LHC Homes In On Possible Higgs Boson Around 126GeV

New submitter Ginger Unicorn writes "In a seminar held at CERN today, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery."

Comments

No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

Unless things have changed since yesterday, the LHC cannot disprove the HB.

It can show that it isn't within certain energy ranges, but it does not have the capability of emphatically disproving it's existence over the entire predicted spectrum.

Re:No they can't

[geekoid]

It has to appear withing a certain range. Check all the ranges.

Obviously, new data could have adjust those ranges, but no new data or math has come forward.

It's like checking to see if a car in in a garage by looking at 1 sqr. mete at a time. eventual you will show that there is, or is not, a car in the garage.

Re:No they can't

[rasmusbr]

They didn't make any specific claims today, except that there's an energy region that looks quite promising. Read the official press release

Re:No they can't

[broginator]

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/210119-you-dont-say

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

No that's the point; they can't check all the ranges.

The LHC is incapable of operating at the upper energies of the predicted spectrum of the higgs boson. It simply cannot check all of the places it might be hiding (this was known before construction even started)

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

I did, and it specifically mentions a confirmation of existence or non-existence in 2012.

If they meant non-existence within a specific energy band, fine but that isn't what they said in the release.

Re:No they can't

[geekoid]

And that is why I shouldn't post until I have completely woken up. I mean, you clarified it in your second sentence.

Sheeesh. Sorry about that.

Re:No they can't

[twotacocombo]

Science dictates that you cannot prove something doesn't exist; only that it does.

Re:No they can't

[DigiShaman]

It's the God particle. Have a little faith.

Re:No they can't

[elrous0]

the LHC cannot disprove the HB

...or unicorns.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he got it right. You are the one that has it wrong. You can't prove a negative. If you fail to find something in your experiment it does not prove that it does not exist. It proves that you didn't find it. Which could mean your experiment was flawed, had too small a sample size, etc. (For example, the particle can exist, but be so rare as to not be found over many iterations of testing). There is, indeed, as the OP said, no way to prove it does not exist. If, however, you find a particle - you have proved that particle exists. Just as was stated.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Science dictates that you cannot prove something exists?

Re:No they can't

[lordholm]

No, you can only prove known properties. You cannot prove a negative. Or to rephrase, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

To take someone else's example, imagine the flying teapot in orbit some where in the solar system, you cannot disprove that it is there. However, by finding it you can prove its existence. What you can probably do is to show that it is unlikely that something exists; so unlikely that you consider that the thing does not exist. However disproving it completely is not possible. We can thus assume that a flying teapot in the orbit around jupiter does not exist, because it would be very unlikely that it did, however you cannot disprove it completelly by not finding it.

Re:No they can't

[LoyalOpposition]

You can't prove a negative.

Why should I believe that you can't prove a negative?

~Loyal

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow ...not only were you wrong, but you were a jerk about it too, and I don't think you were trolling...

Re:No they can't

[vikingpower]

Both of you are not exactly wrong, nor are you exactly right IMHO. As you guy talk about existence and non-existence proofs ( there are other types of proof ), let me jump on your bandwaggon: Proving negatives sometimes *is* possible, e.g. in mathematics, as in : "There exists no natural number n satisfying such and such properties...". Proving the non-existence of the Higgs Boson is another and much stronger cup of tea. First, the proof domain would be physics, not mere and pure mathematics. Second, the Higgs Boson is a construct within a theory. Proving the HB not to exist would require the theory to be falsified, the outlook for which is, gently said, scant. Third, the mathematics under the theory is sound, provenly so. Therefore, both of you are ( not so exactly ) wrong.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait till they discover that those values are only local to our part of the Universe*, and that known constants, and indeed not, and entirely dependent on your position within the expanding Universe.

- this post brought to you by The Coalition For An Unstable Universe

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Except one of the properties for something to be a Higgs boson is a minimum coupling strength to Standard Model particles and to have a mass below a certain limit.

We cannot disprove the teapot's existence, but we can disprove the existence of a planet of a certain size and albedo out to a certain distance from the Sun.

Re:No they can't

[vikingpower]

....but what if I prove that "you can't prove a negative ?" Then what, gentlemen ?

Re:No they can't

[rasmusbr]

I must have misread your post. I thought you meant that the data gathered so far by the LHC can't disprove the existence of the Higgs boson.

So you mean that the LHC is unable to disprove all of the Higgs bosons that have been proposed? That's interesting. Do you have a link to an article about that for the non-physicists among us?

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

Science is very clear about it's own mission:

You form a hypothesis, and either demonstrate that it is consistent with observations or inconsistent.

If it is inconsistent, you were wrong. If it was consistent it doesn't mean you were right.

Science allows for negation, it does not ever allow for emphatic affirmation.

Re:No they can't

[serviscope_minor]

Unless things have changed since yesterday, the LHC cannot disprove the HB.

The article/summary is over simplified. They are trying to prove or disprove the standard model. It predicts the existence of the Higgs boson within a certain energy range. Failure to find the Higgs boson within those ranges will disprove the standard model.

Re:No they can't

[Quirkz]

I think you two are talking about slightly different things. A new species, for instance, most certainly can only be proved to exist, and never to not exist. Theories, on the other hand, can only be falsified or "determined to agree in this instance" but not ever proved.

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

Science proper only deals with the latter; a new species cannot actually be "proved" to be anything unless you have a full and precise description of it down to the subatomic makeup.

You can however show that a new specimen does not belong to a current classification, and thus requires a new one. That's just how science works.

Re:No they can't

[Canazza]

Philosophy dictates that you cannot prove something exists.

Re:No they can't

[physburn]

Thats incorrect, physicist know that there must have been some like the Higgs below 1TeV, and the LHC runs at 7 TeV, soon to be 14 GeV. Even with those 7 TeV divided into 3, (its the quarks that interact not the whole proton, actual its 3+3*(1+1/alpha_strong+1/apha_strong^2...Higher terms), because of the gluons in the proton). But the interaction energy is about 2 TeV per quark, so the LHC can look for a Higgs all the way to 2 Tev, evidential 4 TeV.

---

Particles Physics Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:No they can't

[rasmusbr]

It's news because it confirmed the rumors that have been floating around the web the last couple of weeks. It looks like there's a decent chance* that the Higgs exists somewhere around 126 GeV.

*Unless you're one of those people who think the chance is either 1 or 0...

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

Sorry you too are wrong:

Science works in a very specific way:

Form hypothesis, compare against observations.

If your hypothesis isn't matched by observations, you were wrong; if your hypothesis is matched by observations you weren't wrong, but that doesn't mean you were specifically right either.

Science deals in negation, not affirmation. We believe things exist because we have shown other explanations to be incorrect, not because we have proof that our current ones are correct.

Re:No they can't

[ari_j]

All general statements are false.

Re:No they can't

[mcgrew]

Well, since the war is over it won't be long before they find the Higgs.

Re:No they can't

[msauve]

Cogito ergo sum.

Re:No they can't

[Yobgod Ababua]

They could if the data suggested it.

As it is, the data strongly indicates the Higgs is in fact around 120 GeV, but they only have enough statistics so far to claim "evidence" and not "proof".

Re:No they can't

[Rising Ape]

To take someone else's example, imagine the flying teapot in orbit some where in the solar system, you cannot disprove that it is there.

If your teapot has certain properties (minimum size, interacts with electromagnetic radiation for example), you could scan the solar system with apparatus known to be sensitive enough to detect such an object. If, after scanning the entire solar system in this way, you find nothing, then you have proved that the teapot isn't there.

