Texas Scientists Regret Loss of Higgs Boson Quest

MarkWhittington writes "The probable discovery of the Higgs Boson particle is greeted as bittersweet news in Texas. Had the Superconducting Super Collider, at one time under construction in Waxahachie, Texas, not been cancelled by Congress in 1993 the Higgs Boson might have been confirmed a decade ago, some believe, and in America."

Comments

Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

It sounds like they're saying they "think" they found it. Which is not the same thing.

We'll save the "bittersweet" nonsense until it's confirmed.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[AikonMGB]

They are saying that their experimental results fit the predictions of the Standard Model Higgs boson, to a relatively high confidence level. This is the best that you can hope for from any scientific experiment.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists are notoriously cautious when announcing a new discovery. They stil have to do some verification, but they found a 5 sigma bump that walks, talks, and farts like a Higgs, it's all over but the credits.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[multiben]

They have a Sigma 5 confidence level which is equivalent to one chance in a million that they're mistaken.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like they're saying they "think" they found it. Which is not the same thing.

I would still call that one hell of a lot further along than "never had the chance to begin trying to find it". "Bittersweet" applies muchly.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Sir_Sri]

We'll save the "bittersweet" nonsense until it's confirmed.

As others have pointed out, they have this very accurately as what was predicted. There's not a whole lot more to do to prove it is what they think it is, shy of building another giant supercolider looking for something else, and having it give the same result.

This is significantly different from the 'neutrinos are faster than light' problem, where neutrino's being faster than light didn't fit with any existing theory, and it didn't really seem to make sense as a physical result and was far more likely something else (which is also in many ways the reason they published a paper saying 'anyone have ideas cause something seems seriously wrong here'). In this case they have a particle predicted by theory, that, within the bounds of how good any physical experiment ever can be*, seems like they've found where they expected.

*physics theory is usually very much a single effect sort of thing. They predict a single particle with a particular speed/mass etc. Unfortunately physical experiment is never that good. There's always some inherent detector error, certain inherent randomness in systems, some other very minor effects that normally can be discounted but still do something to your results. The unfortunate part here is that the theory seems to so accurately predict the result that we don't have any clues to anything else that might be going on to chase after. If the result had been close, but not quite what was predicted that would have led the way to even more interesting science. As it is physicists now have to start poking at the problem to figure out if there's anywhere the theory does fall apart.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

hmmm... an experiment must be falsifiable.

I've been following this and it sounded like they were going through a very long check list of possibilities. Trying one thing after another. And this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities.

What I worry is that they didn't so much find it as they got to the end of the list and are concluding by process of elimination that that must be the Higgs.

I'm obviously a layman and my opinion on these matters isn't worth much. But I am a fair judge of human nature, human bureaucracy, and I do understand how important this issue is to the physicists. It would be deeply embarrassing if after all this they make a break through.

So... I'm skeptical.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they said they found a mass of a possible new particle at one of many of the possible energy levels of the Higgs. It is very possible it is something entirely unrelated (there is no proof yet that it is even a Boson).

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

I'll believe that when it's been passed around by peers for awhile.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

They run billions of experiments. At that rate, you need higher confidence to be really certain.

And aside from that, it's very important to point out that what's been found is a "new particle". Whether it's the Higgs or not has yet to be confirmed.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Creepy]

From what I heard, "think" means 99.999% certainty. and yes, they spelled out that it was ninety nine dot nine nine nine percent.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[arth1]

hmmm... an experiment must be falsifiable.

It's theories that must be falsifiable. Experiments should be repeatable.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

Forgive me thinking it's premature to jump to conclusions until the information has been vetted by a larger group of scientists. I distrust anything that moves that fast because I know human auditing systems don't work that fast. Which means this was only internally audited.

Just because their data is similar to what they were looking for doesn't mean everything hangs together perfectly. There have been many instances in which data was close to what hypothesis said it would be without the hypothesis being accurate.

All I'm saying is slow down and let a wider group of scientists look at the findings. If in three months everyone thinks they found the higgs then I'll take this more seriously.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[TheInternetGuy]

They have a Sigma 5 confidence level which is equivalent to one chance in a million that they're mistaken.

The way that I understand it, is that they have Sigma 5 confidence level that they found a new boson type particle. And that they have sigma 4.9 confidence level that it is the boson responsible for the Higgs field i.e. the Higgs Boson

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Sir_Sri]

Forgive me thinking it's premature to jump to conclusions until the information has been vetted by a larger group of scientists

how much larger a group are you looking for beyond all of the high energy particle physicists in the EU and the US?

You mean like how they waited 6 months since http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1334.short? (title First Solid Signs of the Higgs Boson Could Be Announced Next Week).

They've been looking for stuff at the LHC since dec of 2009, and the whole point of the damn thing was to find the higgs boson. And they have been *very* tentative with every piece of data they've talked about since then.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

So they say... you can't say 99.99999 percent until it's been peer reviewed.

Jesus, calm the f' down. Would it kill anyone to be patient?

It's absurd to assume this settled and done before it's been examined by a wider group.

It's fundamentally unscientific to be so hasty.

End of line.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[PopeRatzo]

hmmm... an experiment must be falsifiable.

Here we go...

Why don't you explain to us what you think "falsifiable" means?

I'm obviously a layman and my opinion on these matters isn't worth much. But I am a fair judge of human nature, human bureaucracy, and I do understand how important this issue is to the physicists.

I think we can make some very good predictions about you from that statement. Like, there may be some other reason that you don't want to see any confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. In fact, from your seemingly neutral statement above, I can make a prediction about your political views and affiliations with a great deal of confidence. I can predict with a very high level of confidence your educational level.

You are what happens after a decades-long attack on science - actually a decades-long attack on all forms of expertise. Because once people are convinced that scientists are all liars with agendas and all experts are eggheads that you can't trust, then you can fill people's heads with all sorts of BS, because now their only reference for reality is what you tell them. It's how outlets like Fox News work. "Oh those scientists don't know anything and they're all lying" and, "Oh those professors don't know anything because they're all lying" and, "Oh, you know those Nobel Prizes don't mean anything because...Al Gore is fat." etc.

I'm obviously a layman and my opinion on these matters isn't worth much

And yet, here you are telling us how you are "a fair judge of human nature" and how you "do understand how important this issue is to the physicists". I would predict, with a high level of confidence, that you are neither "a fair judge of human nature" nor do you understand what part of this issue is important to physicists.

It would be deeply embarrassing if after all this they make a break through.

Wait, what?

So... I'm skeptical.

No, you're not. If you were skeptical, you wouldn't have already made up your mind. It's OK to question what you hear, what you read, but only if you question to the same extent your own biases - your own limitations. And questioning your self is not, "I may not be an expert, but dad-gummit, I know what I know...".

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

you're right. regardless... I think it's prudent to let this settle a bit before drawing any firm conclusions.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Taco Cowboy]

I've been following this and it sounded like they were going through a very long check list of possibilities. Trying one thing after another. And this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities.

What I worry is that they didn't so much find it as they got to the end of the list and are concluding by process of elimination that that must be the Higgs.

The particles that they are looking for are not exactly something that can be placed on a podium to exhibit to everybody

It's something even more minute than an electron

I am a layman in this too, but the way I see it is that they are trying their best to check, re-check and triple-re-check the list and compare it to what the theory has stated
 

Re:Have they actually found it?

[marcosdumay]

They run billions of experiments. At that rate, you need higher confidence to be really certain.

That's why they waited until they have 5 sigma confidence. They had 3 sigma last year.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[marcosdumay]

They have 5 sigma confidence that they found a particle, with the expected mass. They have quite a good confidence it decais to the right particles, except for one decaiment mode, that doesn't give much confidence, but is still at the expected band.

To confirm it is the Higgs boson they'll have to setle that decaiment modes down, and study the particle's interactions that, honestly, I have no idea how it is done.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

I simply have a problem with concluding things quickly.

Human auditing systems are not that fast. So if you decide this fast it wasn't audited.

I want it audited before I give it credence.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[marcosdumay]

The same thing was found by 2 groups, studying the data of 2 different sets of colisions on 2 sensors by 2 completely defferent ways. The only thing they have in common is that they use the same machine to accelerate their hardrons.

What more confirmation are your expecting? Well, whatever it is, you won't get it because people won't just build another LHC.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[kno3]

PopeRatzo probably has you nailed down quite well, there. If a little harshly put.
Your information on this is, quite frankly, bullshit. I am familiar with the workings of the ATLAS experiment, and have been present at numerous private lectures given by them giving updates on their data and possible conclusions.
Indeed, far from being the last possibility on the list, the figure of 125.3GeV is basically exactly what the standard model predicted. In fact, the result is so predictable it is almost boring. You say that physicist would be deeply embarased if they didn't find it, but actually many were hoping to find a less expected result than this. So far, the results have not helped us at all with understanding dark energy (though, it is early days, still) as many had hoped. Supersymmetry is looking less likely.
It is OK to be sceptical, but you seem to be basing your comments on nothing more than an uneducated hunch.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

Wrong. The clock starts when the data has come in and the initial analysis has been disseminated.

Possibly the clock won't start until they formally publish. It doesn't start until the wider scientific community gets a good look at the data. And even then it will take months for that to be properly processed.

What we have here is something that "might" be the higgs. Great. Possibly in six months we'll know for sure.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

A strawman isn't an argument. Do it again and I'll have to assume you're a troll.

I haven't made up my mind. To the contrary, I am merely waiting for confirmation. That takes time. I'm being patient.

That is the only intellectually valid response. To be hasty in such a matter is unjustifiable.

I applaud the team's work and wait for their findings to be vetted by third parties.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[kno3]

You realise it is not possible to be peer reviewed in the conventional sense? The peers would require a new LHC. As it is, we have just about the best peer review process already: two experiments working separately, on different data, different methodology, with the same accelerator and they have both produced the same result.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[cheater512]

It was more like a range of possibilities where it could be hiding. The maths says it could be in a number of places.
All the other news articles previously were testing the ranges and ruling them out.

This result is that they were testing a range and found it at 125 GeV/c2.
If they tried at say 100 GeV/c2 they wouldn't find it so yes the experiment is testable..

Re:Have they actually found it?

[bmo]

>wider group

You don't even know what the fuck you're talking about when you say "wider group"

CERN is an international effort, with hundreds of scientists working together. It's a pretty wide group in itself.

You are, in fact, disparaging the entire effort because you deliberately refuse to educate yourself and insist on arguing from ignorance. You are basically saying that they are wasting everyone's time because you can't be arsed to go and read what's been written by hundreds of people around the globe about this.

This makes you an asshole.

--
BMO

Re:Have they actually found it?

[kno3]

That is not the gist of what you said in the comment PopeRatzo was replying to. You implied flawed methodology and even the possibility of a conspiracy. That is neither patient nor intellectually valid.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

That's fine... I just object to people jumping to conclusions until the process has worked itself out. It takes time.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[cheater512]

Sigma 5 is a good level of confidence. Its not jumping to conclusions.
It is plenty enough to make a announcement.
The duplication of results can occur afterwards.

If I told you that 1 + 1 = 2 with a verifiable 3 in 500,000 chance of being wrong, you probably wouldn't ask someone else what 1 + 1 equaled.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

I take exception to just one thing you say here:

"Oh, you know those Nobel Prizes don't mean anything because...Al Gore is fat."

No... Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything because Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything. He did NOTHING to deserve it. They are many, many far more deserving people around than that hypocrite.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

As to building another LHC... I'd be surprised if the physicists didn't say at some point that they need a bigger and more powerful accelerator.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Sir_Sri]

Possibly the clock won't start until they formally publish. It doesn't start until the wider scientific community gets a good look at the data

uh...

Not sure where to start with this. Other than the fact that we had presentation here, where I am (and I'm a computer scientist in canada) with raw data from the LHC back in January. Anyone who wants the data can get it if you are part of a collaborating institution. Which at this point is basically all the institutions that have high energy particle physicists.

There literally is no wider scientific community at this point except maybe china (and frankly, enough of their scientists are in US and European institutions it would be unrealistic to think they don't has the same information as anyone else). I don't know what 'broader scientific community' you think exists, but between Fermi Lab and the CERN you have basically all of the high energy particle physics researchers in the world. I used to be an optics guy, that's a much bigger field with a lot more people in the private sector, but there's no secret high energy particle accelerator in Japan that they'll just pull out of the air to verify this experiment. Fermi Lab and CERN are it, and they're in agreement with a reproduced result. that's why this is all over the news.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Sir_Sri]

because people won't just build another LHC.

Well, CERN is broadly planning a Super Large Hadron Collider for 2019/2020 or thereabouts. he might have to wait until then.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"You realise it is not possible to be peer reviewed in the conventional sense? The peers would require a new LHC."

Not even close. Peer reviewers do not have to duplicate the experiments, they just have to verify that the analysis methodologies are correct, given that the data is accurate as presented.

Peer reviewers have no practical way to determine if the data is in fact correct, unless they see obvious flaws in the procedures. Therefore verifying the accuracy of the data is not a normal part of peer review. Their job is to catch blunders in the procedures as stated in the paper, and the analyses as stated in the paper.

However, finding flaws in the experimental or analytical procedures is very much the job of the reviewers. This has been the big stumbling block for "climate science": the researchers used -- and have continued to use -- highly questionable methods. Even if their DATA is all correct (which I very much doubt).

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

Wrong.

I am merely reserving judgment until the findings are disseminated and vetting by peers.

Your claims to scientific knowledge are undermined by your insistence of reckless haste.

Patience and total dispassion are prime virtues in science.

Slow down, follow procedure, and calm down.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

it is NOT where the standard model puts it. It is where the MSSM puts it. Supersymmetry is looking more and more confirmed.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

No, I said such things are possible.

Science is not about trust. It's about methodically checking things without attachment.

You don't know what happened there. We've had such things happen in the past. Especially with all the scientists in one place all using the same piece of equipment... anything is possible.

Just be patient.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

You can always control a conclusion if you control the premise.

If I told you to just trust me because I'm really sure you wouldn't take that as a fact would you.

I'm not being unreasonable here. I just think it's a bad idea to jump to any conclusions until people have had more time to go over the data.

The level of certainty is THEIR estimation of certainty. If you're wrong but think you're right then you're going to say you are very certain. If you made a mistake but didn't realize it then that isn't going to factor into your calculations.

Patience.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

We have a failure to communicate and you're now boring me.

We're done.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking to people on Slashdot. It has a group of scientists and then it has scientist groupies. The latter want to appear smart to the former, so they start bringing up everything they can think of to throw cold water on pretty much any scientific discovery, theory, etc. as soon as it's announced.

If you cloud the conversation with enough questions people think you know what you're talking about.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

It sounds like they're saying they "think" they found it. Which is not the same thing.

We'll save the "bittersweet" nonsense until it's confirmed.

I watched both the symposium and the press conference online, real time. In the symposium the project lead was much more blunt. I forget the exact words, they were something like "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it". The applause and cheering, likened to a football match, left no room for misinterpretation. In the press conference they were all very careful to stay well short of that. My layman's opinion: with two independent experiments both getting close enough to 5 sigma to call it that and with no observations contradicting Higgs, they found it, it's the Higgs. By the way, the first mention of "5 sigma" was by the CMS experiment lead Joe Incandela at 9:45 Geneva time. I did a time check. As far as I am concerned, that counts as the time at which the Higgs was officially "discovered". Fabiola Gianotti, the Atlas experiment lead, also said the 5 sigma word a little over an hour later. Many graphics of curves nicely centered at 125.something GeV were shown. I think CMS found 125.3 and Atlas, 125.5 GeV, something like that. Close enough for horseshoes. These two experiments were supposedly "blind" to each other in order to strengthen the case for independent discovery. It does strike me as a little convenient that they both hit exactly 5.0 sigma on nearly the same day. No doubt this has something to do with how the machine power ramped up and got stable, but still... I strongly suspect there is a bit of chivalrous "after you, please" going on. Higgs himself absolutely refused to take credit for anything and declined interviews, although he did record a great video probably the day before the event. Still very much part of the theoretical physics scene apparently.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigma 5 is the "official" requisite level of confidence to claim the discovery of a new particle. Almost nothing which occurs in your daily life is even close to that certain; that is, you would struggle mightily to predict the events of a typical day with anything close to that degree of confidence.

What "process" is supposed to "work itself out"? Nobody is jumping to conclusions. Nobody has to, because the required level of proof has already been established.

Honestly I think you are just posturing to pass yourself off as mature, informed, and wise. It's not working.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities

No, it is because they were ramping up the sigmas. They knew where the Higgs was months ago, and as I understand it, the Tevatron people also had a pretty good idea, based on data collected years ago.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

Time... give it a little time. You're rubber stamping things before they've even submitted official papers.

Let them submit their findings and then we can wait while the scientific community goes over the results.

Calm down. Deep breaths in and out. Patience.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The mods have spoken, amateur. Leave.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

One chance in three million :-)

Here is what Atlas found for the confidence level at various energies. The spike at 126.5 GeV breaks out to 5 sigma.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

they have sigma 4.9 confidence level that it is the boson responsible for the Higgs field

Not exactly. Both experiments reported 5.0 sigma confidence that they had found a new, scalar boson with mass of approximately126 GeV/c2. They did not claim it is the Higgs, but neither did they leave much doubt.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

There's not a whole lot more to do to prove it is what they think it is.

Way wrong. They have hardly even begun to analyze its properties.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

Then why publish at all? Why not just hand down edicts from the gods and assume everything worked to plan.

Your conception isn't science. It has to be disseminated and then other scientists need to look over it all.

We'll know in a couple months if there are any obvious flaws.

We've had mistakes hide in plain sight for decades.

As to your insult, you make me sad. Any claim to intellectual integrity went right out the window when you started throwing out cheap insults to mask your incompetence.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[avandesande]

Estimating the mass and energy of particles is a very established science- I would be very surprised if all of the detectors aren't calibrated in real-time against well known particles identified in the same event.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[bmo]

>It has to be disseminated and then other scientists need to look over it all.

But the other scientists are at CERN already.

That's what you don't get. You think that CERN is a monolithic entity and not something like an academic institution.

>As to your insult, you make me sad

Tough. I've had enough of arguments from ignorance from people who think they matter.

--
BMO

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what can you, being an expert on climate science, statistical analysis, and data-gathering methodology, pinpoint as being "highly questionable methods" that are currently and incorrectly being used by climate scientists? And who might those climate scientists be? And exactly what data do you "very much doubt" is correct?

It's great that you have an opinion, but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies, identifying the scientists and papers that use these methodologies, and giving examples of the suspect data, and expect to immediately be taken completely seriously. I eagerly await your repsonse with all of its citations and background research.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[chrisxcr1]

No... Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything because Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything. He did NOTHING to deserve it. They are many, many far more deserving people around than that hypocrite.

I don't know if I'd say NOTHING. It's pretty fucking hot outside.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And _here_ is where you give away the game, making your true intent obvious.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[VernorVinge]

The Nobel Prize is a large trust left by the inventor of dynamite to perpetuate his legacy. The prizes are awarded each year by six Swedish scientists in secretive deliberations with no input from the scientific, academic, or political community at large. I have long abandoned the belief that the prize is in any way an accurate indication of the recipient's accomplishments.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I said such things are possible.

Funny, that's what PopeRatzo said too. With a high degree of confidence.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what can you, being an expert on climate science, statistical analysis, and data-gathering methodology, pinpoint as being "highly questionable methods" that are currently and incorrectly being used by climate scientists?

Who the hell knows. Given the fact that you can't get your hands on the original datasets without the right secret handshake or whatever it is that climate scientists use to identify each other they could be doing just about anything, and if Yamal is anything to go by you can produce some pretty nice looking results from some pretty shitty data.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Sir_Sri]

Way wrong

proving something exists is the problem at hand. Proving someone posted under the name Tough Love posted on slashdot in english is a different problem than trying to determine age, gender, location etc.

