.html

TFA is a report from the D0 experiment that they do not see this same thing. They should have been able to see it if it were real, but they did not. If D0 had also seen the same kind of signal that CDF did, then things would really get exciting! But for now I guess one could say that results are inconclusive on whether or not there is new physics here.

1) This is (probably) not about the Higgs at all.
2) This is not (yet) about CERN/LHC. D0 and CDF are the two collider experiments sitting on Fermilab's main ring, and they share a healthy kind of rivalry. The LHC at CERN hosts six experiments: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/LHCExperiments-en.html . The beams at these accelerators are designed to intersect (collide) at certain points around which various impressive arrays of detectors are built. Hence we have multiple experiments with independent data sets and their own unique strengths and systematics running in parallel at the same lab.

Disclaimer: I'm not really current on any of this but I can at least point out that all this discussion is off-topic and even the /. post title, "Data Review Brings Major Setback In Higgs Boson Hunt", is completely off the mark.

The Presence of Absence

[The Living Fractal]

Sometimes not seeing what you expected is worth seeing in itself...

Re:The Presence of Absence

[Richard_at_work]

My exact first thought on reading the summary was "well, its not a setback, its just one place less to look!"

Re:The Presence of Absence

[grasshoppa]

The lack of data itself is as interesting as a "Well that's odd" moment in other experiments.

Re:The Presence of Absence

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the Higgs Boson particle is just natures "Null" value.

Re:The Presence of Absence

[oh_my_080980980]

What? You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously go read the "God Particle" by Leon Lederman to understand the history.

Your accusations of the scientists that have conducted this research for centuries is simple obtuse. They weren't fanatics trying to protect failed ideas. They were in search of an answer. This search lead them down blind allies and tangents. But research, always corrected them and put them on the right path.

The Standard Model has held up well but many question its complexity. The particle family has grown quite large. So many wondered if there is a more fundamental particle lurking beneath the Quarks and Leptons. So far nothing conclusive.

Re:The Presence of Absence

[The Living Fractal]

Yes... hmmmm, yes I have a book to sell you, it can help you know your destiny by reading the stars.... :p

Re:The Presence of Absence

[thegarbz]

I would agree, except no one expects that the Tevatron can generate a particle collision high enough in energy to show evidence of the Higgs Boson. It was one of the primary reasons that the LHC was built in the first place.

The Tevatron not being able to find the Higgs is in the science community largely uninteresting. Now if the LHC doesn't see it then it may border on the realm of "unexpected" but even that means that the Higgs may not be present only at those energy levels. This would cast serious doubt on the standard model but again may not conclusively disprove it. Mind you it should create enough doubt in the science community to look for alternative models.

Budgets

[Baby Duck]

I have a much cheaper device in my backyard that's good at finding nothing.

Re:Budgets

[The Living Fractal]

No, you don't. Finding nothing in specific conditions is different than finding nothing in your backyard. I doubt you can collide subatomic particles in a controlled environment in your backyard.

Re:Budgets

[Sir_Sri]

At the TeV scale anyway.

You can pretty easily get a particle accelerator that will fit in your yard, it's just not going to be powerful enough to see anything new.

Re:Budgets

[jmd_akbar]

When something touches even the air, it's particles are colliding with something..

So there you are..

Re:Budgets

[blair1q]

I bet that's exactly the sound a TeV proton would make.

Re:Budgets

[SnarfQuest]

I have a much cheaper device in my backyard that's good at finding nothing.

A son-in-law looking for a job?

Re:Budgets

[John Hasler]

> A son-in-law looking for a job?

No. Those are very expensive.

Re:Budgets

[Muros]

No they aren't. Particles don't collide in our normal daily experience of the universe; they merely bounce off each orther's fields.

Good on them

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Good on them

[Sardaukar86]

This isn't science, it's religion. They even call it The God Particle!

Nicely done - demonstrate your ignorance of the topic of which you write and simultaneously advertise to Slashdot that your future comments can be safely ignored.

Faux News

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

And of course...

[savanik]

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.

Re:And of course...

[The Living Fractal]

I disagree. Sometimes math fails (root: because we fail at math) and the only recourse is to smash things together to see what falls out.

Re:And of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever the optimist.

Re:And of course...

[Richard_at_work]

And of course you can provide evidence to back your assertion that the entire thing needs a rethink? Just from your comment, I'd rather give these scientists billions of dollars for the LHC than give you $10 for lunch.