Similarly, the Higgs has certain properties (otherwise it wouldn't be the Higgs), and we know that the LHC is ultimately sensitive enough to detect particles with those properties.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, Done that.

Hindsight, 20/20. Foresight?.. not so much

Re:No they can't

[bcrowell]

Unless things have changed since yesterday, the LHC cannot disprove the HB. It can show that it isn't within certain energy ranges, but it does not have the capability of emphatically disproving it's existence over the entire predicted spectrum.

That's literally true but misleading. Here is a paper that explains how non-LHC data constrain the standard-model Higgs to have a mass between 115 and 148 GeV. The LHC can't test whether there's a Higgs with a very high mass, but that's irrelevant because we know it has to be below 148 GeV based on non-LHC data. Based on the combination of non-LHC and LHC data, we know that if there's a standard-model Higgs, then it has a mass of about 115-127 GeV. The LHC is absolutely capable of disproving the existence of a standard-model Higgs within that mass range, if it doesn't actually exist. If there is no SM Higgs, we will know that within a couple of years based on LHC data.

The real reason there may be a lot of uncertainty for years to come is that there are many different ways of making a model with a Higgs in it. The standard model is only one of them. Some of the non-SM Higgses could be very difficult to detect. Here is a nice discussion of that. There are scenarios where the SM Higgs is ruled out by 2014, but by 2022 we still will not have detected or ruled out a non-SM Higgs.

Re:No they can't

[Bengie]

Slow news? This could be massive news, but we're not sure yet.

Re:No they can't

[JamesP]

Erm... no

Actually, the LHC can't prove the existence of the Higgs Boson

They can show overwhelming evidence for it, up to the point the Higgs Boson is as accepted as the electron for instance

But until then, you can't "disprove" a thing that has the best evidence for existing @ 3 sigma...

Re:No they can't

[mark-t]

Actually, you can... by contradiction. If the original premise that is disproven by contradiction can be shown to be necessary and sufficient for some other phenomenon that you are hoping to prove (such as the existence of the Higg's, for example), then you will have disproven the existence of that phenomenon as well.

Re:No they can't

[Roger W Moore]

If they meant non-existence within a specific energy band, fine but that isn't what they said in the release.

The Standard Model Higgs is constrained to lie within a particular energy band due to certain scattering processes becoming more than 100% likely to occur around 1 TeV/c2 if there is no Higgs (or something else). I have not seen our ATLAS predictions for the reach with twice the 2011 data (which is what we expect in 2012) but I would be surprised if it is enough to exclude all the way to 1 TeV/c2. However if it occurs at the top end of the mass range, then it becomes hard to reconcile with the existing Standard Model parameters.

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

I replied in more detail to the poster above you, but it boils down to this:

Disproving the standard model is not disproving the higgs boson (so to speak).

The photon is a member of the standard model too, but it doesn't mean that if they disprove the standard model photons cease to exist.

Once they have covered all theoretical ranges of the higgs boson including the ones that allow for breakage of the standard model, then they will have disproven the HB

Re:No they can't

[StikyPad]

You can't prove a negative.

Sure you can. You can prove that a number is not even. "You can't prove a negative" is an oversimplification of the axiom that "absence of evidence" != "evidence of absence". But even that is not saying that there's no such thing as "evidence of absence." A properly designed experiment *can* provide evidence of absence just as reliably as a properly designed experiment can provide evidence of existence. What it cannot do is speak to conditions outside the scope of the experiment, but neither can any experiment. There is always a non-zero probability that any inference is wrong, which is why scientists speak in terms of confidence levels instead of absolutes. And even then, it's easy to make the mistake that a high degree of confidence is the same as an absolute truth, when it could be that an experiment was biased in a way that no one had noticed.

Re:No they can't

[mark-t]

Well, to take your flying teapot example, if the premise that if the flying teapot exists and we are looking at it then we will detect it is true, then failure to detect it after exhaustively searching the solar system would be sufficient to completely disprove the existence of the teacup in the solar system. The only way the teacup could actually exist within the solar system under such circumstances is if it were, in fact, completely undetectable - which makes the suggestion of its existence quite meaningless.

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

Try replying to what is actually written next time.

Nobody will *ever* be able to prove the existence of the higgs boson. LHC cannot *disprove* the existence of the higgs boson.

Those statements do not contradict each other, and I only made one of them.

Thanks for playing though

Re:No they can't

[Man On Pink Corner]

Excuse me, this was supposed to be a triple nonfat latte.

Re:No they can't

[Script Cat]

You can't prove a negative is not a rule of logic. Go back to school.

Can you prove 2+2 is not equal to 58.
No you can't prove a negative.

Assume 2+2= 58
2= 1+1

1+1+1+1= count them =4
4=58
initial assumption is false
2+2 is in fact not equal to 58 negative proved. This is a counter example to the statement "You can't prove a negative"
"You can't prove a negative" is false

-------

Yes you can make general statements that are true.
"All general statements are false" is not a rule of logic. Go back to school.

"2+2 is always equal to 4". Is a general statement.
2=1+1
1+1+1+1=count them =4
4=4 true
The particular general statement "2+2 is always equal to 4" is true. "2+2 is always equal to 4" is a counter example to "All general statements are false".
"All general statements are false" is, in fact, its self false.

Re:No they can't

[AdrianKemp]

I've looked at it again, and I think the issue is in their wording. They flip back and forth between saying "Standard Model Higgs Boson" and just Higgs Boson.

Those are very different things, and if you assume that they mean SM everywhere they don't say it then what they say is valid.

They will not ever be able to disprove the Higgs Boson with the LHC, disproving the standard model (higgs boson) isn't an issue.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

that is an assumption, not a proof

Re:No they can't

[JamesP]

You can't disprove the existence of something which is not sure to exist.

(Of course, you can't turn off a light that's already off, but that's too obvious)

So saying the LHC cannot disprove the HB is like saying no one can disprove Unicorns

nice try

Re:No they can't

[ari_j]

The only thing that you have proven is that you lack a sense of humor.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you prove 2+2 is not equal to 58.
No you can't prove a negative.

58 is positive, not negative. Dumbass.

Re:No they can't

[ceoyoyo]

You can prove a negative subject to certain assumptions. The assumption here is that the Standard Model is correct. The Standard Model requires the Higgs to have certain properties. Those properties mean that it MUST appear in certain energy ranges and it MUST create a signal in a certain range of amplitudes. So if you look in those ranges with sufficient statistical power to detect amplitudes in the allowed ranges and you find nothing, you have proven that the Standard Model Higgs doesn't exist.

Re:No they can't

[lordholm]

Indeed, the existence of the teapot may be completely meaningless, but it does not disprove its existence. Just that you could not detect it at the time when you tried to find it.

We can also imagine that the teapot moves out of the solar system just before you conduct your scan (how, I do not know, but this is a thought experiment), after you scanned for the teapot, you conclude rightly that it was not there when you scanned for it and then suddenly the teapot magically moves back into the solar system.

Re:No they can't

[lordholm]

No, you will have proven that you cannot detect it and under the circumstances you are very sure that the teapot is not there. However, it is not a proof in a strict mathematical sense. Good enough I would say, but it is not a strict mathematical proof. Imagine that the teapot moves out of the solar system just when you start you scan and moves back when you finished it.

It may be seen as a proof of the absence of the teapot for any sane person and any physicist, but rest assured that this is not an absolutely irrefutable mathematically valid proof of the teapots absence.