I'm in no way suggesting they know everything there is to know about this particle yet (although the LHC data will provide most of that in the same way it does for other particles so that's not a huge stretch), but at this point it's pretty settled that it exists consistent with predictions.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[haggus71]

I'll listen to the hundreds of Ph.D's that have been dealing with this day in and day out, and knew beforehand to make sure they had a high confidence level before releasing the info. They had this stuff over 6 months ago, maybe longer; and vetted it, making sure it was sigma 5 before letting it loose. They did that because there are ass hats like yourself even in their own community. The fact that Stephen Hawking(a much greater mind than you) was confident enough in the results to say he lost a hundred dollars on betting they wouldn't find it, says a lot. So really, I'll take their word for it, since your "confidence level" means fuck-all.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[haggus71]

GG luddite.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

...do you mean "decays" and "decayment"? I won't be harsh because it sounds like English is not your first language.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Karmashock]

I think people should be patient before making a big statement like this and that means I'm a luddite?

You're an idiot. No really.

Kill yourself.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"I don't know if I'd say NOTHING. It's pretty fucking hot outside."

Where you live, maybe. We've just gone through one of the coldest Springs on record. The other was last year.

But that's beside the point. Gore sure as hell didn't show us any CAUSE. What he showed us were graphs without scales or indexes, or numbers of any kind... rhetoric, but not evidence.

We knew it was getting hotter, even without AGW. So "it's hot outside" isn't an argument in Gore's favor. If AGW ever does turn out to be true, he stands to make a freaking fortune with the cap-and-trade businesses he set up. And if that's not conflict of interest, I don't know what is.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always control a conclusion if you control the premise.

This is question begging bullshit

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

On that, we definitely agree. They make some very good choices sometimes, in my opinion, but also the occasional blunder.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does strike me as a little convenient that they both hit exactly 5.0 sigma on nearly the same day.

Actually, the final CMS number was 4.9 sigma, when data from all analyzed channels were included (this is because of the deficit of tau-tau decays).

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"It's great that you have an opinion, but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies"

I don't have to, at all. Others already have. The fact is that all 5 of the investigations into Hadley Centre, CRU, and Michael Mann have found them not guilty of actual wrongdoing, but at the same time, all 5 of the reports mentioned, at least once, that the methods used were questionable.

Go read them.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a failure to communicate and you're now boring me.

We're done.

No, you have a failure of acknowledgement. You've been repeatedly told why your skepticism is unwarranted, and have simply refused to acknowledge that. If that 'bores you' too fucking bad.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"but you can't validly state that climate scientists are using highly questionale methods and doubtful data without citing specific examples of flawed metholodigies,"

Just for two examples just off the top of my head, from the 5. I do not promise that they are verbatim, but close enough:

"The statistical methods used do not support their conclusions."
And from the British House of Commons: "[They] have not actually violated accepted scientific practices... but those practices have to change." [Emphasis mine.]
EVERY ONE of the investigative report had some similar comment to make. Yes, they were found not guilty of any criminality, but they were hardly complimented. They were chastised. Every time.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it, it's not enough that the scientists pretty much bend over backwards to tell you that this is a preliminary result in finding Higgs Boson (it's just the mass after all), they combine results from independent tests onsite and that Tevatron has a high degree of confidence on the same particle... it's just not over until you have the original birth certificate, because it might not actually be a particle but some kind of impostor out to socialize science.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[UnknowingFool]

It's fundamentally unscientific to be so hasty.

It's fundamentally ignorant to say 99.99999 isn't pretty much certain. Or are you one of those people that refuse to believe anything that goes against your preconceived notions no matter what evidence exists.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So they say... you can't say 99.99999 percent until it's been peer reviewed.

Oh for fucks sake....

Yes, you can most certainly determine statistical probability in the absence of peer review. It's done all the fucking time. Peer review may validate the math determining 5 9's of reliability, but it will never establish it. That's part of the job of the fucking research in the first place!

Re:Have they actually found it?

[chrisxcr1]

Go watch the movie again. It is unusually hot where I live. You say it's unusually cold where you live. That is not contradictory to what he was saying in the movie. The theory is that climate change will manifest itself differently in different areas. I watched the movie and his message seemed completely plausible to me. If he's wrong, no big deal. We spend a lot of money on lots of dumb things. Spending a little extra to convert to carbon neutral energy sources that don't funnel money to our enemies doesn't seem all that bad to me. If you're wrong, we're fucked.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

Joe Incandela distinctly said 5. Yes, he also said 4.9 earlier in his talk. When he said 5, that's when the applause broke out.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you assume everyone working in particle physics wants to find the Higgs, or that it's properties must fit some narrow theoretical framework or CERN will have failed at science forever. This is not how science works. There are many theories in this area, and this new data will probably support some, contradict others and hopefully suggest new directions for theoretical and experimental work. I suggest that rather than being ignorant and implying malfeasance you take your own advice and be patient while others make scientific progress.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[UnknowingFool]

You can always control a conclusion if you control the premise.

Do you have any idea of what an "experiment" is? They made a prediction. They ran the experiment. The experiment met their prediction. Previous experiments did not. The experiment they ran isn't that new in terms of methodology. They've run variations of it over the last several decades: Small atoms together; see what is created. What is new is better detectors/detector methods/computers so that they can sift through the massive truckloads of data that is recorded in a miniscule of a second.

If I told you to just trust me because I'm really sure you wouldn't take that as a fact would you.

No one asked them to trust them. They gave their preliminary results. Nerds everywhere cheered. They will release more details later.

I'm not being unreasonable here. I just think it's a bad idea to jump to any conclusions until people have had more time to go over the data.

You are being rather unreasonable in how you express things.

The level of certainty is THEIR estimation of certainty. If you're wrong but think you're right then you're going to say you are very certain. If you made a mistake but didn't realize it then that isn't going to factor into your calculations.

If you can find a mistake in their calculations, go right ahead. I suspect that you can't so why are you even attempting to say they made a mistake.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[honkycat]

I've been following this and it sounded like they were going through a very long check list of possibilities. Trying one thing after another. And this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities.

No, that's not it at all.

The properties of the Higgs are well known from theory, if it exists. Very roughly, the experiment was searching for evidence that a particle that exhibits those properties exists, with the major complication that its mass is unknown.

The "getting close" has nothing to do with any sort of process of elimination, but with observing enough events to have statistically sound evidence that such a particle was observed. This is tricky, because the Higgs cannot be detected. Instead, you have to work back from detections of decay products that may be several generations removed from the Higgs decay. Higgs creations are rare, even when you have the energy to make it possible, so it requires trillions of events to make the search sensitive to the presence or absence of the particle.

What they've found so far came from a search that was sensitive to a few of the particular ways a Higgs will decay, and they've found that a particle that decays in the same way that a Higgs would, with a mass of about 126 GeV, has been found with high significance. The reason for the hedging about whether it's the Higgs is that they've not yet tested all the properties known for the Higgs. So they've found a new particle, and it behaves as the Higgs would behave, but there are more properties to be tested.

Incidentally, at this point, the discovery turning out to be a standard model Higgs boson is the least interesting possibility available (barring this whole business turning out to be an outright error, I suppose). According to a report I read earlier today, there may have been some evidence that the particle was behaving slightly different from the simplest expectation, so I guess there's some hope that the particle physicists aren't obsolete quite yet.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[The Master Control P]

There is no "Nobel Prize," mind you, there are a litany of Prizes in various fields of endeavor. The peace prize is obviously associated with political intrigue and making statements (such as Obama's, which was basically Europe very publicly giving Bush one last middle finger).

Now, had Al been awarded a Chemistry or Physics prize, I'd start believing that the whole process is bullshit.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[mbkennel]

"Who the hell knows. Given the fact that you can't get your hands on the original datasets without the right secret handshake or whatever it is that climate scientists use to identify each other they could be doing just about anything,"

Let me Google that for you.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

By the way, remember the Berkeley statistician who was a skeptic about global warming and the methodologies by the climatologists? He got their raw data and processed it in what he believed was the right way. The answer came out the same as the mainstream climate community said. They aren't lying, or faking.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[The Master Control P]

If they're saying to just trust them, why did I sit through a two hour conference talk last night where leaders from two different experiments explained exactly what their procedures for running, calibrating and analyzing data from the LHC in half a dozen channels each were, including multiple tests against other known values/constants?

The council of concern trolls seem to be really, very, seriously, awfully concerned about the Higgs discovery...

Re:Have they actually found it?

[meerling]

There is falsifiability, but guess what, it came up positive. Now they are just trying to verify that no mistakes were made, and it fits the predicted parameters of the Higgs.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

If AGW ever does turn out to be true

it's 'just a theory'. if you can find a flaw in AGW: PUT UP or SHUT UP.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Kristopeit, is that you?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, wrong. ATLAS and CMS are using different equipment and people, both have observed the Higgs in the same place. And it's not like the scientists all want to see the same result: everybody has their own pet theory (supersymmetry and such) which imply different results about the Higgs. There is just no way there was a conspiracy, the incentives aren't there.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tough. I've had enough of arguments from ignorance from people who think they matter.

Have you considered anger management classes?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[polar red]

FACTS:

1:CO2 induces the greenhouse effect, TEST THIS YOURSELF.

    -->here is the wikipedia article on the greenhouse effect:

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

    -->and here are the youtube links showing HOW to do an experiment showing CO2 induces the greenhouse effect
  repeat them

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0jhYDcazY

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo

2:Humans emit a LOT of CO2 (oil or coal + O2 + ... = energy + CO2 + soot + ...)

1+2 = default position is AGW, you need to provide proof of NOT-AGW

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Aardpig]

The butthurt runs deep in this one!

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"So... I'm skeptical."

Keep on being a specialist for the Big Bosom and leave the Higgs Boson to us.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[The Master Control P]

The Standard Model doesn't "put" the Higgs anywhere because the Higgs mass is an input parameter to the theory. And all the theorists I talk to about this sort of thing would love to know how you've concluded that SUSY is confirmed, since they're lamenting the absence of anything that would fit or require supersymmetry, at the same time current results rule out a larger and larger fraction of possible theories/parameters for Susy models.

In conclusion I'm, going to venture that you may possibly not know what you're talking about.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

A strawman IS an argument. As a skeptic here you go:
http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons/lesson9.html

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tore S B]

"I don't know if I'd say NOTHING. It's pretty fucking hot outside."

Where you live, maybe. We've just gone through one of the coldest Springs on record. The other was last year.

Arguing that climate science is wrong because of weather is like arguing that the theory of gravity is wrong because your helium balloon goes up. Stupid.
 

But that's beside the point. Gore sure as hell didn't show us any CAUSE. What he showed us were graphs without scales or indexes, or numbers of any kind... rhetoric, but not evidence.

Yes, and Nelson Mandela should never have gotten the Peace Prize either. I mean, his work against Apartheid was sorely lacking in citations and his party program wasn't even accepted by any major peer-reviewed journal!
 

We knew it was getting hotter, even without AGW. So "it's hot outside" isn't an argument in Gore's favor. If AGW ever does turn out to be true, he stands to make a freaking fortune with the cap-and-trade businesses he set up. And if that's not conflict of interest, I don't know what is.

The whole POINT of the Nobel Peace Prize is to help a good thing become a bigger thing. Both by granting it visibility on the global stage and a little bit of dough, it's supposed to help it out. Gore does not operate a "cap and trade" business; that's government policy, not a business model. He does oversee some green investment funds, though.

Which kind of makes sense if you seem to be one of few people with deep pockets who realize what impact this will have on the profitability of different things.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you start every conversation with the word "Wrong"? You have no evidence, no secure logic chain, and are refuting others and begging the question over and over. Please take a step back, read a book on critical thinking along with traditional logic patterns before you just spout nonsense that amounts to vapor.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tough Love]

The precise quote was not "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it" as I wrote above, but: "as a layman, I would now say I think we have it. Do you agree?" (applause) -- Rolf Heuer, Director of Cern.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[TapeCutter]

I've been following this and it sounded like they were going through a very long check list of possibilities. Trying one thing after another. And this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities.

Not really, the standard model predicted what was found. however "finding it" involves using statistical analysis on an enormous number of individual experiments. Think of it like a very long time exposure of an extremely faint astronomical object, the longer the exposure the better the clarity of what you have "found". If you have two independent "time exposures" you can combine them for even greater clarity, which is basically what has been done here, two different experiments using different technology and techniques have come up with the same "picture" predicted by the standard model.

It would be deeply embarrassing if after all this they make a break through.

If that's what you think then you really need to listen to some actual scientists talking about their work, and there's no better starting point than a youtube search for Feynman interviews, but don't stop there have a listen to Sagan, EO Wilson, and the rest, even Alan Alda is worth listening to, not for his views on the higgs but for the way he approaches scientists in his interviews.
You will discern a side of human nature in these people, but it's a side that is rarely seen in the political/corporate world, ( the best name I can come up with is "self-skepticisim"). You see, no matter who predicted what, all physicists have "won" because the Higgs has moved from "best theory" to "scientific fact" but it will never reach a point of absolute certainty because physicists will never stop thinking of new ways to test their models.

I'm obviously a layman and my opinion on these matters isn't worth much.

The value of your opinion is not limited by your layman status, it's limited by your lack of undersatnding of how to judge the strength of the scientific evidence.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[TapeCutter]

Jane be honest, you have not watched the movie, nor have you even skimmed the reports they were based on, have you?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[tbird81]

He seems to be managing it quite well.

A reasonable way of coping with a trolling cocksmoker who deliberately misunderstands science is to stop arguing with him. BMO sounds like he has very good anger management.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[cgaertner]

CMS measured multiple channels of decay. If I remember correctly, the 5 sigma combined the data from the most prominent channels, but it dropped below the 5 sigma threshold for the complete dataset.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a failure to communicate and you're now boring me.

We're done.

Possibly in six months we'll know for sure.

Other than the fact that we had presentation here, where I am (and I'm a computer scientist in canada) with raw data from the LHC back in January. Anyone who wants the data can get it if you are part of a collaborating institution. Which at this point is basically all the institutions that have high energy particle physicists.

Eyes cannot stop rolling, troll.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[maswan]

China's HEP institutes also are in both Atlas and CMS. These are global collaborations and anyone with a significant research interest would likely have joined one or the other by now.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if you just shut up and wait we will find out if you were right or not. Then you can change your mind and say you were right all along. Or not. Who cares, I certainly can't change your mind and there is no way you can convince me. So let's just shut up and wait.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Mindcontrolled]

You are providing a textbook example of concern trolling, whether by intention or not.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Pro-feet]

You're wrong: it is established to be a boson, because it has been observed to decay to 2 photons. (because of spin) You're wrong again: it cannot be something entirely different. Except for the mass, we knew exactly how it would be produced and decay. So, keeping only the mass as unknown, we went and search in those billions of collisions for very peculiar signatures, matching what we expected it to look like after decay. And guess what, we managed to find it exactly there, the decays kind-of matching with our expectation, across several channels and in two independent experiments. If you here a physicist say "we have to understand better the nature of the particle", it means we have to understand if it is the standard model Higgs boson, or something very much related, with properties slightly different because of new physics at higher enerrgy levels we don't know about yet. With what we have seen, noone in the field doubts about that we were and are on the right track. Btw, we also almost certainly established it's a scalar (the only fundamental scalar we know), and not a spin-2 particle, because of what we see in the WW decay mode.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Pro-feet]

We have two independent experiments, with different techologies, different people, even a different culture.

We were getting close because we had seen hints last year, which needed confirmation with more data. That's how it goes with a statistics.

It is false to say we just got to the end of the list. It was always clear that if the particle was there, we would first rule it out in all other mass ranges, before we would be able to establish it at its current mass. Again, that is how it works with statistics: we talk of exclusion when 5% chance remains we missed it; we talk of discovery only when we are really really damn totally sure statistics is not fooling us.

It is also false that it was a process of elimination. There was a perfectly viable option of not finding anything at all. It would have been a PR catastrophy, but a scientific breakthrough as well.

And if you're skeptical about statistics: quantum mechanics is all about probabilities, so live with it. Your phone works because of it.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Pro-feet]

Not so much we have ass-hats in our community (well, we do, of course ;-)), but more that if we fuck up, like happened recently with the FTL neutrinos (not a CERN experiment), it might mean the end of the field, and the end of all of our academic and scientific careers. Going public with this is a big thing. Therefore our internal peer review is extremely intense: hundreds of people trying to shoot down observations from all sides. And what remains is rock solid. Science at its best.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Joce640k]

What I worry is that they didn't so much find it as they got to the end of the list and are concluding by process of elimination that that must be the Higgs.

This is where you show that you're absolutely clueless about science and the scientific method.

The Scientific Method:
1) Observation
2) Theory
3) Prediction
4) Experiment

Memorize it. Write it on your shower wall. Repeat it every morning. If something doesn't do all of those steps it isn't science. (3) and (4) are the most important (and they're what most pseudoscience skips...)

The physicists at CERN made a prediction about the Higgs Boson. What they're doing now is step (4). They don't have a wishy-washy list of possibilities, they have a definite prediction, made at step (3) before they started building the machine.

Sorry for ranting but your post sums up everything that's wrong with modern education and where it's failing.

Look at the pictures and think. Do you really, honestly believe that people who are capable of designing that fit the Fox news image of "scientist"?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[flyneye]

Had the Superconducting Super Collider, at one time under construction in Waxahachie, Texas, not been cancelled by Congress AND BILL CLINTON as one of his first attacks on the U.S.in 1993 .

corrections, corrections....

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Joce640k]

No, I said such things are possible.

You seem to be comparing the scientists at CERN with the guys who build perpetual motion machines in their garage (in between converting cars to run on water and lighting up light bulbs with spinning magnets).

These are the brightest minds in the world. They work out in the open and they're being closely observed and criticized by thousands of other bright minds since the 1980s (when the machine was first discussed).

You claim to be some sort of judge of human character. I can promise you you're not. You're just Yet Another Armchair Conspiracy Theorist.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Joce640k]

Plenty of Nobel winners turned out to be crackpots who used the "Nobel prize winner!" title to push their crackpot theories later in life, yes.

OTOH even crackpots can do good science sometimes and usually the work which wins the prize is worthwhile/important.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same thing was found by 2 groups, studying the data of 2 different sets of colisions on 2 sensors by 2 completely defferent ways. The only thing they have in common is that they use the same machine to accelerate their hardrons.

To be honest, I think they were accelerating hadrons instead of their hardons.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Joce640k]

I simply have a problem with concluding things quickly.

Human auditing systems are not that fast. So if you decide this fast it wasn't audited.

I want it audited before I give it credence.

Maybe the machine was designed to give a very clear yes/no answer so the "auditing" process you're looking for happened before they even switched it on.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[PopeRatzo]

The prizes are awarded each year by six Swedish scientists in secretive deliberations with no input from the scientific, acade

Which Nobel Prize are you talking about? They are all different. Only the money that funds them is the same.

I think you're referring to the Peace Prize, which was my original point. Saying a Nobel in economics is worthless because you don't like a recipient of Nobel Peace prize is like saying "I don't like football because I hate Babe Ruth".

Re:Have they actually found it?

[MachineShedFred]

Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything because Al Gore's Nobel Prize doesn't mean anything.

Well, that's a permeating syllogism you've come up with...

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The council of concern trolls seem to be really, very, seriously, awfully concerned about the Higgs discovery...

Can you blame them... the particle's origins are at least half "Kenian" this time.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[hag3r]

You've described the process for selecting all the Nobel Prize winners except for the Literature and Peace Prize.

The Literature Prize winner is decided by the Swedish Academy, and the Peace Prize winner is decided by a bunch of Norwegian politicians.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Paradigma11]

They have a Sigma 5 confidence level which is equivalent to one chance in a million that they're mistaken.

Can somebody please confirm/explain if the above quote is a correct interpretation and if so how.

Normally i would assume that the scientists use some kind of frequentist reasoning:
Assume a H0. In this case the H0 would be no new particle.
Run tons of tests and calculate how probable the results are under the H0.
If the results are under a certain alpha level they throw away the H0 and assume the non H0 (ie. H1) as the new H0.
Then calculate a confidence interval and report this.

Is this, in principle what happened?
If so, then "one chance in a million that they're mistaken" is just plain wrong because the only probability/chance calculated was under the assumption that there is no new particle in which case there would be no new particle :)

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be right, but you're definitely a douchebag.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[budgenator]

First they mod you, then they say don't feed the trolls, then you win! All you have to remember is one year Al Gore was warning people about a 20m sea-level rise, the next year he bought a condo with a front door 3 ft above sea-level..