Re:And of course...

[elsurexiste]

Ok. I'll ask "Why?" to all your statements.

Re:And of course...

[bhagwad]

If anything, this just shows me the way science should work. An assertion is taken, tested impartially and if found wanting it's discarded without a second thought. No emotion, no hysterics. Just science.

Your worries about a huge conspiracy are shall we say...a tad loony?

Re:And of course...

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Exactly. The Higgs is the Luminiferous Aether with a new name and the same old reasons for believing it exists. Everyone admits the Standard Model is broken, and then in the next breath they say "it's the most accurate theory EVAR" - sure, it's nothing but a list of observations tied together with a list of suppositions. Any theory with 17 independent magic numbers in it and no explanation for WHY they have to have those exact values isn't a theory at all, it's a list of empirical observations. That's not to say that Tevatron and LHC aren't doing good science, or making great observations (and yes, I think they're worth the money) - I'm saying they should stop trying to determine what fabric The Emperor's New Clothes are made of.

Re:And of course...

[m50d]

You know how they "fixed" the ether? It wasn't with pen and paper, it was by thinking about the implications, then doing the experiments (in particular, michaelson-morely), and then looking at the results. The same thing they're doing now with the Higgs.

I don't think the Higgs exists either. But it's the best candidate explanation for observed phenomena. There is an upper limit on the mass of a standard model Higgs, and testing in the relevant range is reasonable; even if we don't find the Higgs, we'll likely find something interesting. Of course, if you have a better candidate model, then by all means make the predictions, publish them, and see whether they match what the LHC comes up with.

Re:And of course...

[BitHive]

When you get a sec can you jot down that math for us, I have some friends who are physicists and it sounds like they could use your help.

Re:And of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually not. Naively explained so you can understand it, the Higgs mechanism to work needs a Higgs mass between 114 GeV upwards to ~170 GeV. Outside of that region things don't work and it's safe to say you have to look for better ideas.

The reason why physicist think the Higgs boson is there it's because 3/4th of the idea has already been discovered, the W^+ , W^- and Z bosons. What is left of the picture is that 1/4 which correspondes to the Higgs in the electroweak theory. If there is supersymmetry there might be 5 Higgs bosons which would make the discovery of each of them a little bit more difficult. But hopefuly feasable in the LHC.

If you let me, I would give an analogy*. Think of you trying to solve a puzzle, a very complicated one indeed. After years of work you manage to assambly a consistent arrangement of all the pieces that not only fits, also gives a pretty picture. All there's to find a piece that you lost somewhere in the room to put it in it's place. At this point you are pretty confident that the chances of it not fitting are small, and that you got it right. But physicist don't take this for granted, they wan't to find the piece and prove it. And if it doesn't fit, don't worry, we will work on the puzzle again.

*NOTE: If needed the image of the puzzle can be that of a car.

Re:And of course...

[Kjella]

And what pray tell is the "right" math? There's kazillions of mathematical models, but only one that that actually fits reality - though simplifications can cover specific parts like Newtonian physics. You can't know if your model is accurate without testing. In fact, without observation you can't even guess at a model at all. That sometimes we think we know what's out there in the unknown is the rare exception to when we don't. If we're just going to sit around and think about it, we'll get no further than the philosophers do.

Re:And of course...

[rthille]

What I'd like to know (and it may be known, but what I know about this is from following it on Slashdot :-) is whether there exists (in theory at least) a disconfirming experiment for the Higgs Boson. Or is the only way to "prove" it doesn't exist is just to never find it.

Re:And of course...

[TeethWhitener]

Mod parent up.

Re:And of course...

[John Hasler]

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.

1) The Standard Model predicts that the Higgs will be found within a specific energy range. The LHC is powerful enough to explore that entire range. Therefor if the LHC does not find the Higgs it does not exist.

2) Finding the Higgs is not the purpose of the LHC. It's merely one experiment.

Re:And of course...

[SnarfQuest]

If the math shows that they should see it using the energies of those two labs, then they either need to figure out why they aren't seeing it (problems with hardware), or why their theories are wrong (problems with theory). That is how real science works. Create a theory, then try to prove it true or false in the real world.

Or they can just go the "climate change" way, and vote it to be true without any validation behind it.

Re:And of course...