Re:No they can't

[Script Cat]

In philosophy all things are cherry cheese cake. That's why we use a use an actually useful subset of philosophy called logic.

Anything that's red is cherry cheese cake and is delicious. Any thing that's Delicious can be eaten. Things that can be eaten that are not edible are eaten by looking at them and appreciating there deliciousness and feeding the soul.

Re:No they can't

[Rising Ape]

No, you will have proven that you cannot detect it and under the circumstances you are very sure that the teapot is not there. However, it is not a proof in a strict mathematical sense.

It's not a mathematical proof no, but then a detection of the teapot wouldn't be a mathematical proof of its existence either. The original claim was that science could prove the existence of something but not its absense, which isn't correct.

Re:No they can't

[DamnStupidElf]

Except that it is fairly easy to demonstrate that no teapot is orbiting anywhere in the solar system. Everything that orbits must at some point be visible from Earth except for an object ~180 degrees out of phase in Earth's own orbit, and a satellite sent out of the plane of the elliptical could cover that situation. An optical telescope of sufficient power is all that's required to observe the solar system for the longest conceivable orbital period of a satellite and demonstrate that every visible object is not, according to some quantitative measurement, a teapot.

This sort of systematic searching for the presence or absence of an object is precisely what the Higgs Boson experiments are doing.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

And all people who generalize are assholes.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Climatology?

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

All general statements are false.

No they're not.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately scientists got away from that bullshit a long time ago and started looking for evidence.

Re:No they can't

[starfishsystems]

At last, a small oasis of reason.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the God particle. Have a little faith.

The God particle is any football thrown by Tim Tebow lately.

Re:No they can't

[Old Wolf]

You're being way too general.

There is no evidence that there is an elephant in my bedroom.

However I think it is a safe conclusion that there is none.

If your 'standard of proof' for science is that it must be conclusively disproven, then (a) nothing could ever be conclusively disproven anyway, as perhaps we are in the matrix and the thing is real outside of it but we never know, (b) what is reality anyway, (c) you will never make any progress because you are always couching your results in useless verbiage along the lines of "There almost certainly isn't, but.." or whatever.

You have to be practical. Get on with things, just making reasonable assumptions. I am going to live my life and perform future scientific experiments as if there is no elephant in my bedroom, even though I can't conclusively prove that there isn't one. And this doesn't make my experiments any less valid.

Re:No they can't

[Old Wolf]

The standard model seems to be fairly slippery anyway.

The SM predicts that neutrinos have no mass, but experiments show that they do. However, physicists do not seem to say that this disproves the SM. The feeling is more that the SM could be adjusted so that it features neutrinos with mass.

Something similar will probably happen if there is no Higgs Boson found in the expected area. One of the hundreds of SM variants that are floating around, which happens to not include a HB in that area, would gain popularity.

Re:No they can't

[beckerist]

What if the car is in the driveway?

On a related note, for those of you that prefer metaphors over math, I suggest watching this: http://www.ted.com/talks/brian_cox_on_cern_s_supercollider.html

Re:No they can't

[DamnStupidElf]

You can't talk about the Higgs Boson in general without specifying which quantitative theories you are considering. Otherwise you run into the problem of whether or not a Creationist could verify the existence of "the" Higgs Boson (for their definition of the Higgs Boson) through prayer, for instance.

Re:No they can't

[marnues]

Or rather disprove that the Higgs boson conforms to the standard model? Or that the Higgs Boson cannot exist in the standard model? I don't think most scientists are actively trying to tear down the standard model, just fix the discrepancies and find new areas to explore.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you know the 'God particle' is short for 'God-damn hard to find particle.'

Re:No they can't

[maxwell demon]

Well, the chance is either 1 or 0, but there's decent chance that it is 1. :-)

Re:No they can't

[mark-t]

My point being that you can disprove the existence of something, as long as the assumptions you've made about being able to detect it in the first place are valid. The teapot example is a bit stretched because it's got little to no bearing on reality (magically disappearing whenever you try to detect it, for instance), but with the Higgs, they really do know roughly where they need to look to find it, and if they end up exhausting that range without finding it, they will have disproved the existence of that particular type of particle. That doesn't mean that there aren't other undiscovered particles outside of that range... just not ones with all of the properties that Higgs is attributed to have.

Re:No they can't

[DM9290]

Except that it is fairly easy to demonstrate that no teapot is orbiting anywhere in the solar system. Everything that orbits must at some point be visible from Earth except for an object ~180 degrees out of phase in Earth's own orbit, and a satellite sent out of the plane of the elliptical could cover that situation. An optical telescope of sufficient power is all that's required to observe the solar system for the longest conceivable orbital period of a satellite and demonstrate that every visible object is not, according to some quantitative measurement, a teapot.

This sort of systematic searching for the presence or absence of an object is precisely what the Higgs Boson experiments are doing.

You are only talking about visible teapots. Teapots could be hiding behind objects other than the sun, and teapots could be located anyplace where you aren't pointing your telescope at a given instant. There could be a teapot in orbit behind your head this instant.

The fact that something is visible at "Some point" is not sufficient. It must be visible at some point when the telescope is actually pointing in the right direction and nothing else must be obstructing line of sight.

So you would need an infinite number of telescopes of sufficient power pointing in all directions at ALL times over the duration of the longest conceivable period of the orbits of ALL satellites in the solar system (i.e. the amount of time it takes for the entire solar system to get from state X back into State X -- which is essentially an infinite amount of time), in order to rule out that there is no teapot in orbit anywhere in the solar system.

But even that only proves there was no teapot that STAYED in orbit the entire time.

Two teapots might be in orbit right now behind jupiter, but might experience a collision with each other both be deflected into jupiter's atmosphere and burn up without ever being visible from earth again, So you could never prove there was no teapot. But you don't have an infinite number of telescopes so you can't even prove that much.

For all you can be certain of, there are thousands of orbiting teapots in the solar system and we simply haven't found any yet.

And in the great tradition of agnostics everywhere, I would posit that there is exactly a 50% chance that there are thousands of teapots in orbit in the solar system.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in that case, you'll never find it. That's the punishment for using His name in vain.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, if you do a plot with falling objects and get Newton's law, or mess with the photoelectric effect and get a plot there, or Beer's law, or gas laws, or a bunch of things found or verified experimentally, and provide a good explanation for nature following that ideal, that's a perfectly valid way to do science. It's not just going around negating things.

We got the idea of a sun-centered planetary system by showing that it was more elegant than epicycles, and possible to do more simply. That's a negation of the old way of thinking but substituting a new one based on observation and critical thinking. THAT'S science.

Re:No they can't

[MarkRose]

Let me know if it's massive. I only like massive bosoms.

Re:No they can't

[bronney]

Dude you need to learn from timecube.com

Re:No they can't

[bronney]

so I can has eaten this?

http://sumwebs.com/storage/glamgalz/imgs/holly/scarlett_johansson_03.jpg

Re:No they can't

[Billlagr]

But you usually only find them in pairs

Re:No they can't

[Nyder]

It's the God particle. Have a little faith.

I can't. After years of having to go to church, I discovered that I am not capable of having faith.

Re:No they can't

[Yev000]

As far as my simple brain can understand the Standard Model only covers the garage, anything outside will be breaking from the Standard Model.

So if the car is in the driveway physics is even more complicated than we thought.

Re:No they can't

[Anonymous Coward]

In philosophy all things are cherry cheese cake.

In Portal the cake is a lie.