Re:Have they actually found it?

[budgenator]

The Nobel Prize Awarding Institutions
The process of selecting the Nobel Laureates is exclusively handled by the Nobel Prize awarding institutions.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Prize in Economic Sciences)

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine)

The Swedish Academy (Nobel Prize in Literature)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Nobel Peace Prize) (emph mine)
The Nobel Organizations

Which "they", the peace prize committee is a very different animal.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[budgenator]

There is no raw data anymore, it's all adjusted, it's such a travesty; they don't even know for sure how the data are adjusted to prduce their product.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

He showed the results of scientific studies. Of course he didn't show you 'science'.

" If AGW ever does turn out to be true"

It has turned out to be true. IN the field of study, it is NOT controversial. In fact, it's so solid the heartland institute has turned to intentional attacking the classroom.

Al Gore isn't a climatologist, he isn't an expert, and if it was smart enough to put himself in position to make money from scientific facts, then so what?

You are just using a verbose ad hom attack. No different then idiots who called the theory of evolution 'Darwinism'

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

In short:

Someone got one and I didn't like it, so now I hate them!

I hear the argument from pretty much every 11 year old.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

Well, sometime the crack pottery comes later in their life.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

and?

20 m rise in a 100 years doesn't mean a condo at sea level today is bad.

Not that Al Gore attacks have any bearing on the science.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

Oh, well politicians chastised the scientist, clearly there's a problem and not a political move to come up with something.

So, they where chastised? bottom line, there data and interpretation was fine. It was a media created circus, nothing more.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[geekoid]

It wasn't a fuck up.
They had unexpected result.
The ran the tests thousands of times
They said, this really should be right, but if it is it is huge.
They showed there data and experiments to the scientific community
Someone found a=n error..no that wasn't it.
Someone found another error, ah, there's the reason.

No fuck up, just science.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he may have also mean that an expirament cannot only have one possible outcome. Which, obviously, the guys at CERN know about, but certain former employees of mine did not. They wrote tests that assumed the code they were supposed to be testing with the very test worked.

Their unit tests looked like this:

def testComplexOperation(self):
        doComplexOperation()
        return true

When stuff didn't work, they'd point to the useless testcases they wrote as "evidence" that their code didn't have bugs in it.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Pro-feet]

Yes and no.
There was a lot of "that's how science works". Good.
However, I advise you to read: http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/neutrinos/neutrinos-faster-than-light/opera-what-went-wrong/
People resigned. That shouldn't happen if it's just science at works. Also, the dynamics in the authorlist of the Opera articles in question are interesting from the sociological point of view.
Another bad thing in my opinion was the CERN involvement, which I still don't understand. This was not a CERN experiment, nevertheless CERN chose to profusely communicate on the issue.
And, a scientific fuck up or not, that's how it will remain to be perceived by the outside...

Re:Have they actually found it?

[budgenator]

3, the trevatron had basically the same results to 2.9 sigma.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[marcosdumay]

They still didn't, because they still don't know what they want in a new accelerator. They'll need to gather more results from the LHC, create and test more theories, then they'll have new gaps to fill that may, or may not (but probably the former) demand a new accelerator.

But they are already constructing a new accelerator anyway. It's only that they use the same structure that holds the current LHC.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Which 'they', the peace prize committee is a very different animal."

From the context of my comment, I think it is pretty clear that by "they", I meant those who decide who gets the Nobel Prize. No matter who "they" are.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"... such as Obama's, which was basically Europe very publicly giving Bush one last middle finger."

I agree. This reinforces my point. It was done for political purposes, and Obama actually did not do anything to deserve a prize... it was awarded largely in response to someone else entirely.

I'm not saying that is exactly the case with Gore, but I don't think he deserved it, either.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Not that Al Gore attacks have any bearing on the science."

Nor that his movie had much to do with it, either.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am referring to the Nobel prize for the social sciences in general. The economic theories of some past winners were highly influential in public policy decisions that led to the current economic melt-down of 2008. You have to go no further than look at Greenspan's mea culpa after the meltdown.

I contend that having BS recipients for the social sciences devalues the prize for scientific winners.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[budgenator]

Nobody has published, that was a press-release, it will take a while to get a publishable paper submitted for review.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Go watch the movie again. It is unusually hot where I live. You say it's unusually cold where you live. That is not contradictory to what he was saying in the movie. "

Do you have reading comprehension issues? What do you think "that's beside the point" means?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Arguing that climate science is wrong because of weather is like arguing that the theory of gravity is wrong because your helium balloon goes up. Stupid."

And I'll say the same thing to you that I did to that other person: I stated this myself. Or else what do you think "that's beside the point" means?

Dumbass.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

Yes, I did in fact watch the movie, very closely. I saw it when it first came out and I was very displeased with it.

For example: A giant chart comparing temperature proxies against CO2 concentrations from ice cores, showing a high correlation. But no labels or indices, or even a casual mention that one of the two lines had been shifted somewhere between 300 to 800 years to the left! Even assuming the correlation is correct, if you don't tell people you have massaged the data in some way, you are "lying with statistics".

Hell yes, I saw the movie. And I walked out of the theater when it ended, disgusted.

It was at a movie mini-marathon, along with a couple of other environoment-themed movies like "Who Killed The Electric Car?" An Inconvenient Truth was the last one.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[newslash.formatblows]

"We'll" know for sure? Are you planning to analyze the data, or even read the paper? Do you have the background to understand it? I'm betting that's a double "no". Here's a clue: just because YOU don't understand something, that doesn't mean no one else understands it. The lack of mathematical certainty does not equal "Well, they aren't 100% sure about it, so my half-assed guess is just as valid as their 'theory' or report of results"

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"It has turned out to be true. IN the field of study, it is NOT controversial. In fact, it's so solid the heartland institute has turned to intentional attacking the classroom."

Nonsense on both counts.

It has NOT been shown to be true. In fact the evidence has been increasingly been building against it. For one thing, almost all versions of the CO2-warming model rely on the concept of "back radiation", which physicists (not climate scientists) have proved to be impossible.

I'm happy to leave actual climate science to climate scientists. But when THEIR models rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, I'll take the physicists' word for it, thank you very much.

As for the Heartland thing, there is very solid evidence that the document was forged. We have no evidence that it was actually among the papers the journalist received, we only have his word -- and nobody else's, or any other evidence -- that the source of the document was actually the Heartland Institute. To summarize: there *IS* strong evidence that it was a forgery. There is *NO* evidence that it is not. Only one man's word.

Al Gore isn't a climatologist, he isn't an expert, and if it was smart enough to put himself in position to make money from scientific facts, then so what?

My problem with it -- as I have already stated -- was that his movie purported to be representing "science" but he used misleading, unlabeled graphs and similar persuasive devices in order to alarm people. That's not "science reporting", that's propaganda.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Tore S B]

I did not use "Stupid" as a noun to address you, I used the word as an adjective to describe the line of reasoning. Clearly.

"That's beside the point" means "it is not relevant to the argument I'm making", which is not the same as "That is irrelevant to global warming".

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"But when THEIR models rely on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, I'll take the physicists' word for it, thank you very much."

Just to clarify:

First, it was the statisticians (and the investigators who later examined the science) saying that the statistical analyses the climate scientists used were shaky at best. ("The statistical methods used do not support their conclusions." was the summary of one report), and now it's physicists saying that they've got the physics wrong.

That's a very far cry from "NOT controversial".

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to be a dick a about it. My reading comprehension is fine. How's yours?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"I did not use "Stupid" as a noun to address you, I used the word as an adjective to describe the line of reasoning. Clearly."

It wasn't clear at all. And you didn't even follow the actual line of reasoning, so that's a silly argument.

"That's beside the point" means "it is not relevant to the argument I'm making", which is not the same as "That is irrelevant to global warming".

Let's take it in context, shall we?

We've just gone through one of the coldest Springs on record. The other was last year.

But that's beside the point.

I fail to see any ambiguity there.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

"So, they where chastised? bottom line, there data and interpretation was fine. It was a media created circus, nothing more."

Not so, at all.

The comment about the statistics was not made by politicians, it was made by a professional statistician, who was investigating the statistical methods they used. His paper was peer-reviewed by six other professional and well-respected statisticians, who found no flaw in it.

The ONE investigative report, that was conducted by "politicians" (British House of Commmons) was not DONE BY politicians. They hired investigators to do the job. They reported the investigators' findings. It's pretty hard to say politics was involved, since in fact it would have been in the House of Commons' best interest to play down anything negative.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

You know, modding somebody as "troll" when they're simply reporting easily verifiable facts reflects pretty badly on the modder.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[Jane Q. Public]

Again, modding somebody as "troll" when they're simply reporting easily verifiable facts reflects pretty badly on the modder.

The conclusions of these reports are easily and publicly available, to anybody who bothers to go find them.

So how do you justify a "troll" mod?

Re:Have they actually found it?

[xouumalperxe]

You've got it subtly wrong: It's not that "by process of elimination that must be the Higgs". Rather, it's a matter of "We expect the Higgs to be in one of these places" (or, rather, be within this mass range), and then exhaustively looking at all those places for it. In one of those places, they found an unknown particle. By Occam's Razor, it being the Higgs is a more reasonable assumption than it being some other particle that's in the same mass range as the Higgs, but we hadn't actually predicted. Also, from what I gather (I have a few physicist friends, including a guy that was until recently working in CERN), the particle they found is pretty "boring", in that it behaves pretty much as it ought to, no weird stuff. So that also helps towards the conclusion that it must indeed be the Higgs.

Re:Have they actually found it?

[polar red]

I certainly can't change your mind

yes you can, show me hard abservable facts and a theory showing why the above doesn't work on a global scale.

there is no way you can convince me

ah ...

Re:Have they actually found it?

[qinda]

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Re:Have they actually found it?

[qinda]

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Re:Have they actually found it?

[TapeCutter]

You are full of shit Jane, and we both know it.

In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Mexico regrets the loss of Texas...

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't we all, amigo...

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas can no longer claim "everything is bigger in Texas" I guess, since the LHC is the largest collider in the world.

Re:In other news:

[EricTheGreen]

They can have it back. After we transplant Austin somewhere else first, of course....

Re:In other news:

[rossdee]

Is there any reason why "the Circuit of The Americas" can't be in Mexico ? There are probably as many Mexican fans of Formula 1 as there are US fans.

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation needed

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all those "Don't Mess With Texas" bumper stickers didn't work after all

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, we'd just rebel again.
 
REMEMBER THE ALAMO!
 
Oh, almost forgot...
 
COME AND GET IT!

Re:In other news:

[kh31d4r]

Is there any reason why "the Circuit of The Americas" can't be in Mexico ? There are probably as many Mexican fans of Formula 1 as there are US fans.

But not as much money.

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Spain regrets the loss of Mexico to the Mexicans.
Aztecs regret the loss of their land to the Spanish.
Animals regret the loss of their land to the Aztecs.
Plants regret the loss of their land to animals.
Inorganic materials regret the loss of their land to organic material.

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late to give back everything but the mineral rights?

Re:In other news:

[geekoid]

If you cut Alaska in half, each piece would be larger then Texas.

Re:In other news:

[MaWeiTao]

There was a Mexican Grand Prix at one point and currently there are plans to revive it.

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas can no longer claim "everything is bigger in Texas" I guess, since the LHC is the largest collider in the world.

They can claim "everything COULD HAVE BEEN bigger in Texas" though. :-D

Re:In other news:

[hicksw]

Remember Goliad!

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Mexico only owned it for 40 years. It belonged to Spain before Mexico stole it from them.

Re:In other news:

[Anonymous Coward]

Oaklahoma is windy because Texas sucks

Re:In other news:

[flabordec]

But after that we don't really want it...

Haha

[viperidaenz]

Sounds like a sore loser.

Texas eh?

[mwfischer]

If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Re:Texas eh?

[denzacar]

should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Make that a God Particle Gun instead of "Superconducting Super Collider" and you're golden.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do think the SSC was badly marketed, starting with the name. "Super conducting super collider" is the kind of thing that comedians and Congressmen made fun of, mixed in with self-deprecating humor about their own lack of physics smarts.

"Texas SuperConducting Collider" (TSCC) would've been a better name.

Re:Texas eh?

[catmistake]

If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Make that a God Particle Gun instead of "Superconducting Super Collider" and you're golden.

If only a Texan would have caught them sneaking off with this stolen discovery, they could have legally murdered them.

Re:Texas eh?

[Creepy]

actually, for the book it was originally called the goddamn particle because it was so hard to find, then they cut out the damn (seriously!). I think Texas editors had something to do with it.

Re:Texas eh?

[Grishnakh]

It's not the only political thing with a terrible name in this country; remember the "Information Superhighway" (which everyone else called the "internet") term that politicians were throwing around for a while?

Re:Texas eh?

[Jane Q. Public]

They called it that because they actually thought the Government was building it... just like they did (or helped anyway) the real superhighways.

Of course, it was private industry that built almost all of it; the government had little input or say over the matter.

And they shouldn't be able to regulate its content now.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

First slur against religious folks! Congrats. You have to be quick to win the bigot race on Slasdot science topics.

Re:Texas eh?

[DesScorp]

should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Make that a God Particle Gun instead of "Superconducting Super Collider" and you're golden.

Ah, the stupid Texans hate science thing. You do know that it was the Congress... controlled by mostly non-Southern Democrats... that killed the Supercollider, right? With the full support of then-President Bill Clinton. Most Republicans tried to save it as a matter of national prestige.

Re:Texas eh?

[Grishnakh]

Actually, IIRC, the government helped fund a lot of its development back in the 70s and 80s, as it was mainly shared by universities (most of which are publicly-funded) (.edu), government agencies (.gov), the US military (.mil), and some non-profits (.org). However, of course in the 90s private industry took over as the commercial potential of it was realized (.com boom).

Re:Texas eh?

[byornski]

Super-collider? I just met her!

Re:Texas eh?

[Jane Q. Public]

"However, of course in the 90s private industry took over as the commercial potential of it was realized (.com boom)."

Yes. The government initially funded a lot of the R&D (though they were NOT the original developers). However, once it began to spread, the government portion of it rapidly became a tiny minority. The vast majority of current technology and infrastructure behind the internet has little or nothing to do with government.

It also has little or nothing to do with the ".com boom". That was nothing but a bunch of companies that tried to CAPITALIZE on the internet (not actually build and grow it), who had no viable business models. ".com boom" had more to do with companies behind websites, not much else.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, for the book it was originally called the goddamn particle because it was so hard to find,

On that basis it should have been called the clitoris particle because men can't seem to find that either.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good sterotype, especially on /.

Re:Texas eh?

[denzacar]

Most Republicans tried to save it as a matter of national prestige.

Because that is what the science is all about - which country has a longer collective dick.

Also, post you replied to was a joke, replying to another joke. How about lightening the fuck up?

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Killed by Democrats? No, try again.

The newly elected Contract-on-America GOP'ers led by Newt Gingrich killed the SSC.

Re:Texas eh?

[Nimey]

Sorry, no. Those folks didn't get elected until '94, and weren't in power until early '95.

Re:Texas eh?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

It was killed by the Democrats, because Ronny Raygun, Bush I and rest of the cut taxes while spending more money Republicans put us way the fuck in debt.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they just liked the Pork flowing to their district.

Pouring billions and billions into the sands.

Oh wait, that was Iraq.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Make that a God Particle Gun instead of "Superconducting Super Collider" and you're golden.

Ah, the stupid Texans hate science thing. You do know that it was the Congress... controlled by mostly non-Southern Democrats... that killed the Supercollider, right? With the full support of then-President Bill Clinton. Most Republicans tried to save it as a matter of national prestige.

Don't be an idiot. Anyone with remote awareness of American politics knows that it's the Republicans who stoked the fires of austerity in the early 90s. A little google searching shows that, at-worst, the votes were bi-partisan, and President Clinton's hand was forced in signing the bill that killed the Supercollider:

house-kills-the-supercollider-and-now-it-might-stay-dead

If you're going to look at this through political lens, blame the Republicans for cutting the national budget to put the government into debt crisis (Starve_the_beast) in a long term strategy to destroy the middle class.

Re:Texas eh?

[Grishnakh]

It also has little or nothing to do with the ".com boom". That was nothing but a bunch of companies that tried to CAPITALIZE on the internet (not actually build and grow it), who had no viable business models. ".com boom" had more to do with companies behind websites, not much else.

I totally disagree. The dot-com boom of the mid-to-late 90s was not only companies capitalizing on the internet by making websites, it was other companies building and growing it for all the new customers that wanted to sign on. In 1990, the only people on the internet were college students and the aforementioned non-commercial institutions. After ~1995, pretty soon everyone and his brother wanted to get on it; this fueled a massive surge in ISPs, and other companies to build and grow the internet itself. All those customers needed a way onto the internet, which was ISPs. All those ISPs needed a way onto the internet, so they had to pay the backbone providers. All the companies like Amazon that set up shop had to get access too. All that new activity fueled the building and growing. All those backbones weren't there before this, because there was no need for that much capacity.

Re:Texas eh?

[alcmaeon]

Nice try at the revisionism, but that shit don't fly in the age of Google.

Here was the Senate vote:

Kill it:

• 26 Dems in favor, 29 against, 1 vote not cast
• 31 Repgs in favor, 13 against, 0 uncast

Source

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ignorance and stupidity have reached new heights, even for Slashdot.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only a Texan would have caught them sneaking off with this stolen discovery, they could have legally KILLED them.

FTFW

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They tossed in the usual "jobs! jobs!" justification in the Texas Tribune article. At 5.5 billion dollars for 13,000 ESTIMATED jobs it would've been cheaper to send a check out for $200,000 to each of those people. And they bitch about the cost of welfare.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts are stupid things. -- Ronald Reagan

Re:Texas eh?

[haruchai]

No, we didn't know that and the reason because it's BULLSHIT.
When will you RightWingNutBars stop FUCKING LYING??

http://www.quora.com/How-close-was-the-vote-to-cancel-the-Superconducting-Super-Collider

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1993-book1/pdf/PPP-1993-book1-doc-pg864.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/31/us/stating-regret-clinton-signs-bill-that-kills-supercollider.html?src=pm

I guess the answer is never because if you weren't telling lies, you'd have nothing to say.

What the fuck do you all have against Clinton? So he got his cock sucked while in office; it happens.
Hilary got over it and so should you.

Re:Texas eh?

[daath93]

You got modded up to a 3 for this? He was in fucking office from January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001? Can you fucking add? since when are Presidential terms 6 years? You don't just get to ignore the tragedy the Clinton presidency was. He fucking sold our nuke tech to China and killed your precious fucking hadron colider. Fucking deal with reality.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your numbers are correct but in the opposite direction. The Senate votes cited were to PRESERVE funding for the SSC. It died in the House.

Don't tout Google if you can't even report what you find accurately.

Re:Texas eh?

[DesScorp]

Nice try at the revisionism, but that shit don't fly in the age of Google.

Here was the Senate vote:

Kill it:

• 26 Dems in favor, 29 against, 1 vote not cast
• 31 Repgs in favor, 13 against, 0 uncast

Source

Have you forgotten that all spending bills must originate in the House? Where the the group that led the charge to kill the Supercollider was led by a Democrat with the following vote totals:

Voting to kill - 166 Democrats, 115 Republicans
Voting to save - 98 Democrats, 61 Republicans

Democrats were a large majority in the House in this period.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that it was the Congress... controlled by mostly non-Southern Democrats... that killed the Supercollider, right?

No. It was killed because of massive budget over-runs due to the idiocy of putting it in Texas. There were several other sites considered, all were more well suited, but pork barrel politics ensured Texas got the contract.
If anything "killed" the project, it was the fire ants which ate the electrical systems almost as fast as they could be installed.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

He also forgot to disclose that the sponsor to the amendment to kill funding Was Dale Bumpers [Democrat, Kansas]

Re:Texas eh?