[blackraven14250]

Unfortunately, unless they give the particles crazy names and describe the observations in certain ways, there won't be funding to perform more observations in different (in this case, high energy) environments.

Re:And of course...

[John Hasler]

Where did you publish your theory?

Re:And of course...

[John Hasler]

The Higgs is predicted to exist in a certain energy range which the LHC will eventually explore completely. If it does not find the Higgs there it does not exist (though other interesting things may).

Re:And of course...

[starwed]

It's a fucking embarrassment to slashdot that this troll is modded "insightful."

Re:And of course...

[Artifakt]

What would count as good evidence that the standard model has a big flaw in it? When people started thinking the epicycle model was wrong, it happened for several reasons (paraphrasing Thomas Kuhn for much of this):
        By Copernicus' time, 1) there were a lot of accumulated observations that no one had during the first few hundred years, and new tools made those latter observations more accurate. 2) The formulas to calculate epicycles grew more and more complex to account for those observations, and people could point to the history of the model to show what that trend implied for its future. People lost confidence that the next tweak would be the last. 3) the epicycle model still didn't predict some basic things, such as the exact start time of some planets appearing to precess, accurately enough.
        So, for 1), the standard model hasn't been around for hundreds of years. In the time it has been around, we have developed much more powerful accelerators, but we haven't invented a significantly new class of tools (such as the Galilean or Newtonian telescope, or reasonably accurate to a few seconds a day clocks, all of which came in as epicycle models were being rejected). Progress on the observational side has all been evolutionary, not revolutionary, so progress on the theoretical side will tend to mirror that, rightly or wrongly.
For 2), The Higgs is one of a very few testable predictions which could add some math to the rest of the standard model. It makes the math a little more complex to include it, but by itself, it doesn't suggest that every 20 years or so, we will again have to add some more complexity. Evidence for condition 2) would have to come from more than just Higgs Boson research, i.e. finding some other unexplained particle that definitely isn't the Higgs to suggest we are seeing ever mounting complexity. A possible Higgs candidate slightly outside the projected ranges, or something which seemed mostly Higgslike but for some odd property (say, a cluster of related particles all with no spin or color, but slightly varying energies), wouldn't make most theoreticians rethink the whole model so much as try to tweak it a little.
3) We could argue that 3) is being met, in the form of the gravity related incompatibilities of QM and General Relativity. If we still face that question in 100 or 200 years, more and more working scientists will regard it as a situation like 1), and arguments that the change needed is major will gradually gain traction.

Re:And of course...

[Artifakt]

You really can't know that there's even a single mathematical model that fits reality. Yes, it looks that way so far, but it's a starting axiom of science that there will be one and only one. It would be a very odd universe indeed if there were zero or more than one, but science doesn't reason its way to proving there is only one, science starts from that as a default assumption. Reasoning this to be true is a matter of philosophy, which can argue from axioms completely outside of science that math is not just pragmatically useful but fundamentally a requirement of all true science.

Re:And of course...

[Kjella]

As long as there's some sanity in what applies where, disjoint models would be put into one. That's how it works without a theory of everything, we have models for the various forces that in their limited scope seem correct. And there's nothing saying the laws of the universe must be constant either in time or in space, just that there's some form of pattern we can describe. And I would say there's at least a partial pattern or we'd not have all the models we do have. Even probabilities like quantum mechanics and isotope half-lifes can be modeled.

Re:And of course...

[khallow]

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.

And how do you know there's an problem with the standard model?

Re:And of course...

[khallow]

When people started thinking the epicycle model was wrong

You ignore that the epicycle model is asymptotically true. Enough corrections and any theory would be as true as any other theory. The problem was that the epicycle model was not parsimonious and there was a vastly simpler way to describe the dynamics of bodies acting under the influence of gravity.

There's an opinion that the standard model and the variety of proposed corrections to it isn't parsimonious. But it's not based on scientific evidence.

Re:And of course...

[TheTurtlesMoves]

The universe is not required to work they way you want it too. There really may be 17 or more "constants" without explanation. There is no reason to expect otherwise. We may hope otherwise, but that is not the same thing.

The universe has no obligation to reducible/explained to/by some "elegant model".

Re:And of course...

[Patch86]

Not being able to find it in the limits of where it should be is a fairly good way of disproving it.