- Peder

Re:No they can't

[DamnStupidElf]

You are only talking about visible teapots. Teapots could be hiding behind objects other than the sun, and teapots could be located anyplace where you aren't pointing your telescope at a given instant. There could be a teapot in orbit behind your head this instant.

Well there we go, I said give me a quantitative measurement and you give me a vague English word. Suppose we just define Jupiter as a Teapot?

If your entire argument boils down to "English is not specific enough to derive quantitative measurements from" then congratulations. At least you could have argued that the quantum probability distribution of the solar system includes teapots everywhere at very low probabilities.

It is called the "God particle"

[Anonymous Coward]

See?

I can't understand how Slashdot would pass on mentioning that in the headline.

I was already prepared for creationists building their own Disney-world themed Large Hadron Collider to travelling back into time when dinosaurs and men did dance together for God.

So far, so good

[vlm]

So far, so good, no one here calling it the God Particle yet. Lets keep it that way. Annoying as all hell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#.22The_God_particle.22

"Lederman initially wanted to call it the "goddamn particle," but his editor would not let him"

Re:So far, so good

[Luckyo]

That would actually be funny, just imagine this preached in your neightbourhood ultra right wing church: "Scientist admits that his unholy work on particle science is damned by God!"

Re:So far, so good

[somersault]

Unlucky. See the post above yours. I thought there were summaries calling it the "God Particle" a year or two though. Don't know where else I would have heard the phrase from.

Re:So far, so good

[paiute]

Well, when we do find it, and it leads to the TOE, God will be close behind: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19550880/GUT-The-Grand-Unified-Theory-A-oneact-play-with-seven-blackouts

Re:So far, so good

[geekoid]

The why the HELL did you bring it up?
Now everyone is thinking about it that way.

Re:So far, so good

[Anonymous Coward]

So far, so good, no one here calling it the God Particle yet. Lets keep it that way. Annoying as all hell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#.22The_God_particle.22

"Lederman initially wanted to call it the "goddamn particle," but his editor would not let him"

hi

Where my cows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangely, at the same moment they ran the test, my cows and barn disappeared in a weird space-time folding. But correlation isn't causation, so they say...

How do they calculate the upper bound?

[IICV]

Just out of curiosity, how exactly do they constrain the upper bound on the mass of the Higgs boson? I mean, the lower bound seems to be "we've looked at that energy level and it probably isn't there", but they can't do that for the upper bound, can they?

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[rubycodez]

the Standard Model become inconsistent with Higgs boson masses above 1.4 TeV, for example nonsensical total probabilities for certain scattering events greater than 100% appear (unitarity is violated)

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[fljmayer]

As said at http://cms.web.cern.ch/news/cms-search-standard-model-higgs-boson-lhc-data-2010-and-2011, they have excluded 128 – 525 GeV at 99% confidence level. I am not sure they measure higher than 525 GeV with LHC for now. I would expect that existing theories for the Higgs put limits on its mass. Of course theories can be wrong, but if all theories about the Higgs are wrong, then there is no such particle.

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to constrain the upper bound is with theory. The current Standard Model (without the Higgs) predicts that certain processes will start occurring more than 100% of the time at an energy of approximately 1TeV. The Higgs (or some other similar particle) fixes this problem but only if its mass is below a certain value.

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[kkumer]

Looking for higher mass Higgs is easier than for this 120-ish GeV mass. E.g. if Higgs would be 150-200 GeV it would (via heavy vector bosons, which are 80-90 GeV) decay a lot into electrons and muons which are very easy to detect and see that they come from decay of Higgs. For 120-ish GeV Higgs, it decays mostly into two quarks and this is difficult to see because there are a *lot* of quarks flying around in proton-proton machine. So they have to use decays into two photons, which don't happen so often. Thus they need more time to discover Higgs of 125 GeV, than they would need for the one of 200 GeV.

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[hweimer]

How can you violate unitarity by tuning the physical constants if the underlying mathematical formulation (Lagrangian formulation of a quantum field theory) guarantees it by construction?

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess 1TeV is the target for "Extreme Energy Physics"? One up from high energy physics currently being done.
Or would it be impossible to add such energies to a particle? I'm not sure where the boundaries go, if any are even known of.

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[rubycodez]

matrix and perturbation models of scattering events break it hugely, you can look it up

Re:How do they calculate the upper bound?

[Anonymous Coward]

How would more than 100% probability be nonsensical? There can simple be more than one event at that place.
Just like more than one photon can be at the same place at the same time. (Probability-wise, of course.)

The Higgs Boson

[philj]

The Higgs Boson is holding a press conference at midnight on Dec 24th. He's giving Christmas mass.

Re:The Higgs Boson

[grasshoppa]

Boo Hisss!

Re:The Higgs Boson

[Luckyo]

Please, we all know that Higgs is buddhist, with all the particle reincarnation as other particles and energy.

Re:The Higgs Boson

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he IS the God particle, after all...

Re:The Higgs Boson

[rasmusbr]

One week later: millions resolve to commit Higgs ethnic cleansing.

How's that praying working for you, Mr. God particle?

I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[TenDollarMan]

I was lucky enough to have a lunch hour where I could see the ATLAS results presentation.

The actual bump on the ATLAS graph was about 126 GeV, and the local sigma was 3.6 which is pretty good. The overall was only 2.4, which IIRC is about 95% certainty. I like the odds of finding it there.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[bill_mcgonigle]

The actual bump on the ATLAS graph was about 126 GeV, and the local sigma was 3.6 which is pretty good

This model of everything predicted a Higgs at 125.992, which is pretty close (with the current error bars). Could be coincidence, of course, but their idea of a well-defined set of rules that predicts each particle's mass correctly is tantalizing.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Troed]

"We show that the mathematical proof of the four color theorem yields a perfect interpretation of the Standard Model of particle physics. [...] giving us a Grand Unified Theory." [---] "we present our prediction of the Higgs boson mass = 125.992 GeV, as a direct consequence of the proof of the four color theorem." (2009-12-28)

Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed their approach.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately the paper is probably a bunch of nonsense. If you google "Ashay Dharwadker" it becomes fairly clear that he is a crank.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Old Wolf]

The abstract for this paper reads like an april fools joke :(

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately it's likely to be nonsense. It is pretty clear from some googling that at least the first author is a crank.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Anonymous Coward]

All evidence points to Dharwadker being a crank. His "proof" of four-colour has not been accepted.

Re:I for one welcome our Higgsy overlord...

[Troed]

The prediction could be a fluke, but when predictions turn out to be valid (if this one does) maybe other parts of the paper should be scrutinized more closely as well.

Thank you for not calling it the "God particle"

[wcrowe]

Whoever came up with that moniker needs a boot party.

Re:Thank you for not calling it the "God particle"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Whoever came up with that moniker needs a boot party.

You just don't know how to appreciate angry Creationists building their own Large Hadron Collider

Hint: Epic!

Re:Thank you for not calling it the "God particle"

[budgenator]

you should have said "You just don't know how to appreciate angry Creationists building their own Large Hardon Collider"

Who gets their name written in the history books?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this has 10s of thousands of people behind it to make it work. The question I have is, in 1000 years, whose name(s) will be linked with it?

It's turtles . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . all the way up . . .

Re:It's turtles . . .

[ae1294]

. . . all the way up . . .

... it's hiding in the eleven range...

Re:Who gets their name written in the history book

[cmv1087]

Whoever patents it first.

Re:Who gets their name written in the history book

[Anonymous Coward]

Higgs'?