[Jessified]

Yea right. More like the evangelicals would have quashed it because the "Texas Scientists" (oxymoron?) were searching for a false idol.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So in the house:
166/(166+98) = 63% of Dems voted to kill it
115/(115+61) = 65% of Reps voted to kill it

And the senate:
46% of Dems voted to kill
70% of Reps voted to kill

More Dems voted to kill because there were more of them voting, but Repubs were more likely to vote to kill it.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

im glad we finally know which political affiliation was most equally responsible!

Re:Texas eh?

[BeardedChimp]

You do know that it was the Congress... controlled by mostly non-Southern Democrats... that killed the Supercollider, right

You said Congress, not House. Stop trying to reframe your argument after you've been shown to be wrong.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try the House, not the Senate, you ideological sack of pig shit.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't waste your time, he's obviously one of those people who is never wrong.

Well, in his own head at least if nowhere else.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to your post even at the House republicans voted to kill at a larger percentage, although not at an overwhelming difference as in the Senate.
So you are indeed confirming your original post was BS.

Re:Texas eh?

[bkk_diesel]

If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Yeah, except that Nobel laureate Leon Lederman wanted to call it the Goddamn particle (because it was so elusive), but his editor wouldn't let him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern/print

Re:Texas eh?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Are you some sort of dipshit?

Here's what you originally said:

You do know that it was the Congress... controlled by mostly non-Southern Democrats... that killed the Supercollider, right? With the full support of then-President Bill Clinton. Most Republicans tried to save it as a matter of national prestige.

Then, when called out, you provided a link that directly contradicted your original statement. Lets have a look what the article says:

On Clinton:

to halt construction of the world's largest atom-smasher against the wishes of President Clinton and a Senate-House conference committee.

On most Republicans trying to save it: From your own figures 115 to kill, 61 to save. Are you maths skills so fucking poor that you think ~35% is most?

Stupid revisionist bullshit.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the book came also came out in 1993, possibly after funding was cut.

Re:Texas eh?

[Nimey]

IGTT 0/10, little boy. Try harder and maybe you'll learn to troll properly.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would still not say "Most Republicans tried to save it as a matter of national prestige." :-)

Re:Texas eh?

[Schmorgluck]

(Inevitable large hardon collider joke)

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for posting the truth.

I think the problem is that Republicans understand that if they keep lying about everything, some percentage of the population will think it's the truth and therefore the lie will become somewhat true.

So Republicans lie about literally everything, even things that don't matter, because collectively they are misleading the population into believing in an alternative history and an alternative reality. Every little lie helps. This is why you now have Republican lawmakers contradicting what they said literally hours or minutes ago, sometimes within the same speech.

None of what they say is true of course, but putting people on their side, even by means of completely false information, is still helpful enough to make it worthwhile. Scary stuff.

Re:Texas eh?

[Hatta]

Where the the group that led the charge to kill the Supercollider was led by a Democrat with the following vote totals:

Voting to kill - 166 Democrats, 115 Republicans
Voting to save - 98 Democrats, 61 Republicans

Wow, bipartisanship!

Re:Texas eh?

[Rooked_One]

And rule number... 5? of politics is that you always vote with the majority or else you'll look bad. A more interesting note would be figuring out when sheeple were getting elected into the house and senate.

Re:Texas eh?

[yodleboy]

Hey, there's a lot of Texas hate here. A great deal of cutting edge science goes on in Texas. Don't confuse the do-ers with the voting masses or the easily manipulated and oblivious legislature. Most of the science opposition is at the elementary/high school level anyway and fueled by ignorant parents who wave the reelection hammer over weak politicians.

Re:Texas eh?

[Legion303]

The Senate votes cited were to PRESERVE funding for the SSC.

From the link GP posted:

"AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To reduce funds for General Science and Research Activities and terminate the Superconducting Super Collider program for the purposes of reducing the deficit in the Federal Budget. "

Don't tout Google if you can't even report what you find accurately.

Don't lie on the internet when google is a tab away, dumb fuck And the mod who voted parent up: you're exactly as dishonest, if not an outright sock puppet.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then they built the supercollider. Thank you.

Re:Texas eh?

[haruchai]

Wasn't that was used to be called revisionism? Something we were told was done only by Communists?

Oh, how the RIGHTeous have fallen; Lincoln lies slain on their high-and-mighty places.

Re:Texas eh?

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh, Dale Bumpers was from AR not KN, and all we ever elect here are pro business DINOs and RINOs so expecting to call ANY elected official from AR a D or an R is kinda pointless, just FYI.

Re:Texas eh?

[geekoid]

Yes, the tragic years when America wa m ore respected by the world then any other time, the economy ended up growing.
Yes the tragic years where republicans learned to hate economical policy that works, instead of learning from it.
Fortunately, that was put to an end by the great George bush. Giving money aye, created a new level of bureaucracy across the entire federal governments, completely ignored people in need, and to ignore economists and scientist on matters and instead going with his gut. The same thing the destroy most companies he ran.

Re:Texas eh?

[geekoid]

"; the government had little input or say over the matter. "
hahaha.. jeez.
Besides intital funding, allocation of funds, paying for the backbone, paing from many city cionnection, and univesities.

No, private industry mostly built things that use the internet.

Facebook is not the internet, it is attached to the internet.

Yes, I know they are tightly coupled today, and some of this is pretty fine details that most people on the internet no nothing about. Because they don't have to.

Re:Texas eh?

[geekoid]

"The government initially funded a lot of the R&D (though they were NOT the original developers)."
well, that's a nonsense sentence. Clearly you are clueless on how the Government works.

" However, once it began to spread, "
skip past the most important government bit.

The Government allowed it to go public. Al Gore signed the bill that made it the internet.

"The vast majority of current technology and infrastructure behind the internet has little or nothing to do with government. "
incorrect.

Re:Texas eh?

[SlippyToad]

Um, actually he's right.

Re:Texas eh?

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

Take it easy...Don't get your Bolo tie in a knot. I don't recall anyone making a political discussion of this, except you. Also, I don't recall this being about a "hate science thing". All I saw from these remarks were that Texans are very religious and love guns...and that's true.

Re:Texas eh?

[MaWeiTao]

Looks to me like nearly 2 in 3 Republicans were in favor to killing the program, regardless of whether or not Democrats were in charge.

The fundamental problem is that Government in general is extremely myopic. What doesn't buy votes or enrich politicians always get cut.

They love cutting big flashy programs with big dollar amounts tied to them. But they probably could have found money for five super colliders, without directly cutting major programs, by cutting waste within the bloated bureaucracy that is our government.

Re:Texas eh?

[mcgrew]

What the fuck do you all have against Clinton?

Despite the fact that the Bush recession turned into a boom, and he balanced the budget, and IMO was the best President I've seen in my lifetime (and I've lived through 11 of them) they hate him for the simple fact that he's a Democrat and they're amoral (despite the fact that Republicans pretend to be God-fearing Christians).

You'll never convince me that Gingrish and Limbaugh aren't closet athiests.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain that it is used in the manufacture of footballs and beer: eleventy billion is the first year money.

Re:Texas eh?

[mcgrew]

You don't just get to ignore the tragedy the Clinton presidency was. He fucking sold our nuke tech to China and killed your precious fucking hadron colider

Congress (more Rs than Ds, see numbers above from other commentors) killed the collider, and despite all the crying and hand-waving, what harm has come from selling nuke tech to China? OTOH he took the Bush deficit and balanced the budget, and turned the Bush recession into a boom. We had no war on his watch. The WTC was bombed and the bombers were brought to justice.

Tragedy? Bush II was a tragedy. Started with a balanced budget, a robust economy, and peace, and left office the only President to leave office with fewer American jobs than when he went in, crashed the economy (we almost went into a depression), ran up the biggest deficit the US had ever seen, and had us in two wars, one of them the longest in history. The nation was attacked under his watch a year after he was in office, and when he left eight years later Bin Laden was still living in luxury in Pakistan.

Clinton was a good President and Bush II was possibly the worst President in US history. THAT'S reality, son. Fucking deal with it.

Re:Texas eh?

[ArsonSmith]

I didn't really dislike Clinton, I didn't care much for his policies. Luckily he didn't get to implement many of them. He did make a good sanity check on the republic congress and kept them honest. It was bush no longer providing that sanity check that made the republicans suddenly look bad. Given the opportunity any political party will do massive power grabs. Look at how the health care got rammed through even with massive amounts of resistance.

That's why my vote will be to keep Obama, but R's down the line for house and senate.

Re:Texas eh?

[haruchai]

Too many compromises and capitulations made for a weak bill.

Obama should have stood his ground ( he is commander-in-chief ) and made it into Medicare-for-all.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The vote linked was on the motion to table the amendment cited, not to approve it. You investigated the link and pasted text from it, so you definitely should have known that. Whoever modded up the post you replied to was right to do so, as that post was accurate.

You are much more dishonest than any other commenter or mod in this thread.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting to kill: 281
Voting to save: 159

Looks like the politicians were the problem here?

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

angry guy #1: the republicans killed it, i hate you!
angry guy #2: the democrats killed it, i hate you!

review: The politicians killed it and made you hate each other.

Stay tuned for the next episode (spoiler alert its the same as this one!)

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The project was killed in 1993 by a Democrat Controlled Congress and Executive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/103rd_United_States_Congress

Re:Texas eh?

[Nimey]

Since you and the other guy seem to be illiterate, it would be pretty obvious to most people that when the previous AC said that the project was killed by the GOP (in '93) and I pointed out that "those folks" weren't in power until '95, by "those folks" I was talking about the Republicans.

Are you and daath93 mouth-breathing illiterates, or political hacks?

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit about Republicans and Democrats, their all friends behind closed doors anyway. You can't blame everything on a stupid oligarchy propped up as a 'psuedo democracy' just to keep you fighting between different shades of the same grey.

You honestly can't say America would have discovered the higgs boson had the thing been built, and either way it's not as if its going to be patented and restricted to the country it was made in, so honestly, stop biccering and throwing out political buzzwords and focus on the scientific possibilities this opens for mankind, not you're "let's use my country/party/car/Google/etc as a e-penis extension" ego pumping.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remember: The God Particle can't be more than about 6,000 years old.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. So what we didn't spend a fortune on a hole in Texas, the Europeans did it and we share in their discovery. It is a discovery for the world.

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, faggot! You don't know shit. Fucking aspies make me sick.

Re:Texas eh?

[kyrsjo]

So shockingly enough, republicans voted in favor of dumping a ton of money on Texas?

--- CERN PhD student / accelerator physics

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We had no war on his watch."

Ever heard of the Balkans war?

Re:Texas eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton was a good President and Bush II was possibly the worst President in US history. THAT'S reality, son. Fucking deal with it.

So obviously you've never heard of this guy named obama?

Re:Texas eh?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

You'll never convince me that Gingrish and Limbaugh aren't closet athiests.

No point trying.

Re:Texas eh?

[mcgrew]

Teh hell yuo say!

Not all is lost...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Texas is still leading the way in Jesus based science education. USA! USA! USA!

So what you're saying is

[Wrexs0ul]

They should have recorded a song about discovering the Higgs Boson, then prepared to sue anyone who discovered it first.

(not really, but the nerd in me would pay 0.99 on iTunes to fund their Super Collider music)

-Matt

Re:So what you're saying is

[Tough Love]

They should have recorded a song about discovering the Higgs Boson...

They did. It's awful, no need to sue :-)

Re:So what you're saying is

[wattersa]

> the nerd in me would pay 0.99 on iTunes to fund their Super Collider music...

Are you aware of Les Horribles Cernettes and their song, Mr. Higgs (2007)?

It's so bad that it's good! Incidentally, they were the first band on the world wide web.

Get over yourselves

[dave420]

This is science, not a pissing contest. Where something is discovered is meaningless.

Re:Get over yourselves

[blackraven14250]

When it is discovered, though, can have quite an impact on history.

Re:Get over yourselves

[dave420]

Of course, but that was entirely not my point.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA drains the brains from so many countries because it leads in so many areas of science. USA cutting funding for scientific research is significant and will hurt it in the future.

Re:Get over yourselves

[LordLucless]

Get out of your ivory tower; science is a career, much like any other, and scientists need to eat, just like everyone else. Yeah, in the scope of human history, where it's discovered is meaningless, but for the careers of the scientists and the state of funding for their future endeavours, it makes a huge difference. Moreover, it just reinforces the fact that no matter how good or skilled a scientist you are, these days your ability to do science doesn't depend on your merit, but on the state of science funding by your government. It's a perfectly valid point to bring up.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

It does? How does the US lead, when the LHC is in Switzerland? Looks to me like Europe is leading in the area of high-energy physics, not the US.

What I don't understand is why these Texas scientists are upset, and why they're still in Texas. If all the work is in Europe, why wouldn't they just move there? That's the way it is when you're a professional; you only have a limited amount of choice in where you get to live, because you have to move to where the work is for your chosen industry. For instance, if you're a petroleum engineer, you're probably not going to get to live in Hawaii, since there's no oil there (that I'm aware of off the top of my head). If you're a VLSI designer, you're not going to get to work in Maine, since there's no companies there doing that work. High-energy physics doesn't seem like a career with tons of places to work.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

I don't really agree with this. As I said in another post here, I don't understand why these scientists are still in Texas. They're not prevented from doing science by the US government (and its lack of funding); nothing is stopping them from applying for a job at CERN in Switzerland where all this great work is going on. So in fact, maybe merit really is a factor here, because if they're being turned down for these jobs, that shows they probably aren't as good as the people who do get to work there.

Re:Get over yourselves

[avandesande]

Congresses cut of funding destroyed physics programs across the country- although the collider was in Texas there were people working on detectors, software and other aspects of the project across the entire US.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Kohath]

Scientists should forget about the US then. We're going bankrupt. Within about 10 years, all government money will be used to pay for debt interest and entitlements.

Re:Get over yourselves

[the eric conspiracy]

And exactly where are you going that has a R&D infrastructure and isn't bankrupt?

Like or not the US is actually as good as anyplace right now.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, it does. The majority of citations in academic papers are to papers written in the US.

Re:Get over yourselves

[the eric conspiracy]

> It does? How does the US lead, when the LHC is in Switzerland?

Of course it does. The LHC is just one facility in one fairly narrow field. It makes news because high energy physics is sexy.

Nobel Prizes are awarded to people working in the US at a far greater rate than any other country. Even with recent gains by the rest of the world the US still wins more Nobels than the rest of the world combined.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau-people-nobel-prize-laureates

Re:Get over yourselves

[tftp]

So in fact, maybe merit really is a factor here, because if they're being turned down for these jobs, that shows they probably aren't as good as the people who do get to work there.

Or perhaps because CERN exists on limited funding and cannot hire every scientist in the world - even if CERN managers love the idea. If a particular place of research is unusually productive ... expect long lines at the gates.

The experiments on LHC are scheduled years ahead. You cannot just come there, flip a switch and run your own experiment. It will cost millions in electric energy alone. CERN can sustain only a certain number of teams - or else they will be just sitting there and waiting for their time with the machine.

Perhaps the scientists are employed by universities and have teaching jobs assigned to them. Then they cannot easily move without abandoning their students. (That would be legal but not very nice.)

Theoretical physicists do not need to be near an experiment. Plenty of physics is done on paper (or in computers.) For those scientists Texas is just as good a place as any other.

Re:Get over yourselves

[jo42]

It's the olde 'us' vs. 'them' village mentality from the dark ages...

Re:Get over yourselves

[timeOday]

The fact that it would have been discovered 10 years ago is more significant than the fact it would have been discovered in the US. Whatever benefit will be derived from the discovery would have been enjoyed for an extra 10 years.

Re:Get over yourselves

[petman]

Really? Do you think in the year 3000 when people talk about the Higgs boson, they would say, "To think, the Higgs boson could have been found as early as 998 years ago instead of only 988 years ago."?

Re:Get over yourselves

[khallow]

Moreover, it just reinforces the fact that no matter how good or skilled a scientist you are, these days your ability to do science doesn't depend on your merit, but on the state of science funding by your government. It's a perfectly valid point to bring up.

Two things to note here. First, this situation indicates a detaching of funding from the actual science performed, which I frankly see as the death knell for publicly funded science especially the so-called "blue sky" research. Second, if the "scientist" wants public funds merely because that's how they get paid rather than the value they hypothetically delivery, then why should we fund them? Sounds to me like they need to find real jobs (which might well be research-based, just funded by someone who wants actual science to be done).

Re:Get over yourselves

[LordLucless]

Second, if the "scientist" wants public funds merely because that's how they get paid rather than the value they hypothetically delivery, then why should we fund them? Sounds to me like they need to find real jobs (which might well be research-based, just funded by someone who wants actual science to be done).

Oh, I agree. You either need to produce results, or work with someone who doesn't expect them, and understands that what they're seeing is a long-term investment in human knowledge.

But this article is really those scientists shoving the governments nose in their choices not to fund. "See all this publicity? Astounding discoveries on physics? This could have been about US instead of CERN, it could be us getting the attention, getting a reputation for cutting-edge physics, etc, etc". They're drawing attention to the consequences of letting someone else get there first. It's not showing hypothetical value, it's showing real value that got away.

Now, maybe the smart answer on the part of Texas was not to fund, despite all the benefits that making the discovery there would have wrought. That's a call that has to be made by the bureaucrats I guess. But it still deserves to be pointed out.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the Japanese.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there are a few American scientists workings at LHC. If LHC was built at Texas in 1993, then all the brilliant scientists across the world would have flocked over to Texas.

Re:Get over yourselves

[mortonda]

Given the fact that they gave a Nobel to Obama, I think the measurement of Nobels granted as a metric is rather suspect.

Re:Get over yourselves

[sycodon]

This is Slashdot, everything is a pissing contest.

Re:Get over yourselves

[khallow]

But this article is really those scientists shoving the governments nose in their choices not to fund. "See all this publicity? Astounding discoveries on physics? This could have been about US instead of CERN, it could be us getting the attention, getting a reputation for cutting-edge physics, etc, etc". They're drawing attention to the consequences of letting someone else get there first. It's not showing hypothetical value, it's showing real value that got away.

To be blunt, there's no indication that the SSC would have done such science. It got canceled in the first place because it was deeply in trouble. Would things have looked better, if the LHC was making discoveries while the SSC, supposedly operational for a couple of decades, was unable to replicate the experiments due to the shoddy nature of its construction and management?

Second, we got a lot of value out of canceling that project and putting the money elsewhere, including the LHC.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

Or perhaps because CERN exists on limited funding and cannot hire every scientist in the world - even if CERN managers love the idea. If a particular place of research is unusually productive ... expect long lines at the gates.

That doesn't stop anyone from applying, it just means the competition is greater. Theoretically, CERN would hire the best applicants. So if you're not hired, you weren't the best, hence merit would be a big factor.

The experiments on LHC are scheduled years ahead.

Not that many years; it's been almost 20 years since the SSC. That's plenty of time to move.

Perhaps the scientists are employed by universities and have teaching jobs assigned to them. Then they cannot easily move without abandoning their students. (That would be legal but not very nice.)

I'm sure those students haven't been hanging around those universities for two decades. Are you trying to tell me that a university professor can NEVER leave his job, even between terms?

Re:Get over yourselves

[LordNimon]

The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke. Don't let it cloud your judgement of the other areas.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

>>This is science

Only for certain values of 'this'.
Good advise: Get over yourself.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you've never studied science. Science is just a tremendous pissing contest for nerds. It's been a huge driving force over particularly the last hundred years as scientists try to one up each other to the next discovery. And other scientists try to get famous for debunking a widely held believe.

Granted it makes everybody's lives better unlike some other pissing contests, but competition is really the thing driving things and has been for a while.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

The Large Hardon Collider sound way too much gay for stupid superstitious homophobic american.

Captcha: Maleness

Re:Get over yourselves

[hydromike2]

'when' is not

Re:Get over yourselves

[backslashdot]

Fair enough, but the "when" matters. The world is 10 years behind in the field of particle physics (and all its potential spin offs) thanks to the Texas super collider cancellation.

Re:Get over yourselves

[haruchai]

Thank Yahweh for those US Jews - http://www.jinfo.org/Nobel_Prizes.html

Re:Get over yourselves

[arth1]

Nobel Prizes are awarded to people working in the US at a far greater rate than any other country. Even with recent gains by the rest of the world the US still wins more Nobels than the rest of the world combined.