But if that's not good enough for you, the next step would be to try to find observational evidence for one of the competing theories, of which there are already a few:

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

If you can find evidence of a model that doesn't involve the Higgs boson, then you can probably rule out the Higgs boson.

CPUs used ?

[Nyall]

Floating point precision is slightly different between powerpc (64 bits and fused multiply and accumulate instructions) and x86 (80 bit internal results)

THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

God is a Crotch Shot

[nightcats]

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...

The Higgs Boson disappears my socks.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> 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.

Re:The Higgs Boson disappears my socks.

[The Living Fractal]

LOL. +1 Funny :)

/sigh

[Charliemopps]

"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."

Um guys

[voss]

"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.

Re:Um guys

[DBNickel]

I don't know, 12.22.2012 is a scary looking number, and has a lot of 2's - which makes it very suspicious to techs. No sir, I don't like.it.

Not the Higgs

[wuzzeb]

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

Re:Not the Higgs

[bflong]

Will someone with mod points please mod the parent up?
Only Fox News is trying to connect this with the Higgs... the bastion of science reporting that they are.

Re:Not the Higgs

[timeOday]

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.

Maybe the first party happened to observe a set of statistically anomalous events, which didn't re-occur when the second party looked into it. Like if I visited the desert for one day and it happened to rain, I might say, "we have reason to suspect this may be a wet climate," but as more people spent more days there trying to replicate my findings they would find this is not the case. That is not necessarily indicative of a mistake on anybody's part.

Re:Not the Higgs

[John Hasler]

I've not noticed that Fox is worse at science reporting than average for general media (which is not to say that they are good at it...)

Re:Not the Higgs

[hitmark]

Well in this case it is not so much direct observation as trying to sort thru a whole lot of detected particles. Kinda like deciding to find one specific jigsaw piece in the box by sorting thru snapshots of the content of the box being tossed across the room. And while doing that they notice what looks like a 5th corner piece in what should be a square puzzle.

Re:Not the Higgs

[renhwa]

This comment should be emphasized. The summary and title are way off the mark.
1. This was not a data "review," but rather an entirely new analysis. Fermilab has two experiments that study proton-antiproton collisions, named CDF and D0. CDF published the original paper, and then D0 tried to verify their claims. Reproducibility of results is a tenet of science; having multiple ~independent experiments at Fermilab allows results from one experiment to be verified at another. This story demonstrates exactly why we need independent verification to be confident in a result.
2. This is not a setback. The CDF bump was unexpected and quite exciting, but not vital to the progress or science, nor anybody's daily business in the particle physics world.
3. This never had anything to do with the Higgs. Generally, people have not been regarding the CDF bump as a possible Higgs signal, but rather an indication of something new.

See D0's paper. And...let's stay away from FoxNews for science writing.

Albert had no problem

[JimWise]

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

Re:Albert had no problem

[blair1q]

There are birds everywhere, too, but unless you are very scientific in your approach, they will elude you.

Sorry

[M8e]

I salute Major Setback and hope he can be helpfull in the hunt of Higgs boson.

Re:What nonsense.

[MightyMartian]

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.

Let's set the record straight

[jma34]

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.

Re:poorly worded

[ProfMobius]

Thank you very much. I was waiting for someone to realise that this article has nothing to do with the Higgs boson. It is about one experiment finding a new particle, and another one finding nothing. It is NOT about the Higgs.

Looks like Heaven can wait

[paiute]

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

Persistence

[wcrowe]

If it were easy it wouldn't be worth doing.

As Thomas Edison Would Say

[Ukab the Great]

They didn't fail to find the Higgs-Boson; they succeeded in discovering a way that the universe does not work.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

CERN

[Have Brain Will Rent]

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.

Re:What nonsense.

[Ironhandx]

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.

Hah!

[MerelyASetback]

My name has never been more relevant!

Charade?

[Msdose]

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.

Weren't doubts already expressed *at*Fermilab*?

[siglercm]

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?

Re:Weren't doubts already expressed *at*Fermilab*?

[Lawrence_Bird]

the CDF bump has nothing to do with Higgs nor does this D0 result using about half as much data. Were the CDF bump real it would likely be indication of a Z' and physics beyond the standard model.

INCORRECT Headline

[Lawrence_Bird]

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'

but not before ..

[Weezul]

.. we atheists say : Ha, there is no god (particle).

Re:What nonsense.

[Patch86]

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.