:)

Re:Who gets their name written in the history book

[Anonymous Coward]

No one. Society wont exist in 1000 years.

Re:Who gets their name written in the history book

[rubycodez]

uh, you do know "Higgs" is a physicist's name? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs

If I understood it correctly

[marcosdumay]

The announcement today just narrows the mass. The /. summary is perfectly adequate, and is a complete summary of the situation!

There is also a small point, about a candidate mass just under 127GeV, with less than 3 sigma. The /. title is talking about that, but doesn't clarify it. Of course, some information with less than 3 sigma can change any time.

Re:If I understood it correctly

[jfengel]

There's also a dog-that-didn't-bark factor here. If the Higgs didn't exist at all, that absence would have manifested itself in this data. They still can't give the mass, but there was an opportunity for the data to surprise us, and it didn't. Which just means more looking, as opposed to going all the way back to the drawing board.

May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Remus Shepherd]

The fascinating thing about the energy they're talking about (125-126 GeV) is that it's too low. So low, in fact, that the equations predict vacuum instability at about that range.

What does vacuum instability mean? It means that vacuum might have a half-life, after which it decays into energy. This is a cool concept until you realize that the Universe is mostly made of vacuum. If the Universe were to spontaneously disintegrate, that would be Bad.

Of course since that doesn't happen, there must be new physics that keeps everything from fizzling out. That means that if the Higgs boson is found at 126 GeV then we're not done searching. There will be new questions to answer and possibly a new particle, the Higgsino, to look for.

Exciting stuff if you're a physics nerd. Or really for anyone who has a vested interest in the Universe continuing to exist.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[ledow]

"There's always an Alien Battle Cruiser...or a Korlian Death Ray, or...an intergalactic plague about to wipe out life on this planet, and the only thing that lets people get on with their hopeful little lives is that they don't know about it."

I wouldn't be worried about vacuum instability as a cause of death, I'd be more interested in it as an energy source, personally. But then we're still talking huge amounts of pie-in-the-sky concepts here.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[marcosdumay]

I don't understand why everybody seems to have a problem with vacuum instability. Ok, not with instability per se, but what is the problem with meta-stability? Wouldn't it explain inflation?

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Remus Shepherd]

Metastability might explain inflation. But it also invites the possibility that inflation could kick off again, and the universe could revert to a previous state where things like stars, planets, and life can not exist. That's what people have a problem with, I think.

Of course, the fact that this hasn't happened is proof that it probably cannot. The question we then need to answer is why not. It's as if God has us all in a gigantic microwave oven, and we're trying to figure out what's keeping him from hitting the 'Start' button...

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the fact that this hasn't happened is proof that it probably cannot.

That sentence bothers me a lot, because it's missing the accompanying information that those of us who have no background in quantum physics lack. "The theory predicts that a diet rich in cholesterol can cause heart attacks, I've been eating cholesterol-rich foods all my life and have never had a heart-attack, which is proof that I probably will not have a heart-attack."

I understand that the universe is very, very old, but without the accompanying probability of the vacuum instability event you're talking about, your sentence is just as bad. If the Higgs at those energy levels make vacuum have a half-life, but that half-life is very, very large, then the fact that it hasn't happened yet says absolutely nothing about the probability that it will happen in the future. So, do as all a favor and include the rest of the information. "The Higgs at that energy level says we should see vaccum decaying into energy every billion years, every thousands of years, every microsecond", something.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the universe won't disappear the moment we prove the existence of the Higgs Boson?

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[StikyPad]

What does vacuum instability mean? It means that vacuum might have a half-life, after which it decays into energy. This is a cool concept until you realize that the Universe is mostly made of vacuum. If the Universe were to spontaneously disintegrate, that would be Bad.

Maybe it's a dead man switch in case God dies before his experiment is finished.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[dotancohen]

If the Universe were to spontaneously disintegrate, that would be Bad.

I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Translation Error]

It's as if God has us all in a gigantic microwave oven, and we're trying to figure out what's keeping him from hitting the 'Start' button...

It's the tinfoil hats. He's waiting for everyone to take them off so he doesn't scorch the oven.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[s0litaire]

Of course, the fact that this hasn't happened is proof that it probably cannot. The question we then need to answer is why not. It's as if God has us all in a gigantic microwave oven, and we're trying to figure out what's keeping him from hitting the 'Start' button...

not seen a Hitchhikers Guide quote today so here goes:

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Remus Shepherd]

The link I gave above (to vixra.org) explains it better than I can. I am a physicist, but not a high-energy quantum physicist, so you're basically asking the janitor at a hospital his opinions on a delicate surgery. :)

I think the problem is that in a meta-stable vacuum state, a large energy density might flip it to the inflationary mode. So the Universe might be destroyed by packing enough energy in a small area. The article mentions 1TeV as a possible threshold, which is far above anything we can generate on Earth. However, energies that large are generated by some stellar events and the Universe has survived them. So either there's some other mechanism stopping the vacuum from becoming unstable...or like you suggest, it just depends on half-life and we're only lucky that it hasn't happened yet.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[mcgrew]

If the Universe were to spontaneously disintegrate, that would be Bad.

No, I don't think anyone would complain. You have to die from something, the universe spontaneously ceasing to exist probably wouldn't be a bad way to go considering the alternatives (fire, drowning, cancer...)

Or really for anyone who has a vested interest in the Universe continuing to exist.

From my perspective it's only existed for 59 years and its destruction is always and has always been imminent. The universe stops existing for people every single day. Nobody has a vested interest in the universe's existance; we're only visitors here. Nobody stays forever.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Exciting stuff if you're a physics nerd. Or really for anyone who has a vested interest in the Universe continuing to exist.

Or anyone interested in building a 40 TeV Doomsday machine.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Vacuum might decay into energy". Well, seems that happened already 13 billion years ago . . .

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Raenex]

Nobody has a vested interest in the universe's existance

This is a matter of philosophy and personal feelings. There are lots of people that care about the fate of humanity even though they know they won't be around to see it.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

QUIT HITTING THE 'VACUUM INSTABILITY' BUTTON YOU CHUCKLEF*CK!

(dear 'lameness filter', i know i'm using a lot of capital letters. that is, as they say, the joke)

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[tessellated]

This 'Insightful' post has got to be the single most funny comment I've read in months.

Someone show this to Bill Murray!

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Yeah, actually, it would be kinda like that. No, really.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[pantaril]

From my perspective it's only existed for 59 years and its destruction is always and has always been imminent. The universe stops existing for people every single day. Nobody has a vested interest in the universe's existance; we're only visitors here. Nobody stays forever.

So it's ok to make a giant party like ther's no tomorow, burn all non-renewable resources, have no kids and generaly ignore any future events after my predicted lifespan?

That's pretty dump and simple-minded idea. "After us: the flood" (dunno if this saying has any meaning in english sorry:)

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[mcgrew]

So it's ok to make a giant party like ther's no tomorow, burn all non-renewable resources, have no kids and generaly ignore any future events after my predicted lifespan?

No, your universe will still be here when mine is gone. I have no right to screw your world up.

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that make the particle easier to manipulate, if it's already unstable ?

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[justthinkit]

Would that energy the vacuum decays into happen to be dark?

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[hedpe2003]

So it's ok to make a giant party like ther's no tomorow, burn all non-renewable resources, have no kids and generaly ignore any future events after my predicted lifespan?

One of these things is not like the other...