Corrected for population gives another picture.
Nobel prizes per million citizens:

Switzerland: 2.77
Denmark: 2.33
Great Britain: 1.51
Austria: 1.30
Ireland: 1.09
Germany: 0.94
Netherlands: 0.90
USA: 0.86
Belgium: 0.82
France: 0.75

I've excluded three countries, due to Sweden and Norway being subject to nationality bias, and Iceland not having enough people to be statistically significant with its single Nobel laureate.
(Sweden: 3.16)
(Iceland: 3.12)
(Norway: 1.59)

Also, keep in mind that several of the Nobel laureates moved between the time of their ground-breaking work and the time of receiving the award. Several to the US, because up until recently, the US paid well, and some to the UK and Switzerland, because the US wouldn't let communists in. This inflates the numbers for USA, Great Britain and Switzerland somewhat, but the trend is still clear - the US doesn't produce Nobel laureates at a higher tempo than all other countries.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

However that's one of the metrics used in the Shangai ranking (in the first 100 entries of which UK and US universities are predominant).

Re:Get over yourselves

[dutchd00d]

It's the other way around. The USA leads in so many areas of science because it drains the brains from so many countries. (See: Manhattan Project, Apollo Project).

Note: I'm not saying the USA doesn't have any scientists of its own, just that it has more than it's fair share because it imports so many.

Re:Get over yourselves

[arth1]

The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke. Don't let it cloud your judgement of the other areas.

The peace price ius awarded by a different process for different reasons. While the other prizes are awarded by the Swedish Nobel Institute for past achievements, the peace prize is awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as much as an incentive as a recognition.

In addition, nominations are restricted to experts in the field and living Nobel laureates for most of the prizes, but for the peace price, it's also open for governments and assemblies.
Yes, that's right, congressmen from any country are automatically allowed to nominate Nobel peace prize candidates, which is why nominees include such peace loving people as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and George W. Bush.

To avoid causing political furore, the peace prize is often given for humanitarian reasons, despite Nobel's will stating that it should be given for anti-war efforts and fraternity between nations. This is why people like Mother Theresa and Al Gore got it, despite not having done anything that qualifies by the mandate for the prize. The most controversial prizes were all given as incentive prizes (Kissinger/Tho, Peres/Rabin/Arafat, Obama), presumably in a hope that having received the prize, they would feel more morally obliged to act out promises of peace treaties and military withdrawals (which is specifically given as a qualification for the peace prize). Le Duc Tho was probably the only one who lived up to that, but he also declined the prize.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists should forget about the US then. We're going bankrupt. Within about 10 years, all government money will be used to pay for debt interest and entitlements.

So in the context of this discussion, which is contrasting Europe to the US, you're worried about the US going bankrupt? Do you pay any attention to what happens anywhere outside of North America, or are you just trolling?

Re:Get over yourselves

[sjames]

You're helping prove AC's point. The U.S. killing science funding is reversing the brain drain that had been going on since WWII.

Re:Get over yourselves

[dsmurf]

The peace prize is not a scientific award, not awarded by the same committee and not even handed out at the same ceremony, or indeed in the same country. The only commonality is that it was also created by Alfred Nobel, allegedly to compensate for the "unexpected" uses of dynamite. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

This is science, not a pissing contest. Where something is discovered is meaningless.

Meaningless to the science, but very meaningful to the discoverers.

Re:Get over yourselves

[IrquiM]

There's no more bias in Norway than in Denmark - if any, it's less. Honestly, I do not see any need to exclude Norway and Sweeden at all.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

This is science, not a pissing contest. Where something is discovered is meaningless.

The atomic bomb disagrees.

Re:Get over yourselves

[arth1]

There's no more bias in Norway than in Denmark - if any, it's less. Honestly, I do not see any need to exclude Norway and Sweeden at all.

Denmark doesn't award any Nobel prizes.
Both Sweden and Norway do.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Vanderhoth]

Just like Hockey... Eh...

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and those researchers moved to the US from all over the world to do it. The US only has the merit of borrowing more money than any other country in the world and therefore is able to fund more research.

Re:Get over yourselves

[G3ckoG33k]

"The peace price ius awarded by a different process for different reasons."

To be honest, I think most people are more interested in the gas price than in the peace price.

The different Nobel Prizes have little to do with any of that.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

What does per-capita have to do with it? Scientists that come from other countries aren't assigned to work with a random 1m citizens to work with. They work with other peers in their field to interact and collaborate. The number of other proles wandering the streets is irrelevant. Since there are more (in gross number) peers in America than other countries, that creates an environment where they can find others with mutually supporting interests to get enough critical mass for collaborating on grants, papers, and proposals.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup clearly a eurofag bias.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure in 3000 they probably won't care. But getting the Higgs cancer scanner in 2060, 5 years before your condition would become fatal rather than 2070, 5 years after you die would be huge for you...

Re:Get over yourselves

[msauve]

" I do not see any need to exclude Norway and Sweeden at all."

Unless you're Swiss, that is. :-)

There are 111 years of Nobel prizes. Unless the GP researched populations for each of those years, and then correlated that with the winners for those year, the claim is flawed. Populations change, and using current populations for prizes given across 111 years isn't valid. If prizes/population is even a valid measure, the US population has grown at a faster rate than many other populations.

Swiss population 1900: 3,315,400 2010: 7870100, a 137% increase.
Danish population 1900 2432000, 2010: 5548000, a 128% increase.
US population 1900: 92,228,496 2010: 308,745,538, a 235% increase.

Re:Get over yourselves

[khallow]

The fact that it would have been discovered 10 years ago

We don't call this a "fact", we call it an "opinion". My opinion is that the SSC was so poorly managed at the time, it might still not be running today.

Re:Get over yourselves

[elPetak]

Moreover, there are people from all around the globe working on the LHC. That makes it's location even more meaningless.
I personally know some folks from my country (Argentina) that are working on the LHC and I know there are many scientists from many other countries working there too. Who cares where it's located?

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

It does? How does the US lead, when the LHC is in Switzerland?

CERN is not a Swiss project. It's an international project. That it's funded by countries all around the world. That also means some of the scientists working there are American.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, especially since it was discovered at Fermi in Illinois. The LHC just confirmed this. Now that it is done, they can shutdown that colossal waste of money.

If I was one to speculate, it would seem that the LHC has bankrupted Europe.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

It's located in Switzerland; the ownership is irrelevant. That's great if some of the CERN scientists are American, but they still have to move to Switzerland to work there.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, try controlling for race within each country. White Americans vs. White Australians, Black Americans vs. Black Germans, etc.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

Yes, exactly.

Re:Get over yourselves

[msauve]

Per-capita has nothing to do with it, because that's not the pool Nobel candidates are drawn from. At least for the sciences, it might be reasonable to equate that pool with holders of doctoral degrees. Even that is probably too broad, but I'm not going to spend the time researching the number of researchers in each Nobel prize field in each country.

The OECD says "the share of doctorate holders in the population or labour force is two or three times larger in Germany and Switzerland than in Australia, Canada and the United States." Specifically, there are 8.4 doctorates/1000 in the US, and 23.0/1000 in Switzerland. Adjusting the GP's figures,

US 0.102/1000 doctorates
Switzerland 0.120/1000 doctorates

Which in turn, also needs adjustment for the rate of population change over the past century (mentioned in another post).

Someone else can dig for the other countries, but given the small sample size of Nobel prize winners, I don't see any significant difference between the US and Switzerland, and I don't think it's anything except a pissing contest, anyway.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the detector people for SSC just updated the GEANT configuration files, renamed the detectors a bit and kept on working. State of the art detectors didn't really care about the accelerator too much other than primary beam energies. But even then SSC or LHC are collider experiments so the detectors are approximately at the center of mass of the primary collision so relativistic folding is not a big deal.

Re:Get over yourselves

[geekoid]

On /.? yes, yes I do.

Re:Get over yourselves

[geekoid]

You should learn about the Nobel prize committees before talking about it. Cause you look really, really, stupid.

HINT: The Peace prize is decided by politician, the other prizes aren't.

And a black man become president of the US does deserve some kind of award~

Re:Get over yourselves

[Palamos]

Could be that the Texas scientists are upset because they weren't good enough to get a job at CERN?

Re:Get over yourselves

[Panaflex]

Maybe it's because the UTexas university endowment is just as big as Harvard's? So there's lots of good science in Texas, only you don't have to work with a**holes who think they're better than everyone else because they have money.

At least that's the general physics opinion I've heard from a few friends that did the ivy league route. Apparently it has improved in the past decade or so.

Re:Get over yourselves

[blackraven14250]

It's not a matter of the people of the year 3000 - it's a matter of the people now and over the next 100 years, when technologies may become available that required this discovery to become possible, or even other basic science that is now 10 years delayed. This time-based impact isn't easily seen from the year 3000, but is quite obvious in 2050.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Good analysis. Suggest that the field be narrowed to Science prizes, as for instance, in the case of Ireland, most Nobel prizes have been for literature not Science. PS I am Irish so not picking on Ireland in particular.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah we got the RHIC with that funding which has made some discoveries and is based here in NY (without the rhic the LHC wouldnt exist as they use the rhic as a test bed for upgrades to the lhc)

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's important.

Where something is discovered influences where the Next Big Thing happens, which draws technical people and jobs to an area. If the US isn't' going to get those jobs then someone else will and any spinoffs from industries that pop up to support the Big Science projects go to somewhere else as well.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't they give a Nobel Award in Physics to Yassir Arafat for his work with Polonium? It certainly couldn't have been the Peace Prize for his work in terrorism (Just Ask Klingoffer!)

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is Obama has done NOTHING but run for offices.

Re:Get over yourselves

[threat_or_menace]

The real problem is that the LHC and SSC were intended to be sister designs, neither an only child.

The energies needed for the current work are more than half of the maximum output at the LHC - the SSC would have been the higher energy design, capable of operating at energies ~3x that of LHC.

What that means is that in addition to at least 10 years of lost experiments, we'll be waiting for probably quite some time for the next large physics instrument to be built to explore a lot of the questions the current experiment sheds a little light on.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, the Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke.

Re:Get over yourselves

[couchslug]

That's why other countries should seek to boost their own research as the US is taken over by Christian Taliban Luddite White Trash pawns of the rich Elite who want to cut all research that isn't directly war-related.

The US isn't your friend, it doesn't stand for anything good any more, and to the extent others rely on it for things they might do for themselves they become vulnerable.

The BRIC countries especially should use their wealth to fund research as they are on the ascent and it will speed their growth.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

I'll admit I'm not a scientist so I don't know that much about which schools are strongest in which scientific fields, but it was my impression that the Ivy League schools (namely Harvard and Yale) weren't really places where you went to do serious science work, they were places for the kids of rich assholes (politicians, etc.) to go to school and get some BS degree in sociology or something, while they schmooze at the Skulll and Bones club. I would think that major state universities would be the place for science, since science is much more pragmatic than politics.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

That's what I'm wondering.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Grishnakh]

And a black man become president of the US does deserve some kind of award

Why? Idi Amin was a black man too, and he was a monster; should Uganda have gotten an award for having him as their President? Robert Mugabe's a black man too and people are starving to death under his rule. Only a racist would think that someone should get an award for having a certain skin color.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Zmobie]

The fact that it would have been discovered 10 years ago

We don't call this a "fact", we call it an "opinion". My opinion is that the SSC was so poorly managed at the time, it might still not be running today.

This is a fair point. If I remember correctly the SSC went over the total budget for the project before it was even half completed. Something along the lines of bad estimates on how difficult it would be to drill in the area. I've seen the soil in the area around Waxahachie (hell been by the SSC site many times) and it goes for a few feet and then turns into solid bedrock that is a BITCH to get through.

Re:Get over yourselves

[arth1]

Problem is Obama has done NOTHING but run for offices.

He did promise to pull the military forces out of Iraq, and military withdrawal is an action explicitly mentioned in Nobel's will as qualifying for the peace prize.

What was unfortunate was the timing of the award - the public perception was (incorrectly) that he got the prize for not being Bush.

Ironically, time showed us that he was Bush 2.0, with Jingoism, "Israel can do no wrong" rhetoric, and an increase in assassinations on foreign soil, disregarding international and local laws. Compared to Obama, Arafat was a peacenik.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

There is also a clear trend that Nobel-local countries perform better according to your stats. From that POV, the US is doing remarkably well.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

...and no longer has any meaning. Obama was given the NPP for what he might do.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, the numbers track pretty closely with the distance from the Nobel committee

Re:Get over yourselves

[arth1]

Interestingly, the numbers track pretty closely with the distance from the Nobel committee

Not really, no. Look at a map. Finland (with close ties to Sweden) and Poland, while having Nobel laureates, don't even enter the top 10 list, while Switzerland which is further away than both Denmark and Germany leads the pack.

The only thing that really stands out is how rich European countries are so highly represented. If I were to guess at why, it's because these countries channel more public funds into higher learning than most other countries.

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC is in Switzerland but they have a fat data pipe going straight back to the US, i think its about 4gig bit :)

Re:Get over yourselves

[Anonymous Coward]

idiotic, there were no technical problems with the program. And we could have been accepting other countries money for a decade instead of spending more of ours in other countries. We only spent about 8 billion before giving up!

Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Solid State Physics and the like always had better prospects for actual and non-encyclopedic returns to society.

Re:Good Riddance

[tragedy]

Because a deeper understanding of fundamental physics could _never_ lead to new discoveries and understanding in materials science. I mean, just because it always has in the past...

Re:Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, what has the theory of relativity ever been good for, except GPS.

If discovered in the US...

[Nighttime]

... they would have patented it then sued everyone for having mass.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

All the more reason to discover it in America. People have a lot more mass here to sue for.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

A sad thing is this isn't even funny, it is almost fact.
It is such a sad state of affairs we live in today.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[axlr8or]

I'm up shit creek. I weigh 325 and am 6'6". Of course, if the Higgs does in fact give mass, then maybe I should lose some Higgs.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[rrohbeck]

And all the fat people would have known what to blame for their excess mass.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Drishmung]

... they would have patented it then sued everyone for having mass.

Well, there do seem to be more Higg's Bosons per person in the USA than other countries, but it appears that Mississippi has a greater claim than Texas

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

... they would have patented it then sued everyone for having mass.

Sorry, I don't believe there's any weight to your argument.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

Higg's Bosons are people too. Sorry, that should be ' People'.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Higgs Boson's

FTFY.

Re:If discovered in the US...

[Kaenneth]

Insert 'Your Mom' joke here.

Well...

[imagined.by]

Well, I'm sorry to point this out, but you won't win any science awards by kicking critical thinking out of the classroom.

Just sayin'.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah that's okay. You don't win any science awards by crushing dissenting views ala global warming either. While claiming that the "science is settled."

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly; global warming is just a theory. Like evolution.

Re:Well...

[geekoid]

Dissenting views aren't crushed because they are dissenting, they are crushed because they have no scientific validity.

Yet Texas Schools ...

[l0ungeb0y]

are more interested in teaching "God" instead of the "God Particle". Hard hitting science is better left in the hands of civilized people with analytical minds -- not superstitious red necks who think with their gut and view the bible as the big book of facts.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[tmosley]

The schools aren't, the politicians are. Knowing the difference could save your life on day.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The political landscape of Texas does not preclude the presence of civilized people with analytical minds. The supercollider in texas would undoubtedly have promoted awareness of hard hitting science that might one-day serve to quiet those superstitious red necks. A perspective like yours that advocates punishing an entire geographical area for it's failure to contain a few vocal nutjobs in a position of power only serves to set us back even farther. Eat shit.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[CubicleZombie]

This might be a good place to mention that Democrats held both houses of congress and the white house. Whatever you may think about Texans, they didn't have anything to do with canceling the project.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that you're just a bigot who wants to make a kneejerk comment about Texas, so this comment is probably a waste of my time.

However, a couple of points: Texas actually does have some decent research institutions (The UT System, A&M, and Rice all have excellent science departments).

Secondly, the SSC would have attracted the best and brightest from all over the nation.

Our K-12 system does have some issues, especially with the dolts who approve textbooks in Austin. However, we do have a lot of smart kids and good school systems in some places that have produced some of the nation's top talent in the sciences.

I don't have a problem with atheism, especially since I am one myself. However, mindless bigotry and gross generalizations puts you in some of the same moral categories as the Christians go as far as being pragmatic about solving the world's problems. You're not pragmatic; you just want to whine and moan with your air of superiority.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our K-12 system does have some issues

You're not alone. That applies everywhere in the US.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[AK Marc]

The Texans wanted the free money. The loop to nowhere was pushed through by powerful Republicans in TX, and when the parties swapped, that pork was on the top of the list to go. Whether it was "good" or "bad" wasn't considered by either party when voting it in in the first place, or voting it out later. Just where it is and how much it costs. That's the same reason so few bases get closed. We could close 50% of our bases and not lose domestic military capability. But every time someone talks about closing a base, every congresscritter with a base in, or near, their district bands together and makes sure none are closed to guarantee theirs isn't on any closure list.

The *only* thing that will fix US politics is a revolution and Zombie Franklin writing a new Constitution "We hold there truths to be self evident, that all men are created BRAINZZZZZZZZ."

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[meglon]

It's the school boards driven by ideological dogmatic sheep who don't give a rats fuck about children being educated, nor preparing those children to live in the real world and be able to compete in said real world when they become adults. That should be considered a form of child abuse.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Grishnakh]

People get the government they deserve; they're not being punished by any outside force, if they really wanted the SSC they could have pushed their politicians to push for it, but obviously it wasn't an important item for the voters, so they didn't get it.

You talk like people are being "punished" by some outside force when their own leaders make poor decisions and screw them over. Sorry, but the people are responsible for themselves. Those "vocal nutjobs in a position of power" were elected by the people, it's not like they took those positions by force, so obviously those "nutjobs" are reflecting the true attitudes of a majority of the population. The people of Texas have no one to blame but themselves.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Grishnakh]

The best and brightest can go somewhere else, such as Switzerland where this great work is being done. Why stick around in a country where your work isn't appreciated?

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Jane Q. Public]

"The *only* thing that will fix US politics is a revolution and Zombie Franklin writing a new Constitution "We hold there truths to be self evident, that all men are created BRAINZZZZZZZZ."

The only thing that will fix US politics is to detach it from "big money" interests. Money is the problem, and that is the answer.

Period. I don't give the slightest damn what particular brand of politics you may follow, but if the money isn't taken out of it (including outrageous government spending), then it will never be fixed until somebody nukes D.C.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[metallurge]

It's the school boards driven by ideological dogmatic sheep who don't give a rats fuck about children being educated

Well, actually, they do care about children being educated. It's simply that what they care to educate children in is different from what you mean by education. </sardonic>

disclaimer1: I live in Texas
disclaimer2: I'm on the Left-Libertarian side of things, so I pretty much don't so much fit in politically with the majority of my fellow Texans (or the majority of my fellow Americans, for that matter)
disclaimer3: I have taught mathematics in a classroom setting in Texas, my wife has worked as an aide, and I have closely observed the education system as a parent also. The education system as it is is so so broken, just like all of our society is.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[AK Marc]

The only thing that will fix US politics is to detach it from "big money" interests. Money is the problem, and that is the answer.

When we are in a communist country (whether we got there by all the companies buying the government or by the government nationalizing all the companies doesn't matter), and the money *is the government, what, other than a bloody revolution, will separate the money from the government?

it will never be fixed until somebody nukes D.C.

I say bloody revolution, you say nuke. Doesn't sound like you are correcting me, just suggesting a specific revolutionary method that's quick and may lower collateral damage, yet your tone seemed confrontational.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[the eric conspiracy]

Texas' support for colleges has gone into the crapper too.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/tuition-rising-fast-while-state-support-drops/

They are in a death spiral. Large percentage of min wage jobs isn't going to generate the revenue needed to support the education needed to move up the economic curve.

Don't feel bad - lots of states have that problem right now. It's going to take some serious priority setting to fix.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[the eric conspiracy]

Not everywhere. Suburban schools in northern states compete well with anything in the world.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[metallurge]

Yes, well, Texas politicians are in the hip pocket of bidness, not of the people of Texas. See Molly Ivins' work for some wry and humorous perspective on how things are here.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Jane Q. Public]

"I say bloody revolution, you say nuke. Doesn't sound like you are correcting me, just suggesting a specific revolutionary method that's quick and may lower collateral damage, yet your tone seemed confrontational."

That's right, I wasn't trying to correct you, so much as add my 2 cent's worth. And the nuke thing was only an example, not a suggestion or an implication that it's the only way.

Believe it or not, I still don't believe a "bloody revolution" is necessary to do that. But it will be close.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[AK Marc]

I think that bloody revolution is necessary. If the people don't draw first blood, the companies will when the changes happen. Either way, the blood will flow.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have no idea how the state government works. It's bound by a post-Reconstruction constitution that was designed to be nearly impossible to change; the intent was to protect the pro-slavery elite in years to come from social change. It's such a POS that it's sometimes used in college classes as an example of how not to write a constitution.

Voting in Texas has much less impact on anything than you might think. The "nut jobs" who have actual power are often appointees, and the "nut jobs" who are elected are often nearly powerless. The Texas legislature is designed to not be able to function efficiently; it isn't even allowed to hold session every year.

The people of Texas have no one to blame but those who were in power near the end of the Reconstruction.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Grishnakh]

Yes, politicians in Texas and the federal government are in the pocket of lobbyists, however the ultimate responsibility is with the people to elect people who represent them, not some corporations who give them bribes. For all our problems, one thing we don't appear to have is obviously rigged elections. Sure, there's been a few small irregularities here and there which may have cost an election when it was extremely close, but that's about it. If more than 50% of the electorate (or 49.9% of it in those other cases) is so dumb they'll elect corrupt politicians, then they don't really need to rig elections.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Grishnakh]

Again, I completely disagree. At some point, people are elected who are in charge of things. Someone has to appoint those appointees, and there have to be elected people in the mix who have the power to change things, including the constitution. Sure, there may not be the possibility for immediate change (like in states such as California with its recall elections), but the opportunity does come around now and then. Every republican form of government has mechanisms built in to prevent "mob rule" from taking over and government being too beholden to short-term whims of the voters, by having a long feedback loop; just look at the federal government's Electoral College and the way Senators were chosen before the 17th Amendment. Yes, it sounds like Texas's system is worse than many. But if the people really want change, and don't forget about this and get distracted when the next election rolls around, they can effect change at the ballot box. If they don't, they only have themselves to blame, not people dead for 150 years.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[petsounds]

I know you're just being funny, but this is /. so I'll press the pedantic button. Benjamin Franklin actually had very little to do with the creation of the Constitution. Although he was a delegate at the Constitutional Convention, by that time Franklin was getting up in years and was rather frail, and generally let the younger delegates battle it out. The few times that Franklin did speak at some length, he would either ramble about something that didn't really concern the topic at hand, or he would suggest solutions that weren't very well thought-out. However, the other delegates respected him immensely, and so they let him speak without interruption.

The more likely undead to rewrite the Constitution would be either Zombie James Madison or Zombie Charles Pickney. Zombie Madison, when not thinking about brainzzzz, would likely take away some of the powers of the national government that he was so adamant to give during the Convention. Madison began to change his views after seeing the Federalist policies of Alexander Hamilton and President John Adams.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/tuition-rising-fast-while-state-support-drops/

This is happening in every state.

Re:Yet Texas Schools ...

[tmosley]

*Implying that school boards aren't staffed by politicians.
*Implying the controversial proposals aren't introduced at the state level.

Go congress!

[penguinbrat]

It will be a cold day in hell when the people of the US realize that those elected to congress actually need to KNOW their shit, rather than just talk it... Meaning that EVERYONE elected needs to prove they know what in the hell they are doing, technical and otherwise, rather just knowing how to talk the talking points...

Re:Go congress!

[metallurge]

Yeah, well, that would imply the electorate would need to know what in the hell they are doing, technical and otherwise, rather just knowing how to listen to the talking points...

Re:Go congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

... need to KNOW their shit ...

Their shit is passing laws: Since most congress-critters are lawyers, all is good.

Unfortunately the increasing purpose of law is to enforce or punish certain behaviours in a very technical field. Since lawyers don't know much about social science, they spruik a 3 point solution (provided by the very people who are least willing to follow the act) to explain the intended behaviours, being blissfully unaware that correlation is not causation, slavery is not freedom, etc.

We see this with the RIAA where the politicians advocating the inevitable 3-point propaganda don't know that one paragraph in an anti-piracy act will do the exact opposite of the of their 3-point solution.

Re:Go congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

You stupid shite.

Democracies are created by the rich, for the rich and to make sure the rich have the power to stay in power. They sell you poor plebs on the idea that everyone in a democracy is equal and then vote in laws to keep the power for themselves.

Wake up you moron. Your representative talk shite to YOU because they don't care about YOU. You can bet your last dollar they speak a different language when the rich ask them questions.

Re:Go congress!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's called meritocracy,we live in Democracy, where you have to be the most liked guy in the room to win. Problem is that the room is mostly full of assholes.

Re:Go congress!

[Zmobie]

The problem is politics in the US are a career path all on their own. Most of them are businessmen or just people coming from money that take the political career and run with it. Many officials have little to no education on the wide array of things they are trying to regulate and have bad habits about not listening to advisers (see, net neutrality legislation and basically any case that comes up in court about new technology, I mean hell Oracle and Google had to take the Judge through a crash course on Java just to run the case).

Bye bye American EmPIrE

[bobby1234]

Come on we can keep it going for a few more years.......

Can't we!

What does this mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people find themselves confused by this whole affair. They wonder, why should I care where the Higgs Boson particle was discovered; I don't know what one is, I don't know what it does, and if it really mattered they'd be all over the place already, not hiding inside a supercollider while I can't get my AC running this summer.

Well those people have a lot to learn! Higgs Boson particles are responsible for almost everything we do, from growing delicious fruit, to communicating over the Internet, and even the sky. The size of a small bumblebee, a Higgs Boson particle contains enough gravity to hold everything together. We wouldn't be standing here if the Earth's core weren't full of em!

But why is it a big deal that the Europeans got there first rather than the land of patriotism? Well, there's a saying: everything's bigger in Texas, so some hypothesize that the Higgs Boson really was discovered here first, but lost in the rush to enjoy all that great BBQ Texas is known for before taking in a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse. Did they have those in 1993? God, I wish they had one up here.

Re:What does this mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sober up, then post

And if they found it in the US?

[agm]

Step 1: Discover Higgs Boson.
Step 2: Find a way to weaponise it.

Re:And if they found it in the US?

[Grishnakh]

It's worse than that. They'd keep it top-secret, figure out how to weaponize it, and it'd be decades before anyone was allowed to find any peaceful applications for it.

Re:And if they found it in the US?

[the eric conspiracy]

It would be great if they could do that. A successful DARPA project to weaponize the Higgs Boson would absolutely revolution the overall technological capability of the human race because of the spin-offs that would result.

Re:And if they found it in the US?

[the eric conspiracy]

What makes you think they can keep a secret?

The Chinese will be selling Higgs Boson powered sex toys in 2 weeks.

Re:And if they found it in the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

Point Singularity Projector, Graviton Beam, Tractor Beam. Cool Stuff.

Re:And if they found it in the US?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some years back a twat hit me on the head with a bottle. The bottle contained loads of higgs bosons, so wouldn't that count as weaponisation? Why waste money having scientists finding fancy ways to weaponise these things when this guy had a functional proof of concept years before LHC existed?

On a side note, I believe this comment goes a long way towards establishing my suitability to make science funding decisions for Texas.

you have to understand

[circletimessquare]

funding education, healthcare, science: that's evil socialism

Next you'll tell me funding bridges, roads, tunnels, railroad, etc. is good for the country

These are just feel goid schemes to funnel money away from rich folk and corporations, preventing them from creating jobsand growing a giant government that stifles growth

Nothing useful or capital creating will come out of this, just some socialist European egg heads making up theories without proof that destroys young people's faith in God ...welcome to America. Weep for us.

Re:you have to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Roads aren't socialism, they make it cheaper to build oil pipelines.

Re:you have to understand

[circletimessquare]

obviously

invest in infrastructure and business thrives

now explain that to tea party dimwits who say otherwise

you have to understand: bike lanes, public transportation and intelligent civil planning in general is a UN plot to destroy America (people actually believe this, spurred on by the paranoid schizophrenia broadcast on Faux News)... welcome to USA, 2012:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/us/activists-fight-green-projects-seeing-un-plot.html

Re:you have to understand

[Ironhandx]

Slashdot needs +1 Sarcasm mods, or tags, or something.

Every time I see someone post something like this I fear for the confirmation bias that causes others to read it as though it was in no way intended to be sarcastic.

See, I could even have my own confirmation bias going on here. This can legitimately be taken as you genuinely believe the bullshit that I see as obvious sarcasm due to the last sentence, but it wouldn't be that clear to someone else. Especially fox news viewers. Of whom we have more than a few around here. That station is like a fucking plague on the intelligence of the US.

Re:you have to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I misunderstood the post as non-sarcastic because of the errors. To be obviously sarcastic, there needs to be snob-ish perfect syntax and grammar to indicate a high IQ and well thought comment.

The plague on the intelligence of the US is like that fucking station, Fox news.

FTFY

Re:you have to understand

[Jorgensen]

please... somebody mod parent "funny".. definitely not insightful...

Re:you have to understand

[L4t3r4lu5]

More cynicism than sarcasm, but I totally agree. George Carlin would be proud.

Re:you have to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

"funding education, healthcare, science: that's evil socialism"

Those are well-known examples. The better examples are:

"funding firemen, police, and military: that's evil socialism"

Re:you have to understand

[khallow]

funding education, healthcare, science: that's evil socialism

It's worth remembering that funding education, healthcare, and science is not the same as improving education, healthcare, and science. There have been some rather counterproductive efforts in this area in the US where the money has actually harmed the subject. For example, consider education loans and the tax write-off for employer-based health insurance. The primary effect of these two attempts has been to make the services in question much more expensive.

The US health care costs per person once one removes that subsidy just so happen to be very close to France's health care costs (which uses a similar insurance-based system). And colleges have charged what the market will bear, which steadily goes up year after year.

As to science, a key harm has been that public funding, especially grossly uncritical blue sky public funding, has removed a great deal of incentive for businesses and scientists to engage in private R&D.

There's a lot of talk about the lack of private R&D, usually for the purposes of getting more public funding, but little consideration of why that happens. I believe among other things, that the current short term outlook of US business is due in large part to perverse government incentives, such as public science funding, that encourage short term planning.

Who Cares

[Zamphatta]

As long as it's found, then I don't care where they found it. Get over yourself Texas.

Suddenly I'm reminded of

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this.
If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.

Don't be too depressed!

[Kid Zero]

We still have a space program! Well, for the moment.

The US isn't an innovator in Science

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, it leads the rest of the world by leaps and bounds with innovations in Litigation.

stupid

[bcrowell]

Oh, god, this is stupid.

Science is not a zero-sum game. Scientific discoveries enrich everybody, regardless of which country they're made in.

The SSC was way over budget. Better to pull the plug than to give various contractors a blank check.

American physicists are well represented at the LHC. Grad students are still being trained, etc. It's not like American experimental particle physics was dealt a fatal blow from which it can never recover by the cancellation of the SSC.

The actual fatal blow to accelerator-based experimental particle physics may be a world-wide one, due to (1) accelerator technology reaching the point of diminishing returns, and (2) a physics scenario in which the Higgs is detected but absolutely nothing else (such as supersymmetry) turns up. If this is how things turn out, then we'll just have to say that accelerator physics was a field that was active and then died. It happens. There's no god-given rule that says that every academic field will remain viable forever. Take a look at the Nobel prizes in physics from years like 1912 and 1920. The future of experimental particle physics may be in cosmic ray experiments, for example. If so, then the US Congress will look prescient for canceling the SSC.

Re:stupid

[wisnoskij]

"Scientific discoveries enrich everybody"
Tell that to the Japanese. It did not take very long for a certain scientific discovery to cross borders and land right in their lap, "enriching" them.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

And after that, scientific discoveries (And no small amount of preferential trade arrangements) led them to be the second strongest economy in the world.

And fuck you, idiot. Your attempt at pithiness is an abject failure.

Re:stupid

[khallow]

The use of the nuclear bomb probably saved a few million Japanese lives. We need to keep in mind that the Japanese during the last days of the Second World War were preparing for an all-out defense of their homeland.

Sure, you hear some idle speculation that they were planning to surrender via diplomatic back channels, but this was also the case with Germany which played similar negotiating games at the end of the war. Germany ended up surrendering after it got completely overrun and the main leaders had died or been captured. No one has ever presented a reason why Japan would have turned out differently.

Re:stupid

[Jane Q. Public]

"Tell that to the Japanese. It did not take very long for a certain scientific discovery to cross borders and land right in their lap, "enriching" them."

That wasn't a "scientific discovery". That was TECHNOLOGY. They are two different things.

The discovery had been made long before. The Germans were aware of it, as (presumably) were the Japanese. What we beat them in was the TECHNOLOGY that put the discovery to use.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, you hear some idle speculation that they were planning to surrender via diplomatic back channels,

No. They did try to negotiate a surrender. Not idle speculation (4th of July, so will forgive your star spangled view of history).

The Japanese wanted guarantees that their emperor would not be harmed. The US wanted to kill a ton of civilians to demonstrate the the Soviet Union their new bomb. In the end, after the US incinerated thousands of innocent lives for purposes of their demonstration, the US agreed to the terms that the emperor would not be harmed, and the Japanese surrendered.

Simple to fact check all of the above, but be sure to clear that star spangled dust out of your eyes first. Seems that dust has a funny way of making folks invisible to facts.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point...

The contractors who were getting that blank check? They were Texans. Cancelling the project was terrible news for them.

Science was never the primary beneficiary.

Re:stupid

[AK Marc]

Science is not a zero-sum game. Scientific discoveries enrich everybody, regardless of which country they're made in.

You state your unsubstantiated opinion as fact. Are you sure you are qualified to talk about "science"?

Have you ever heard of the '60s? The "race to the moon" was important, and the space race was most assuredly focused on firsts by country.

But I'm sure you have some reasoning on how that's irrelevant to now.

The SSC was way over budget. Better to pull the plug than to give various contractors a blank check.

It was over budget mainly because it was over time. It was over time because of the lengthy squabbles and any project being cancelable by the next administration. The projects are all over budget because that's what you are supposed to do. A company will deliver 100 out of 100 projects late and over budget, then be given more. Often because the requirements for winning are such that there's only one bid to consider.

The problem with politics is all the politicians.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

..If so, then the US Congress will look prescient for canceling the SSC...
something Congress isn't accused of very often

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems that dust has a funny way of making folks invisible to facts.

The right word is "oblivious", as in "Seems that dust has a funny way of making folks oblivious to facts."
Sorry, I just couldn't resist providing some education.

Re:stupid

[thrich81]

AC, I guess you weren't on Okinawa in the summer of '45 to see what "trying to negotiate a surrender" looked like back then, with the mass suicides of civilians encouraged by the Imperial Army and such. Toward the very end the Japanese were looking for victory in a military battle by which they could negotiate better terms, such as no post-war occupation of the country -- which wasn't going to happen until the invasion of the main islands. It took two A-bombs and the entrance of the Soviets into hostiltiies against them to convince the leaders in the government to finally give it up. It took two A-bombs because some advisers in the Imperial government were convinced that the US could only have produced one.

Re:stupid

[khallow]

No. They did try to negotiate a surrender. Not idle speculation (4th of July, so will forgive your star spangled view of history).

It's merely a claim made after the fact. The survivors had plenty of incentive to make their story as appealing to history as possible.

As I've noted before, there were people in Japan attempting to negotiate a surrender, but there's no evidence that they had the authority to do so. The same thing happened in Germany towards the end of the war. They too had a number of Nazi officials try to initiate surrenders, but without the authority to do so. I don't see why the US should expect that any such negotiation from Japan would be in good faith.

What we do know is that the Japanese military, which frankly was running the show, planned an aggressive defense of the Japanese Islands against all comers.

And even if the US attempted negotiation with a particular group, that faction could be overthrown or replaced by a less tractable one.

The Japanese wanted guarantees that their emperor would not be harmed.

Glancing through the Wikipedia entry on the history of Japan's surrender, it appears that the people who were considering a surrender wanted a lot more than just protection of the Emperor, such as no occupation of their main islands.

Consider that they were doing such negotiation via a covert channel with the USSR rather than directly and openly with the US and its Pacific allies. That indicates to me the precariousness of the position of the negotiators.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of innocent lives???

Read up on what Japan did during the war. They should have nuked 10 times as many cities. The Japanese were animals and deserved nothing less. The fact they sort of cleaned up their act later on is no excuse for their behaviour during the war.

Re:stupid

[Tore S B]

Oh, god, this is stupid.

Science is not a zero-sum game. Scientific discoveries enrich everybody, regardless of which country they're made in.

Yep, but scientific advances in a country act as an indicator of the technological and scientific standing of the nation at large (which more often than not are are advanced by the investments in those scientific advancements).

Think of the Apollo Space Program. Sure, it embiggened mankind, but the materials and computer competence required to build those rockets stayed in the US, and was just another government-funded cornerstone of the tech that made the US dominate the world economy to an extent that it's still coasting on the successes of yesteryear.

Re:stupid

[houghi]

Scientific discoveries enrich everybody, regardless of which country they're made in.

Unless somebody puts a patent on it, copyrights the findings and trademarks the name.

Re:stupid

[Darinbob]

Agreed. Who cares if it was discovered in America or not? Or Switzerland, or Iceland, or Botswana, or which of the 50 US states could have had it. It's just jingoism.

Re:stupid

[mobby_6kl]

Science is not a zero-sum game. Scientific discoveries enrich everybody, regardless of which country they're made in.

You state your unsubstantiated opinion as fact. Are you sure you are qualified to talk about "science"?

Have you ever heard of the '60s? The "race to the moon" was important, and the space race was most assuredly focused on firsts by country.

But I'm sure you have some reasoning on how that's irrelevant to now.

Yes, the race to the moon was an expensive political dickwaving contest which Kennedy got into "because communists!!!". I don't see how that is relevant today.

Re:stupid

[toruonu]

In fact CERN patents every discovery and then gives it to public domain. This way they protect their discoveries against patent trolls.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They did try to negotiate a surrender. Not idle speculation

No, not idle speculation- you're simply trying to avoid the truth. What was demanded was unconditional surrender. What was offered was conditional surrender.

The US wanted to kill a ton of civilians

First, that's simply not true. Second, use of the word "civilian" is a bullshit term especially in the context of an all-out war. If you had any understanding of war, especially that war, then you'd understand that even a child was considered a military asset- that's not a civilian, it's a soldier in training. When the entire population and all the resources of a country are dedicated to the War Effort, there are no civilians. And that was just as true of Japan as it was of the US, England, Germany, and Russia.

Simple to fact check all of the above, but be sure to clear that star spangled dust out of your eyes first.

Just like it's easy to pretend that the Japanese were of a single, unified opinion. There was an internal power struggle prior to the war, those opposed to getting involved lost. After the war began to turn sour for them, the struggle came to the forefront- those who wanted to end the war and save what was left of their country, and the Old Guard who came from the school of thought that it was better to be eradicated from the planet rather than shame their ancestors by admitting defeat. Even after the first bomb was dropped, the old guard held enough influence that they still refused to surrender. The second bomb finally awoke enough of the military command and general population to the cold, harsh reality that the old guard were silenced, and the surrender was able to go through.
Even still, fighting did not simply stop. There were many Japanese who refused to surrender, and fought to the last man. The idea that they would ever give up instead of fighting to the last man, woman, and child was so foreign to them that they thought the orders were a trick.

But your white-washed perceptions of history won't allow you to accept anything other than the US being some Evil Empire, picking on those poor, poor innocent Japanese. The Japanese Empire was a ruthless machine with absolutely NO regard for human life. But that's not something which supports your pet version of events, so you've clearly dismissed it.