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[hedpe2003]

I'm going to have to agree with the GP here. In my opinion, it's not about caring about the fate of humanity, it's about a combination of three things

1) An acceptance of your own mortality.
2) A recognition that your life is only significant to you and those that care about you or what you've done; and so the same thing can be said for all of humanity. No matter how advanced and great of a civilization we can have in the future, we will just be mere specks in the grand scheme of the universe, 99.99...% unaffected by our presence.
3) If your entire past, present and future sphere of influence (people, places and things) disintegrated with you, then no person is left behind and no task is left undone.

And this coming from an eternal optimist, hoping to some day make a difference. (Incompatible? I don't think so)

Re:May We Live in Interesting Times.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was intended as a serious question.

Back to the future...

[thestudio_bob]

5.60 Gigawatts! 5.60 GIGAWATTS?! Great Scott!

Particle Business

[funky49]

Obligatory post of my "Particle Business" music video shot at Fermilab

http://youtu.be/oaG6umMkbxg

Permit a silly question for a moment...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but how do they know when they found it?

Re:Permit a silly question for a moment...

[marcosdumay]

They see something like 0.001% of one kind of particle, or 0.01% of other more than expected.

Yes we can!

[Roger W Moore]

The LHC is incapable of operating at the upper energies of the predicted spectrum of the higgs boson.....(this was known before construction even started)

Sorry but we certainly are capable of probing the ENTIRE allowed mass range for the Standard Model Higgs. The upper bound is ~1 TeV/c2 because at this level, without the Higgs boson, some Standard Model processes e.g. e+e--->W+W- "break unitarity" i.e. have a more than 100% chance of happening. Since this is clearly wrong it means that the Standard Model without a Higgs breaks down. Hence we only have to cover up to 1 TeV/c2 in allowed mass and either we find the Higgs or at least see a clear deviation from the SM and possibly see what causes that deviation.

There are ways to hide the Higgs, so-called "invisible Higgs" models, but these all require physics beyond the Standard Model. Also you can fit the existing SM parameters to find a prediction for the Higgs mass and this indicates that it should be below ~200GeV/c2 with a 95% confidence - although I'd take this with a pinch of salt. Now to get to the high mass range we will certainly need the full LHC energy i.e. 14 TeV. We currently have 7 TeV but this is NOT what the LHC was designed to run at - we are just limited to this energy due to the superconducting power bar problems. So to say that it was known that we cannot reach the upper energies before construction even started is simply wrong - the LHC was specifically designed to cover the entire energy range and, once we reach the design energy, we'll be able to do just that....although it is looking like the Higgs is there just at the low end of the mass range.

Re:Yes we can!

[Colourspace]

And I thought your only talent was to be able to move one eyebrow completely independently from the other. Who knew?

Re:Yes we can!

[AdrianKemp]

It's certainly possible that I've missed a development over the years... However, the predictions you speak of rely on two (that I'll cover) very important things:

The standard model being correct
There being no other "fudge" particles discovered along with the Higgs that rectify the breaks

Assuming that the LHC shows no higgs below 200GeV (I think it's now excluded above 150) and can also show no other "fudge" particles across all possible ranges for them to exist; they have disproven the standard model.

That doesn't really mean they've disproved the higgs boson any more than they've disproved the photon.

Re:Yes we can!

[Anonymous Coward]

Both the summary and grandparent talked about the Standard Model Higgs, not any abitrairy Higgs Particle. The assumptions you point out are inherent in the definition of the Standard Model Higgs. It is a subset of the possible Higgs particles that could exist, and has the nice properties of being the simplest possible and also being possible to disprove with the LHC.

Re:Yes we can!

[Roger W Moore]

The standard model being correct

You'll note that I was very careful to call it "the Standard Model Higgs". If there is. e.g. Supersymmetry, then things can be different....but something still has to happen before 1 TeV. So you can disprove the Standard Model Higgs boson but not all Higgs bosons. However if you find that nature solves the mass problem in a different way then there would be no need for a Higgs boson.

Re:Yes we can!

[physburn]

Yes its the invisible, or the mixtures between invisible and visible Higgs, that are the most exciting, because these are the ones that lead to the detection of Dark Matter or Mirror Matter, particles.

Re:Yes we can!

[AdrianKemp]

Yes and I was overly argumentative with you because the CERN stuff was very ambiguous in places about which they were talking (you really weren't, so you have my apologies on that front).

Re:Yes we can!

[hweimer]

Sorry but we certainly are capable of probing the ENTIRE allowed mass range for the Standard Model Higgs. The upper bound is ~1 TeV/c2 because at this level, without the Higgs boson, some Standard Model processes e.g. e+e--->W+W- "break unitarity" i.e. have a more than 100% chance of happening.

I somehow never got this point. In the standard model, you're starting from a Lagrangian formulation of a quantum field theory, so the existence of a scalar product in the Hilbert space spanned by the theory automatically guarantees normalization of probabilities, no matter which physical values you attach to the parameters of your model. So if you're getting something larger than one, you must have made an error somewhere on the way, but that doesn't imply your entire model is wrong.

Re:Yes we can!

[timnbron]

I somehow never got this point. In the standard model, you're starting from a Lagrangian formulation of a quantum field theory, so the existence of a scalar product in the Hilbert space spanned by the theory automatically guarantees normalization of probabilities, no matter which physical values you attach to the parameters of your model. So if you're getting something larger than one, you must have made an error somewhere on the way, but that doesn't imply your entire model is wrong.

... I somehow never got this point...

Re:Yes we can!

[Roger W Moore]

If you assume no Higgs then you end up with a Lagrangian without any mass terms (because if you put those in you break the local gauge symmetries). However when you do the calculation of e.g. e+e- --> W+W- you have to use the fact that the electron has a mass in the Feynman calculation. This non-zero mass causes you you have a "left over" term which does not cancel in the high energy limit and causes you to break unitarity.

The Higgs mechanism gets around this by adding a new diagram e+e- --> H --> W+W- which precisely cancels the electron mass term. The reason the cancellation is perfect is because the electron gets its mass from coupling to the non-zero Higgs vacuum expectation value.

So effectively you are correct in that the reason the model fails at high energy is because you use the electron mass in the cross-section calculation but have no electron mass term in the Lagrangian so you are not being consistent....but you cannot simply stick a mass term in there without adding symmetry breaking interactions which are not observed in nature. Hence you have to add a Higgs field with a non-zero vacuum expectation value which in turn adds more than just the effective mass terms.

Hope that is comprehensible - it is hard to explain in just typed text!

Re:Yes we can!

[hweimer]

Sorry, but I still don't get it. Before spontaneous symmetry breaking, the electron has no mass so it should not appear in the calculation. If you want to get Feynman diagrams, I assume you have to replace the propagator for the electron (with mass) by a massless fermion propagator and the diagrams that couple it to the Higgs, similar to the self-energy terms in QED. I still don't see how a large Higgs mass causes any problems.

Re:Yes we can!

[Roger W Moore]

Sorry, but I still don't get it. Before spontaneous symmetry breaking, the electron has no mass so it should not appear in the calculation.

I think you are getting a little confused between the Higgs mass and the spontaneous symmetry breaking scale. The latter is many times higher in energy than the Higgs' mass - exactly how much higher depends on the precise shape of the Higgs' potential. If you think of the bottle-bottom potential the height of the dimple in the middle determines the spontaneous symmetry breaking scale and the width of the circular valley determines the mass of the Higgs (the steeper/narrower the valley the larger the mass of the Higgs).