War is hell. Much of our modern distaste for harming "civilians", and many of our modern rules of warfare came as a result of how horrific that war really was. Put simply you cannot examine the actions of any nation during WWII without considering the Context in which they occurred. But I guess your Google-Fu isn't good enough to find anything which doesn't confirm your own bias.
 

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

What they wanted was to keep the emperor system and USA didn't want that. USA want to finish the war without the URSS coming to it Again so after second bomb Japanese just accepted all term including not keeping the Emperor system. But the main reason behind it was really a show of force against URSS.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

And because the US got there first the Soviets are banned from GPS?

You missed the point, people may strive to discover for personal or national gain, but what they discover is better for all of us.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

...Simple to fact check ...

Your omission in providing these so called facts that are supposedly easy to check proves that you are talking nonsense.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The SSC was way over budget.

So was the LHC.

The construction of LHC was approved in 1995 with a budget of SFr 2.6bn, with another SFr 210M towards the experiments. However, cost overruns, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around SFr 480M for the accelerator, and SFr 50M for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget, pushed the completion date from 2005 to April 2007.[77] The superconducting magnets were responsible for SFr 180M of the cost increase. There were also further costs and delays due to engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid,[78] and also due to faulty parts provided by Fermilab.[79] Due to lower electricity costs during the summer, it is expected that the LHC will normally not operate over the winter months,[80] although an exception was made to make up for the 2008 start-up delays over the 2009/10 winter.

Re:stupid

[kannibal_klown]

True on all accounts.

Though, the whole "decade earlier" might have been nice. Delaying a discovery by a decade could mean a lot. Sure maybe not in the LONG run, but when you're talking about lifetimes... a decade could mean the difference between whether we'll get to witness something cool in our lifetime due to the original discovery. Like perhaps a new discovery as a result, a new theory, heck even perhaps a practical application related to the discovery.

American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Is what the headlines should read. The reason why SSC was not completed is because Poppa Bush had chosen it based on POLITICAL reasons. Had the reason been up to scientists, then this would have been built in illinois by extending our original collider AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FINISHED.
The reason that I say so that:
1) it extended the current collider. As such, only part of it had to be built.
2) the ground was soft in Illinois and did not suffer from water issues like Texas did. Just building part of the tunnel in Texas was more expensive then doing all of it in Illinois.
3) Illinois was loaded with diggers and plenty of workers that were finishing up various projects in Chicago. They would have brought the diggers down there and finished it in no time flat. In texas, they brought in loads of illegals who had to be taught how to do simple construction techniques.

What Americans should be doing is screaming that we have suffered ENOUGH of the politics that permeates today. For example, the neo-cons (these are the ppl that have taken over the republican party and are the ones responsible for the above screw-up), are currently pushing for the Space Launch System to be built (ANOTHER 20 B to build a system that will not have its first SCHEDULED launch for another decade) and working hard to kill off private space. They are basically trying to destroy NASA and America's space assests. What is amazing is that they proclaim one thing, but do another. And their loyal followers have not notice that over the last 30 years, they have sunk America into being a mediocre nation with massive debt and destroying our science and R&D.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[jbengt]

This (see above)

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Kohath]

So you want lots and lots of government money for sciencey stuff, but with no politics involved. Do you also want it delivered by unicorn-riding couriers?

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Jane Q. Public]

"What Americans should be doing is screaming that we have suffered ENOUGH of the politics that permeates today."

Hear, hear.

Take away their money, and it would stop pretty quickly. You can bet on it.

Until you do, that won't get fixed.

But while I agree with you about the result, don't go blaming it on Neocons. Neolibs have had JUST AS MUCH to do with it.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush made the bad decision to put it in Texas. Clinton made the bad decision to destroy the project when it was more than half completed (and actually spent a hell of a lot of money to unbuild what was already completed). The reason? The money was to go to the International Space Station.

Now its 2012 and the US has no manned space program.

So both parties suck.,

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[the eric conspiracy]

Yes but Neocons are so hypocritical about it. They go around whining about the deficit, but then cut taxes and only pay lip service to cut spending.

I'd like to know what planet that works on.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

So the fault is with Bush who started it because of the (R) by his name, not Clinton's for cancelling it in his first year of office because of that saintly (D)?
I'm not denying any of that happened (don't know [though I imagine the land they'd have to buy around MIT in Boston would be more expensive in Texas]), and maybe it was not the best place for it, but don't you think a Democrat cancelling a Republican project deserves some of your "political reason" scorn too?
At the very least, please realize just how politically biased you are please.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[the eric conspiracy]

Virgin couriers please.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

What Americans should be doing is screaming that we have suffered ENOUGH of the politics that permeates today. For example, the neo-cons (these are the ppl that have taken over the republican party and are the ones responsible for the above screw-up), are currently pushing for the Space Launch System to be built (ANOTHER 20 B to build a system that will not have its first SCHEDULED launch for another decade) and working hard to kill off private space. They are basically trying to destroy NASA and America's space assests. What is amazing is that they proclaim one thing, but do another. And their loyal followers have not notice that over the last 30 years, they have sunk America into being a mediocre nation with massive debt and destroying our science and R&D.

You just described obama to a T. Although he thinks our debt situation can be SOLVED WITH MORE DEBT!

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Jane Q. Public]

"Yes but Neocons are so hypocritical about it. They go around whining about the deficit, but then cut taxes and only pay lip service to cut spending."

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm simply saying that's a two-way street. The Neolibs also whine about it, constantly, and THEIR answer is to keep spending even more money than the Neocons. Despite rhetoric about "austerity", the Government has been spending more money EVERY YEAR, and it has gone UP even more under Obama than ever before.

How is THAT not hypocritical? And what planet does THAT work on? Historically, it's never worked even here in the United States.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[cheesybagel]

The Senate Launch System has unfortunately a quite bipartisan (yuck) appeal. Bill Nelson isn't a R but is one of the major pushers of the project.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Fnord666]

Crossing rainbows to get here.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Up until the 80's, we did it. It was when the neo-cons started taking over the GOP that we saw large amounts of politics introduced into science.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

That IS true that libs do it. However as much? Not even close.

In fact, the JWST was pushed mostly by libs, but does not cost anywhere near as much (7B, though it was sold on 2B). The problem with the JWST, is that it did not have alternatives. OTOH, SSC as well as the SLS had low costs superior options. But it was neo-cons that pushed these nightmares. In fact, they continue to push the SLS while working hard to destroy private space.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Kohath]

So you want to turn the clock back about 35 years then -- back to the good old 1970s? The Higgs boson isn't the one you need for that.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Jane Q. Public]

I was referring much more to the part about the economy over the last 30 years, than the space-budget part.

I agree that the Neocons have helped to ruin the space program, and try to prevent private access, but at the same time the Neolibs have tried to add layer upon layer of bureaucracy on top of not just NASA, but the private companies as well! NASA's recent announcement that it is partnering with the FAA to "regulate" private space flight should be interpreted by EVERYBODY as a huge red flag. They have been doing just fine without that regulation, and they are unlikely to do as well with it.

As for the economy, I don't even want to go there. Sure, there has been cronyism, but it has been on BOTH sides of the fence. And it has been worse under Obama than under any other President in memory (and my memory goes back a ways). Just look at his Cabinet, for crap's sake. Talk about a revolving door! It's an abomination (no pun intended).

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

CONgress killed it BECAUSE it was not even close to half way done. As it was, it was already tripled in price and was expected to waste billions more and be 1-2 decades LATE.

Saying that we have no manned space program while we have 2 ppl on the ISS has to be a bad joke by neo-cons.
Look, the real issue that we are lacking right now, is the ability to LAUNCH humans into space.
Yet, could have 1 system by 2014, 3 systems by 2015, and 4 by 2016.
In addition, if the neo-cons would stop trying to gut private space, we could have MULTIPLE space stations in orbit by 2014. That is something that the neo-cons want to kill off. Sad, considering that they speak of private enterprise in the same language that they spoke of deficits prior to running it up by some 8-10 trillion.

What is needed is to restore science to what we had PRIOR to reagan. At that time, we made most decisions based on what was good for the nation, not what was good for the republican party.

With that said, I will say that dems also suck. But not for this reason. Dems are much better on this one than are the neo-cons.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Poppa bush made a HORRIBLE mistake in doing the SSC in Texas. Just like the WIPP was done in Nevada, but SHOULD have been done in West Texas. Again, that was a political decision.

Now, as to your assertion that Clinton killed the SSC:
Congress officially canceled the project October 21, 1993[9] after $2 billion had been spent.[10] Many factors contributed to the cancellation:[3] rising cost estimates; poor management by physicists and Department of Energy officials; the end of the need to prove the supremacy of American science with the collapse of the Soviet Union; ..... However, in 1993, Clinton tried to prevent the cancellation by asking Congress to continue "to support this important and challenging effort" through completion because "abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science".

Just because idiots like Rush and other neo-cons make wild claims, it does not make it truthful.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

You just described obama to a T. Although he thinks our debt situation can be SOLVED WITH MORE DEBT!

Please, provide us links that show how Obama is wasting 20 billion on space systems?

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Actually, the SLS does many more R's in it them Ds. However, one of those D IS Nelson (idiot). And obviosly, there are enough Ds in the Senate to allow the Rs to push the SLS in the house.

But the big difference between the Ds and Rs on this, is that the Rs are hard at work at gutting private space. The Ds are not.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

First off, I hate to tell you, but it is the neo-cons that are pushing for the FAA to regulate, as well as pushing hard for NASA to control the private space via the standard cost+ approach, rather than as a service. They KNOW that a service will succeed, where the cost+ encourages abuse

Secondly the grip about regulations is nothing but a red herring. Look at Japan, Canada and Germany. All have many many more regs than we do. And all have stronger economies than we do. Why? Well, all are nationalistic and push their own companies. But for Canada and Germany, their strong economy is due to strong control of their budgets.

How is the cronyism worse under O than under reagan or W?

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Do I want to remove politics from our science? Absolutely.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[khallow]

Just like the WIPP was done in Nevada, but SHOULD have been done in West Texas.

WIPP is in eastern New Mexico which is a stone's throw away from western Texas. Perhaps, you refer to Yucca Mountain which was in Nevada and other than not being in western Texas, is a fine place for a nuclear waste repository?

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[WindBourne]

Actually, I did mean yucca (I have been up a lot lately, so tired).
but this is what you want.

All in all, West Texas was a MUCH better choice for this. Though to be honest, the one thing that many consider bad (volcanic activity) I consider good. Mix this with magma and keep it underground.

Of course, even better would be to burn up all of this 'waste' in a GE Prism.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[sugarboy]

Actually, yes.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[khallow]

Of course, even better would be to burn up all of this 'waste' in a GE Prism.

Quite agree with that.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Bush wanted to build the SSC in Texas. Everyone knows Texas is chock full of steers and queers - and particle physicists.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[vandamme]

No you don't. You just want somebody else's politics removed from science.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Jane Q. Public]

"Secondly the grip about regulations is nothing but a red herring. Look at Japan, Canada and Germany. All have many many more regs than we do."

It isn't just the regulations, or even mostly the regulations. It's the stifling bureaucracy -- pretty much a Democrat invention. Both NASA and the FAA have been choking on their own bureaucracies for decades now. And now they want to entangle the private sector with their nonsense.

Two different Presidents have ordered NASA to clean up its bureaucratic bullshit, and it has yet to do so. The fact that Virgin and SpaceX have beat them at their own game at a fraction of the cost is pretty damned good evidence of this.

"How is the cronyism worse under O than under reagan or W?"

Jesus, man. Just look at his cabinet. I mean really look, learn who they are.

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot commenting process:
(1) Boot computer
(2) Open web browser
(3) Read article on slashdot.
(4) "It's those damned neocons!"
(5) Repeat

Re:American Scientists Regrets Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiotic, the other possible sites were California and Michigan. Look it up. The cost to go through rock(Michigan) or fault line(California) was roughly 60 percent higher.

Are you from Illinois?

STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

America...

Re:STFU

[elvesrus]

Fuck Yeah!

hmm

[buddyglass]

It was still discovered, and this way I didn't have to subsidize it. WIN.

Re:hmm

[Kohath]

Really. What difference does it make whether it was "discovered" now or 10 years ago?

This is a serious question. The SSC was very expensive. Someone please explain the value proposition of making the discovery then vs. now.

Re:hmm

[avandesande]

....except this would of funded research for hundreds if not thousands of young physicists across the USA.

Re:hmm

[dtmos]

It was still discovered, and this way I didn't have to subsidize it.

Oh, yes, you did.

You subsidized it with higher levels of unemployment in the many technical fields needed to design, construct, and use the SSC.

You subsidized it with lower salaries in those fields, for those able to find work in them.

You subsidized it with the loss of the many small companies that otherwise would have been started by entrepreneurs in response to the challenges faced by the SSC project. Most would have failed, of course, but in a project of that size it's likely that a handful of these small companies would have survived to make significant advances in the state of the art.

You subsidized it with a US industrial base that was less competitive than its foreign competition, which honed its capabilities solving the difficult technical problems presented by the LHC, while the US base did not.

You subsidized it with a loss in stature of the US physics community on the world stage. Having the top-tier experimental apparatus outside the US is not the way to attract "the best and the brightest" to the US and is, in fact, the way to force the best young researchers in the US to go overseas.

You subsidized it with a loss in stature of hard science in the minds of US school children. Like the space program before it, the SSC could have been the motivation for a generation of school children to study science and technology. Lacking this symbol, clever students who might have made significant contributions in many technical fields have instead drifted off to other things.

The per-capita cost to build the SSC, in round numbers, was $40 in 1993. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay $40 then, than the above subsidies now?

Re:hmm

[Cow Jones]

Assuming you're in the US, that's just not true. The United States have had observer status at CERN since 1997.

Here's a quote from the relevant press release:

Council delegates applauded warmly as representatives of United States of America were welcomed to the Council session for the first time as official Observers. This new status follows the agreement between CERN and the United States for a contribution of $531 million to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project which was signed in Washington on 8 December (see PR07.97).

It's quite likely that more funds have been contributed by the US in the 15 years since then.

So thank you for your contribution. You were part of the LHC project from the start.

CJ

Re:hmm

[joe_frisch]

The US shares in in the high energy physics knowledge that was gained, but it does not have as large a share as it might in all of the technology developed to make the LHC, ATLAS and CMS. It is never clear in advance where new technological developments will lead, but as a closely related example, the accelerator technology developed for the proposed Linear Collider (another several-billion$ machine) was directly applied to to the X-ray lasers now operating in Hamburg (DESY / FLASH), Stanford (SLAC / LCLS) and Japan (Spring-8 /SACLA). These machines have been very valuable research tools for science with direct practical applications including catalysts, biomedical studies and new energy studies. At the moment several more of these ~500M$-$1B machines are under construction or seriously proposed around the world.

Earlier high energy physics accelerator developments led to the synchrotron light sources that are the primary X-ray research tools used around the world.

So, access to the science from LHC is great, but it would have been nice if the US had also had a larger share of all of the other technologies that will be spun off.

Re:hmm

[buddyglass]

Presumably this contribution is less than the U.S. would have spent to build its own. I'll consider that a bargain.

Re:hmm

[buddyglass]

You subsidized it with higher levels of unemployment in the many technical fields needed to design, construct, and use the SSC.

Who's to say the folks who would have filled SSC-related positions didn't end up working in other industries? To what extent were U.S. employers made more globally competitive by virtue of the lower cost of labor due to the lack of competition from the SSC? How many goods and services were purchased by individuals using the $40 per capita saved by not funding the SSC and how many were employed designing, producing, distributing and marketing those goods and services?

You subsidized it with lower salaries in those fields, for those able to find work in them.

I don't see that as a bad thing. Inflating the salaries of SSC-related fields is like levying an additional tax on everyone who employs individuals in those fields above and beyond the direct subsidy to build the SSC.

You subsidized it with the loss of the many small companies that otherwise would have been started by entrepreneurs in response to the challenges faced by the SSC project.

Instead companies formed and tackled problems whose solutions are actually profitable in lieu of subsidies.

You subsidized it with a US industrial base that was less competitive than its foreign competition, which honed its capabilities solving the difficult technical problems presented by the LHC, while the US base did not.

Because clearly the U.S. industrial base can only work on difficult problems if they're being heavily subsidized to do so.

Having the top-tier experimental apparatus outside the US is not the way to attract "the best and the brightest" to the US and is, in fact, the way to force the best young researchers in the US to go overseas.

In the field of particle physics. I can live with that. Even if the money were guaranteed to be spent I'm not convinced the SSC is the best value proposition. For instance, we might have funded a ton of research in other areas.

You subsidized it with a loss in stature of hard science in the minds of US school children. Like the space program before it, the SSC could have been the motivation for a generation of school children to study science and technology.

I grew up about an hour from the proposed site and was in school during the period in which it was being built. It wasn't exactly on the tip of every school kid's tongue.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The per-capita cost to build the SSC, in round numbers, was $40 in 1993. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay $40 then, than the above subsidies now?

Nah. The future "subsidies" will be paid by future me, while the $40 bucks will be wasted by present me, who is the one who gets to decide what to do with the money.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It was still discovered, and this way I didn't have to subsidize it. WIN.

Well, if your definition of "not subsidizing" is "less than a half a billion dollars" then you'd be correct.

http://press.web.cern.ch/press/pressreleases/Releases1997/PR07.97ELHC-US.html

+4 Insightful for being completely, 100% wrong? Way to go fucktards, keep that awesome moderation coming.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god, you're right! The US should build every single proposal for every single field of science right now! If not, they will be subsidising so much, the economy will crash, kids will hate science and US "science" will become a world-wide joke!!! /sarcasm
Seriously: constructing a machine at location B instead of A is not the death knell for science -- at best, it illuminates the poor state of science.
Examples:
- Higher levels of unemployment in the tech field to design/construct/use:
==> if US companies could've made a competitive bid, they would've been doing that for the LHC. So either they are not competitive, but deserve state subsidising, or they are competitive and No Jobs Were Lost.

- lower salaries
==> Again, the "free market" argument. If US folks are worth it, they will be paid for it. If other countries are quality equivalent but cheaper, don't you think that the SSC would've been built using their services?

- Loss of stature in minds of children
==> Political bodies adopting laws mandating what is science and what isn't. So your children are taught that politics decide what is science, and that any scientific claim can be challenged and removed by politics.
I'd say your worries wrt the stature of science in children's minds can focus elsewhere than in the construction of The One Ring.

Re:hmm

[dtmos]

I never said anything about a "death knell for science." My point was that smart governments realize that public works projects, especially those that benefit scientific research and understanding, can have a positive value for their nations far in excess of their capital cost, because they make their nation(s) more globally competitive.

if US companies could've made a competitive bid, they would've been doing that for the LHC.

What makes you think that the LHC was constructed by companies selected by competitive bid? See, for example, these instructions from CERN:

Question: Can I send my Price Enquiry to any Bidder?
Answer: The Technical Officer has to take into account the technical competency of the firm as well as the
origin of the supply or service (which should be originated from CERN Member States and preferably from
poorly balanced Member States).
[...]
Question: Why it is so important to know the origin of the supply/service?
Answer: Member states contribute to CERN’s budget, therefore one of the main procurement goals is to
achieve balanced industrial return for Member states. [emphasis added.]

This is the point -- the nations that compose CERN recognize the value of the organization to their industrial base. If they didn't, they would just keep the money they invest in CERN. Instead, they make the investment because they realize that they, as nations, get a stronger, more capable -- and, therefore, more valuable -- industrial base as a result of CERN. It's a good investment.

I have never understood this attraction to the "free market" in dealings between nations. One of the reasons China is gaining market share wrt the US in many fields -- from photovoltaics to high-speed rail transport -- is that it subsidizes their development. Supporting technologies critical to the nation's future is not a crime -- most nations do and, arguably, all should. The US did the same with many technologies, from the telegraph to the railroad, in the 19th Century, and the spending of public funds to develop technology for the public good reached new highs in the federal funding of scientific research during and after WWII. The nation benefited greatly from this investment of public funds -- why not now? Is it really better to stand by, and watch our economy become more and more dependent on the industries of other nations?