Even above the symmetry breaking scale the electron still has a charge so the electron diagrams will still be there (the electron can annihilate and make W bosons) but, without a mass term there is no term left over: all the diagrams cancel in the high energy limit so the cross-section does not diverge.

However below the symmetry breaking scale the non-zero vacuum expectation value (vev) of the Higgs field means that the electron will have a mass. In this regime, without a Higgs diagram, there is a left over mass term which only cancels when there is a Higgs propagator diagram. However below the Higgs mass the Higgs diagram is heavily suppressed and has a very tiny contribution. Hence if the Higgs mass is very large, say 10 TeV/c^2, then this diagram will not cancel the electron mass term from the other digrams until after the cross-section has grown past the unitarity bound.

I hope this helps - it is a very complex topic!

"Homes In"??

[mgcleveland]

Really?

Re:"Homes In"??

[Ginger Unicorn]

Yes really.

I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[Lawrence_Bird]

THey should not have held a presser at this point as what they had really wasn't very much at all. Going from memory I think it was 3.6 sigma at Atlas and 2.6 at CMS but when including LEE the Atlas result dropped significantly, something like 1.9 or 2.2? And CMS dropped as well. As DO, CDF and others can attest, 3 and even 4 sigma bumps can and do vanish under increased statistics. And while the p figures for Atlas and CMS were good, I just do not buy into combining the results of weak sigma events to claim something more significant. To me, this "announcement" was done purely for political reasons and not for scientific ones.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[ceoyoyo]

"I just do not buy into combining the results of weak sigma events to claim something more significant."

Which means you have a poor or at least incomplete understanding of statistics.

The rest of your comment expresses an opinion about whether science should announce intermediate results, or wait until something is more definite. If you go with the former, the public might be confused because they don't understand that the results are preliminary. If you do the latter, the public might become frustrated with the lack of results.

I tend to favour announcing intermediate results (science, and the scientific process is more open) and educating the public. But there are advantages to keeping people in dark ignorance too.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[bware]

I'd imagine it's done because it's difficult to keep these (preliminary) results quiet nowadays. This news has been buzzing about the internets for weeks. Why not have an announcement saying what's going on? It's not as though it is a big secret anymore, and it forestalls a lot of the speculation.

More fb^{-1} needed...

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[Lawrence_Bird]

I have a relatively good understanding of statistics. The fact is that both results are marginal at best and barely anything at worst so there is little to be gained by combining the data from the various channels and spitting out a new number to try to justify your press conference.

A 4 sigma result would be worthy of a presser. This result is worthy of an arXiv preprint and no more were it not for the media frenzy around Higgs. I'm not even sure they would have done a preprint until next year. You may or may not realize that the HEP scientific process is not very open for a good reason - it is damn difficult to be sure what you think you are seeing is in fact real. This is why significant collaboration publications go through multiple inhouse peer reviews before being 'blessed'. All early release does is waste a lot of peoples time debating whats right/wrong with the results and what explains/doesn't explain the results - all of which may vanish six months later with more data. It is a waste of time better spent on other things. As to the public, what is really gained by saying 'well, we might have seen something but can't be sure for a while yet'? Public interest or not, the LHC has been built and the cost is sunk. Perhaps unlike other scientific fields where partial results might lead to incremental understanding or the partial results themself be significantly unexpected (and thus perhaps news worthy), a search for a particle you expect to find really is not meaningful until you actually can say "we've found it for sure".

Perhaps someone with a better memory and better yet, personal involvement, can recount what FNAL did with the top circa 1995. I do not recall D0 and CDF either a) giving a presser like this or b) publishing low sigma results prior to the official discovery papers being released. And finding the top as a big deal back then and like the Higgs, was expected to be found.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[Lawrence_Bird]

There is probably something to be said for that but why not just do a pre-print and not fan the flames? It would satisfy the gossips in the HEP community and if the mainstream press wanted to pick up on the chatter they could.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[bware]

2 sigma isn't worth a pre-print. In a big collaboration, a preprint takes a lot of time and effort and approvals. Which they'll save for the 5 sigma data, whether the signal is there or not. No one wants to go through the effort to write a pre-print for something that might go away with the next fb^{-1}. Nonetheless, the news was out there, so why not address it? An end-of-run press conference seems like the right venue to announce status, if not results.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP

[ceoyoyo]

Next time your boss comes by to ask you what you're working on or how it's going, tell him to piss off, you'll get back to him whenever you've got it done.

The LHC is built, but it requires funding every year to run, and most people who have any interest at all like to get a progress report every once in a while. And since you seem to be fixating on the "and by the way" from the press conference, the main announcement was that they've ruled out all but one energy range.

Re:No they can't, I agree ...

[OldHawk777]

I can emphatically say the Higgs boson does not exist.

However, me being emphatic does not have any significance.

Hence, the the probability of the Higgs boson existence is greater-than or equivalent-too the significance of my emphatic comment.

Reality is self-induced hallucination.

Minor grammatical nit-pick

[Shreav]

It is to "hone in" on something, not to "home in".

Re:Minor grammatical nit-pick

[Anonymous Coward]

you're wrong, and you're probably autistic. Go back to your hugbox under your bridge.

Re:Minor grammatical nit-pick

[Anonymous Coward]

Hon-ey dont play that!

Re:Minor grammatical nit-pick

[ceoyoyo]

"Hone in" is definitely incorrect. You can hone something, but you can't "hone in" to something. "Hone" suggests a sharpening or trimming process, removing undesirable material to leave what is desired. "Home in" suggests a process of searching or seeking, getting closer to the goal.

"LHC hones It's Data" would be a reasonable headline, but "LHC Homes in on..." is a more specific one.

Re:Minor grammatical nit-pick

[Anonymous Coward]

While your attempt to fix an incorrect grammar correction is commendable, I feel obliged to point out that "LHC Hones Its Data" would be a more reasonable headline still.

Also, while "home in" is preferred, "hone in" is gaining in popularity and its incorrectness is far from definite: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hone+in

Re:Minor grammatical nit-pick

[Ginger Unicorn]

You can hone something, and you can home in on something. You can't really "hone in on" something, although you can kind of parse what it supposed to mean, doesn't scan very well at all, and is obviously a corruption of "home in on".

D'oh! Freudian typo's... 1,$s/teacup/teapot/g

[mark-t]

Not sure how it happened... I started saying the right one, and somehow ended up saying another.

The verb is 'hone' not 'home'

[scorp1us]

Sure there are legitimate uses of "home in on" as in a homing missle, but really the verb for this kind of work is really hone - to make more acute, intense, or effective. Homing is more about traveling, honing is about narrowing down. Sure in some degree they are related, but here the intent is narrowing.

Re:The verb is 'hone' not 'home'

[ceoyoyo]

Since the experiment is described as a "search", "home in on" is the proper phrase. If you were to use hone, the headline would be confusing and non-specific. "LHC Hones It's Higgs Results" or something.

Re:The verb is 'hone' not 'home'

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're wrong. "hone in on" is not a phrase, except when used mistakenly. When you're saying "ho?e in on", you always want an 'm'.

Re:The verb is 'hone' not 'home'

[Tacvek]

No, you're wrong. "hone in on" is not a phrase, except when used mistakenly. When you're saying "ho?e in on", you always want an 'm'.

Well sometimes you want an "l", plus an extra "e" at the end of the the phase.

Also in a nautical context you can use a "v", as in "the cable was hove in on the windlass". "hove up" is the more common version, but on a ship "in" would be just as valid a direction for heaving an anchor cable.

Re:The verb is 'hone' not 'home'

[amirulbahr]

I think you've homed in on an interesting point.

What does this all mean?

[ronaldo1]

Can we have anti-grav vehicles, plasma swords and powered armor or not?

Re:What does this all mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-grav: No.
Plasma Swords: Sorta (so long as 'long stick of burning plasma you wave around' constitutes a sword), with a backpack combustion source and an ablative focal stick.
Powered armour: Yes, already exists more energy dense/light power sources are required to make it more viable.

The higgs boson is not a required item for any of those and will likely not have an effect on any of them either. Assuming that the higgs does in fact exist and we can create it at will such fantastical technologies as:
Artificial black holes
Singularity launching devices
gravity drivers
grav rifles/cannons

In all cases the direct manipulation of the higgs could allow the creation of gravity (by creating intense mass at a given location), but not its removal, which has all kinds of cool options become possible (if not feasible based on our current technology and understanding).

After all the hype ...nothing

[wdef]

Just nothing. After weeks of enduring "God particle" teasers about a "possible announcement", it all turns out to be nothing conclusive, no announcement of a definite find. I *knew* that would happen, yet still I feel had. This is PR-hype coitus interruptus aimed at driving more funding.

Re:I thought this was not a good day for HEP roxy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the new NASA inspired (life on Mars!) press release method. Give a press release about an upcoming announcement to generate more speculation and interest. Has science now turned into a reality show?

Yawn. When you find something of note that is repeatable, report it. Then we wait for confirmation. Until then, you are just going to turn off those who are serious about it, and wear out the interest of the rest. At least the Kardashians are clearly labeled what they are.

So, in other words

[sl4shd0rk]

We still don't friggin know.

Great Scott!

[niw3]

- [running out of the room] 126 GeV? 126 GeV? Great Scott!
- [following] What-what the hell is a GeV?

Oh my God Particle

[Anonymous Coward]

Vacuum instability isn't fucking likely at anywhere close to those energy levels. Anybody claiming it for less than an EeV hasn't done any research, since particles exceeding 1.0×10^20 eV have been observed in nature.

If your a physics nerd you would know about this.

Re:Oh my God Particle

[maxwell demon]

Maybe the vacuum around us is decaying all the time, but be don't notice it because we are in the branch where it doesn't decay (because it is the only branch we survive in). See also: Quantum suicide.

In Microwave Oven units?

[qualityassurancedept]

I was looking around online for how much electricity it took to produce this result. It seems that the annual consumption for this device is something around 1000 Gigawatt hours. If this were expressed in terms of Microwave ovens, how many frozen chicken carcasses could be dethawed? How many millions of miles could a Chevy Volt drive on a similar amount of electricity.? It just seems weird to me that humanity is willing to use up this much energy on a result that can't possibly matter to billions of people and yet we can't all agree that every child on earth should have access to clean drinking water. That being said, this is one of the most important machines that has ever been built regardless of whether or not it takes one years of study at the PhD level and beyond to have any understanding of what is happening inside of it.

Re:In Microwave Oven units?

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, what is the carbon impact of using that 1 Terawatt-hour, and is it worth it for these kinds of pie in the sky fantasies that these people use to try to get grant money to justify their existence?

Funding if they find it?

[Danathar]

Finding the particle would definitely affect funding. After they find it what will they proclaim the LHC is needed for? Sure, there are things a SCIENTIST can say it's needed for, but the "bling" public reasons goo POOF.

Good luck asking for big money for particle accelerators once the Higgs-Boson is found.

Senator - "Why again should we fund this? I thought you solved your...whatever...grand theory or something by finding that little particle or something?"

Physicist- "This is just the beginning...we have SO much more to learn understanding the nature of quantum...."

Senator - "Thank you Dr. we'll take up you request under advisement"

   

Seems more like eliminating

[BlueCoder]

Personally I hope they don't find higgs.

I just don't buy gravity as a particle. They seem to want to reduce everything analog to a particle.

What I want to see is them quantifying is space as a thing; that the ether is actually a real tangible thing and how it relates to the bubbles in it that we call particles and how these particles are moving in multiple "dimensions" and yet we only really notice 3 of space and 1 of time.

Re:Seems more like eliminating

[Anonymous Coward]

From your comment I'm not sure you understand it or not, but higgs isn't primarily about gravity. That would be the graviton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton , which is yet unfound.

And I think most people working with this want the simplest model possible that fits to everything.

IOW

[Anonymous Coward]

"I find your ideas uninteresting and would like to unsubscribe from your newsletter."

Re:IOW

[wdef]

The ideas are interesting enough. But over hyping and building false expectations gets annoying.

Any non particle physicists here?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, you might enjoy the Nature story rounding up that was published yesterday of the new results...

Re:Any non particle physicists here?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so, you might enjoy the Nature story rounding up that was published yesterday of the new results...

Damn. I'll try that again in English- If so, you might enjoy Nature story which rounds up yesterday's results...

Trinity

[subject_name_here]

42 finally makes sense!

The Challenges to the Higgs' (All) - Killing it?

[LeonardoFOlsnesLea]

I just add the list, The Kill List for the Higgs': Why the Higgs' field of the Universe when the Universe is (mostly?) "best" vacuum?! How does Higgs' fit into the Unifying work of Physics? Is it really necessary to have the Higgs-Boson to explain mass? Why can't ordinary particles have mass simply by property, that is, mass is part of their nature? Even then, why is it necessary for mass to "obtain" rather than to be as in "gravity", one form or another, i.e., explanation? "Technicolour" isn't an alternative as it confuses "energy" and "forces"? Wasn't the intention in the first place (by 3,5 TeV/7 TeV) to smash these pieces smaller? So that the Protons would be split to smaller bits? Then CERN presents masses on 125 GeV? What? The Up Quark has mass 1.7 - 3.1 MeV/c(2) and 125 GeV(/c(2)) means something bigger than the Protons even, so you're considering "fusion effects" of the Protons to be the Higgs-Boson? Finally, the realism: To summarise the masses: Higgs Boson is suggested to 125 GeV(/c(2)), Proton 938.272046(21) MeV(/c2), W boson, 80.398±0.023 GeV/c2, Z boson, 91.1876±0.0021 GeV/c2 and (finally) the Up quark 1.7 - 3.1 MeV/c2! Good? Reaction, as in the military: Add the Photon Theory by asserting (plausibly) that "Photons are the smallest constituents of all matter. I assume the other particles of the Standard Model are made up of photons. Why is this? The sun burns mass and to my knowledge it only/mostly by far emits electromagnetic radiation, consequently in the form of photons. When a nuclear bomb explodes, it converts matter into electromagnetic radiation, energy of various forms. Compared to this, I think one can throw the string theory out the window along with dimensions beyond the usual 4 (I'm not certain about this concerning Einstein's theories that I'd like to keep as it is). Also, let's assume higher intensity radiation emits more dense amounts of photons and that it declines further down the electromagnetic spectrum. (Extra: New on photons: I think I can also hold that photons are "semi-fluid" on a hyper-level (of course). I don't know what this adds to our view of reality, but it's a possible way of reconciling the wave-particle duality.)" On top of the Photon Theory: Unifying work -> full speed ahead! Merry Christmas!

Re:The Challenges to the Higgs' (All) - Killing it

[LeonardoFOlsnesLea]

I can't help the stupid paragraphing! You need to contact Slashdot and ask what's going on... Alright? There are some really *dumb* people in this World and their "administrator fingers" are probably itching! I hope you understand. This paragraphing (above) isn't my fault! It's a "technical problem"!