Re:hmm

[stud9920]

Broken window fallacy.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the nail on the head. As a former academic in the physical sciences, turned entrepreneur in the 90's, I'm totally in agreement with your "bigger picture" view.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The market for discovering the Higgs Boson has spoken and it spoke in Switzerland. No doubt that the huge economic advantage that discovering the Higgs Boson had given to Switzerland and the EU will provide a solution to their sovereign debt crisis. The guy or gal who gets the Nobel prize will be very appreciative of the European Union's public investment made in his or her achievement. It's a special privilege to work, no to serve, in a community of practice that derives it stature from the expenditure of large sums of public money for bragging rights (that a quote from Einstein or Rutherford isn't it?).

All of the "You subsidized it" statements equate to taking $100B in taxes from people around the US who earned it in some fashion that they were not too ashamed to report on a tax return and redistributing it to others to do work for which no one else was apparently willing to pay them. Filtering $100B earned from economic demand through the bureaucracy of the federal government to provide walking around money for people who cloak themselves in the nobility of pursuing scientific discovery for its own sake does not grow the economy. Based on on the miserable results of $787 Billion in government spending on stimulus in 2009 I'm glad the $100B bill for the SSC did not get spent in Texas or elsewhere. It also deprived Texas Congressmen of the political benefits of bringing home the bacon which is a win in and of itself.

Besides which, the Texas economy seems to have limped along passably well since 1993. If you are going to spend tons of money for bragging rights over something done in Texas it might as well be for the salary of a winning football football coach. The real estate agents around Waxahachie will never agree but I can live with that. I'm going to try and smooth over the loss of stature of hard science resulting from the loss of bragging rights to the Swiss in the mind of my 11 & 13 year old public school student children (which will keep me busy for about as long as the existence of a Higgs Boson outside of a collider).

shoula, coulda, woulda.

[Anonymous Coward]

~20 year old news is news?
Whatever.

Maybe they can find solace in God...

[Lord_of_the_nerf]

...if we didn't just trap him/her in our magic SCIENCE LIGHTNING RING.

I'm going to stop getting my science from Fox. Sorry.

SSC boondoogle

[stox]

The whole SSC project was amazingly corrupt. It was fortunate it was cancelled when it was, otherwise it would have completely ruined the reputations of all involved, although many would have deserved it. Sadly, no one ever dug deep and exposed what a fiasco it was.

Re:SSC boondoogle

[AK Marc]

It wasn't any more a fiasco than every defense project in the past 50 years. It was just a little more visible and understandable. "It took $10,000,000,000 to develop this missile, and $10,000,000 each to build them" is something the average person can't call "bullshit" on. But "It'll take 30 years and a trillion dollars to dig a trench and put a pipe in it and cover it back up with dirt" is something everyone thought they understood. *every* government contract is a boondogle.

Re:SSC boondoogle

[stox]

I am afraid to say that you are quite right. This was just the one I got to witness first hand. I was absolutely disgusted.

We Lost SSC Yet Got ISS

[Anonymous Coward]

The bittersweet news from Texas is just that and more.

SSC lost in Congress. ISS won in Congress.

What can ISS address in Physics or any other discipline of Science? Nothing! It has no purpose at all other than a revolving billboard in a useless orbit.

And even as over budgeted and oversold ISS is it stands as the quintessential quagmire of 'Collaborative' Science in the USA with blessings from the pervert 'monks' of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a line of 'general' Presidents.

A sad commentary indeed.

The NSF is our own home grown USSR in miniature geographic size and gigantic monetary footprint to 'screw' Science at the whims of the President.

'House cleaning' of the Federal Government is dearly needed.

Abolishment of the NSF with imprisonment and execution of its monks is long overdue.

not LoL.

satiric science??

[ach1lles]

Congress thought what?! sounds like the word "esoteric" was a bit too esoteric for TFA's proofreader...

Now what?

[mark-t]

Okay... they've discovered a particle that confirms existing theories about the universe are actually correct. That's really cool, and it's not my intent to downplay that accomplishment.

But now what happens?

I mean, it's all well and good to know that it exists, but what can we actually *DO* with that knowledge?

What does the existence of the "God Particle" actually mean for the future science? Will it actually ever make any difference to anybody's future who isn't into theoretical physics?

Re:Now what?

[the eric conspiracy]

They don't actually have any such thing. They have a particle that is necessary for the theories to be correct, but they don't know if the behavior of the particle follows the theories so there is a lot of excitement and potential for new ideas to be generated from the study of this.

As far as practical uses, well few thought General Relativity would have practical application, and now it's use is a common everyday thing because GPS depends on it.

Who can tell what uses will be made from this when the theory isn't even settled yet?

Re:Now what?

[Jane Q. Public]

"They don't actually have any such thing. They have a particle that is necessary for the theories to be correct, but they don't know if the behavior of the particle follows the theories so there is a lot of excitement and potential for new ideas to be generated from the study of this."

And when you consider that other particles have frequently appeared to NOT behave according to the Standard Model, there are still some pretty big holes in it.

Parent is correct. This is confirmation of only one very broad concept that is part of the model. Most of the rest is still up in the air. But perhaps new experiments can proceed with more confidence, knowing that this particular piece has been confirmed.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know people said the same thing about electricity when it was first discovered. Thankfully we did not stop researching it then. Science doesn't need to have an immediately apparent impact to be incredibly valuable long term.

Re:Now what?

[bmo]

>I mean, it's all well and good to know that it exists, but what can we actually *DO* with that knowledge?

People who say stuff like this typically imply such knowledge is useless.

Basic scientific research never has immediate here-and-now effects. They may even be 100 years off in the future. Do you honestly think that Maxwell thought we'd be communicating over large distances because of his equations wirelessly as easily as we do?

He unified electromagnetic theory in 1865. It took until the 1920s for broadcast radio to become popular.

So you can take your "Well, uh, what can we use it for?" question and chuck it in the trash until we do come up with a use, because it's a nonsensical point of view.

--
BMO

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as practical uses, well few thought General Relativity would have practical application, and now it's use is a common everyday thing because GPS depends on it.

That implies that the proper functioning of the GPS depends on principles from relativity, that it makes use of relativity in order to work. That's not correct. What is true is that if we didn't understand relativity, and didn't apply the appropriate corrections provided by the theory, then the system wouldn't be accurate.

Re:Now what?

[mark-t]

Perhaps you missed reading the second sentence of my post, above. Please do so.

I ask because this is making headline news like everybody and their dog needs to know about it, and while I can agree that it could be very exciting for people who are actually *IN* that sort of field, I really want to understand why it is such a big deal that it makes front page headline news in NON-scientific venues.

I write computer games for a living, and I've been hearing several people talk about it around me at work all day, but there's not a one of us who's liable to be impacted by this discovery in any way that I can foresee.

Re:Now what?

[bmo]

>but there's not a one of us who's liable to be impacted by this discovery in any way that I can foresee.

So?

--
BMO

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true, it's quite uncommon for people who write computer games for a living to be impacted by scientific progress. Hell, the technology to make computer games has been around for centuries, and the scientific principles underlying that technology have been known for millennia.

Re:Now what?

[Nivag064]

This 'electron' thingy they have discovered, what's the use of it? It not as though whole industries and millions of jobs will be created to make use of the knowledge!

Essentially, we can not predict in advance what benefits scientific knowledge will bring. Very few, if any, would have predicted the the whole thing with electronics when the electron was first discovered. So lack of imagination, and ability to quantify economic benefits should not be used to hold back the advance of science.

The nature of the Higgs and subsequent research will likely lead to considerable economic benefit, but in ways we cannot really conceive of now.

Or do you want to hasten America's descent into the dark ages of superstition spearheaded by the Creationists?

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you use it to satisfy that desire of all intelligent human beings, which is why the universe works the way it does. This particle is the first step in understanding how other particles get their mass. It can lead to explaining the fifth force, uniting all under the standard model. Second, it may lead to understand such things as dark matter, which makes up most of the universe, yet is difficult to detect with modern methods. If that isn't enough for you, then maybe become a business major. They don't give a shit about the world around them, either. Luddite

As far as blaming it on Congress, blame it on the stupid scientists who didn't know how to talk to an average human being. Neil DeGrasse Tuson even said, if they had said something along the lines of "this will allow us to start pulling back the curtain to understanding how the universe came to be, and, when discovered, the world will look to the United States as showing the scientific world who's on top," Congress might have been a bit more eager to fund it.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

how about "because hearing about someone achieving something cool inspires others to try to do cool stuff"?

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an idiot. I am not trying to troll. I am just stating a sad fact.

Re:Now what?

[mark-t]

"So?"

Really, if that's about as much as any regular person can be expected to care about this, and if it's really not such a big deal outside of the theoretical physics community, then why is it all over the news and assorted venues that may have a passing association with the popular science culture, but are not actually impacted by the discovery?

Re:Now what?

[mark-t]

Your sarcasm has not gone unnoticed... but perhaps you thought that I too was being sarcastic when I said "it's not my intent to downplay the accomplishmeent". I wasn't. I was asking either why anybody outside the field of theoretical physics would care about this, or else be impacted by this discovery.... Presumably, there must be *SOME* perceived impact, or else why would it be all over the news like Apple announcing a new consumer product?

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're finding fundamental constants underlying the rules of nature, and we're verifying our understanding of nature. This might not have immediate benefits, but some day we WILL benefit from having a thorough understanding of the universe down to the atomic level.

Particle physics is the science that's going to be necessary when we design near-lightspeed interstellar space ships; computers trillions of times faster than today's; materials with amazing properties such as superconductivity or strength; and perhaps even understanding the more sophisticated processes in our own biology.

You won't get a forest if you don't start planting the seeds. It'll take a long time, but the applications will come.

Re:Now what?

[mark-t]

Thank you... that's exactly the sort of response that I was looking for... it explains, in everyday terms, why this accomplishment matters, and why people who might not be affected by it now might still be interested in knowing about it.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then go back to making fucking computer games, because that's a worthwhile endeavour. By worthwhile, I mean that in 50 years no one will ever mention a single game you have ever worked on in your entire life. On the other hand Einstein's and Maxwell's theories, at the time, merited no immediate practical significance and yet now we live in a fantastic world where their theoretical discoveries power just about all that we hold dear, including those fucking computers you sit at every day to write code and entertain people. In 50 years all that you ever held will be shite and the discoveries that you poo-poohed now will power the engine of our future race.

Science belongs to everyone. That's why it's reported in the fucking headline news. I take solace in the fact that your kind die out, slowly but surely. You do not deserve the tag of "human". You are nothing more than short sighted animal and should be forgotten as such.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't subscribe to the news papers you've seen them on if it bothers you.

No, it won't impact you granted you probably won't work for the next 60+ years.

Re:Now what?

[mark-t]

And really... how hard would have been to give a response more like > this?

Of course... it's far easier to criticize and insult somebody than it is to come up with constructive responses. I asked a genuine question, and the above poster (who I cannot even credit, since he posted AC) managed to address it without being either condescending or insulting.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot foresee the use of something you do not understand yet. It is good to ask the question, but the answer is: patience, we are still collecting tyre data.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am disappointed. You have such a good reputation an are applying a basic fallacy of ignorance, among others. There is no evidence this will be useful or not, therefore the opinion on it's efficacy should be tentative at best. Questions should be asked as to what we can do with it. That is the only way we can find uses for it. In this sense, saying

...So you can take your "Well, uh, what can we use it for?" question and chuck it in the trash until we do come up with a use...

you are telling him to ignore the scientific process of asking questions in defense of a scientific discovery's efficacy. There is no evidence that this is useful or not useful in practical terms. We should be striving to find out if it can, not bashing people for wondering and setting up straw men to burn.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it were useless right now, it may be invaluable in a decade or two. Or you think your computer would work without "useless" science at the time (Boolean algebra, for instance, wasn't too useful before computers).

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

it means one less variable in an equation (so to speak).

If you're trying to figure something complex out, you divide and conquer and try to eliminate the unknowns.

No one knows when this discovery will lead to anything tangible for mankind; but when it does...the potential is life altering.

One person might look at Einsteins theories as a way to provide sustainable free energy to the world, another might see it as a tool to destroy the world.

Re:Now what?

[bmo]

Really, if that's about as much as any regular person can be expected to care about this, and if it's really not such a big deal outside of the theoretical physics community, then why is it all over the news and assorted venues that may have a passing association with the popular science culture, but are not actually impacted by the discovery?

Your lack of imagination and lack of curiosity is not the problem of the theoretical physicists, or the people who come up with the eventual applied physics or the engineers who take all of that and make technology out of it.

Back when Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin imaged the DNA molecule, nobody in their right mind would have come up with DNA bar-coding or any of the other applied science, engineering, and medicine that came out of what they did. Einstein never figured that we'd be using GPS because of general relativity.

Breakthroughs in science, time and again, eventually lead to applications. That's why it's in the news.

But you know what? Finding out how the universe, even ignoring all the applications, is fun. If it wasn't, nobody would do it, and we'd be still sitting outside our caves wondering where the Sun went when it dipped below the horizon.

The know-nothings such as yourself should have died out when Thag discovered that the wind covered blew sand in the tracks in his game's footprints and that more sand = older track.

--
BMO

Re:Now what?

[bmo]

I should have proofread that more.

--
BMO

Re:Now what?

[bmo]

There is no evidence this will be useful or not, therefore the opinion on it's efficacy should be tentative at best.

But this is wrong. Your assertion right there ignores the entire history of the human race ever since we stopped attributing what happened to us to spirits in rocks and random chance and started figuring things out. Basic science has been the foundation for *all* of our technology that we use, all the way from Newton to the latest quantum physics. Quantum physics that once seemed ridiculously unrelated to the macro universe is now emerging as a way to do computing. The esoteric math of sphere packing and related math led to faster communications and compression.

I don't know how else to put it. We wouldn't be here talking over the Internet with computers and fiber optics and all that stuff if people hadn't done the basic theoretical physics that at the time had no practical applications. While new physics and math typically do not have immediate applications, new physics eventually leads to technology, always, since the mists of time. The drive to do so is likely genetic. It gave us an evolutionary advantage over the other animals on the Veldt. When you get down to it, "primitive" hunters are basically scientists. They observe, make hypotheses, test, and make conclusions about the universe. It led to newer techniques and weapons. The atlatl was brilliant in its simplicity and deadliness. Technologically and scientifically minded hunting groups outcompeted other groups. And here we are, thousands of years later with the same basic method of thinking about the universe, but more of everything.

Nobody can answer the question "what are we going to use higgs for?" right now. It's unanswerable. Whatever answer given will surely be wrong. The question is not if we can find an application or what for, it's when, to which I would say "eventually" since I am not clairvoyant. But while I am not clairvoyant, I am also not an idiot and I can see the history of math, physics and technology over the past thousands of years.

We should be striving to find out if it can, not bashing people for wondering and setting up straw men to burn.

If I seemed overly harsh, it's because I saw a reporter ask the same question of a physicist and I watched him founder, trying to answer an unanswerable question.

We spend billions on the LHC and related projects, not just because it's fun, but because we, as a species, have found that new science reliably gets us new stuff that we hadn't even dreamed of.

--
BMO

Re:Now what?

[craklyn]

What happens next is we study this particle. We want to know if it behaves as is predicted by the standard model, or if it's something different from what we expect. This includes measuring its cross section (the probability of it being created in collision) and its branching ratio (the probability of it decaying to each thing its able to decay to).

Matt Strassler (a theoretical physicist) describes the general roadmap in his blog post here.

Particle physics results are necessarily esoteric. What do we do with experimental knowledge? We use this knowledge to disprove plausible theory and to constrain future theory. Theory is similarly used to give direction for new experiments.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am also not an idiot and I can see the history of math, physics and technology over the past thousands of years.

You are an idiot and you are totally ignorant of the history of science. Every theory that ever resulted in practical applications was first tested with apparatus of a similar scale to the practical applications that would result. It is your assertion that ignores the entire history of the human race.

If I seemed overly harsh, it's because I saw a reporter ask the same question of a physicist and I watched him founder, trying to answer an unanswerable question.

And if I seemed overly harsh it's because you are a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.

Re:Now what?

[he-sk]

As far as practical uses, well few thought General Relativity would have practical application, and now it's use is a common everyday thing because GPS depends on it.

Huh? As I understand it, GPS depends on triangulation of multiple signals. It has to correct for relativistic effects, but would still work in a world without relativity.

Re:Now what?

[darkmeridian]

The huge question isn't whether or not the Higgs Boson exists, but whether or not there are different forms of the HB. The HB was detected in the lower mass range, so supersymmetry is still alive as a theory. Supersymmetry can help explain things like dark matter.

Re:Now what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrogravity has been well-known for decades. It's an environmental disaster to use it large-scale, and the populace in general would not accept the environmental impacts because they do not have the knowledge to understand them. This is why electrogravity is not used mainstream. Anything related to the confirmation of the Higgs that has to do with elecrogravity will be suppressed.

The issue with electrogravity is the effects on time and how it speeds up the clock on our bodies, planet, solar system, galaxy, and universe (depending on scale). The populace can't even responsibly manage a non-renewable resource on Earth that has destructive environmental effects (oil). This is why we don't use electrogravity and related technologies such as converting "zero-point energy" to electricity. Most (if not all) "pseudo scientists" that have successfully integrated and converted ZPE fluctuations into EMF aren't even aware of the environmental implications. They are thinking precisely the opposite: that they've discovered unlimited clean energy. It's clever. It's novel. But it's certainly not clean. Whether it's unlimited is in the eye of the beholder.

Even Star Trek warp drive has environmental effects (hehe :-) ). There is no free lunch. Even if you have gotten past simplified closed-system thermodynamics and are modeling things using open-system thermodynamics. You'll soon find that the universe itself is the closed system, and those simple closed-system rules of thermodynamics apply.

It was a double loss..

[Exrio]

Had they not cancelled the Superconducting Super Collider, chances are high they would've also beat Aperture to the Supercolliding Super Button which history proved to be just a logical step away. Oh well. I'm not American anyway, my country didn't lose anything because it's never had anything to being with. Woohoo!

If only it gave illegals jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

If Texas had said it woould give 1000 illegal aliens work then Congress, and the President would have been all over it.
Alternatly, they could have just lied and said it would be harmful to the good of the country, then it would have gotten approved.

Re:If only it gave illegals jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, these days just about any dipshit can afford a computer.

Re:If only it gave illegals jobs

[wzzzzrd]

Be happy about it. Otherwise...

Texas? Science?

[Sarusa]

I don't think Texas has had any use for science since 1993 either.

Officially coming out against critical thinking was just the final reveal.

Tell me again why it matters?

[gestalt_n_pepper]

The USA is declining, we know, but the information was finally found. What difference does it make where it was found?

Re:Tell me again why it matters?

[Exrio]

Well the significant argument in TFS is the idea that the confirmation could have happened a decade ago rather than now, which certainly would've made a difference in the development rate of theoretical physics. "In America" is just a free e-peen extender that comes with it, which CERN just got instead.

Re:Tell me again why it matters?

[Kohath]

Is theoretical physics a race? What do we get if we cross the finish line first? What do US taxpayers get?

Re:Tell me again why it matters?

[Exrio]

It's not a race, but it's nice to get to know more about the universe during your lifetime. Someone has to be the first to cross the line, and someone has to pay for it, otherwise science will just come to a standstill.

Re:Tell me again why it matters?

[Kohath]

A lot more things are nice to get than are affordable to get.

Wait.

[fahrbot-bot]

People do real science in Texas? :-)

Re:Wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tacc.utexas.edu/

USA just isn't the country it once was

[bigsexyjoe]

Of course things like important scientific breakthroughs aren't going to happen in America anymore. It just isn't the country it used to be. It's a broke, collapsing empire, not the great nation it used to be.

Re:USA just isn't the country it once was

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, let us all hail our new overloards ... course we dont know exactly who it is... it could be the Nazi-Communist from the fucktards in Greece, Or the Muslim sand niggers who think that fucking a goat is 100% natural, but seeing a woman's face is a capital offense? How bout those Chinese whom couldn't make a grilled cheese without seeing one to copy first?

Point is, no matter how bad America gets, the majority of the world is still too stupid to wash their hands after taking a shit before a meal.

 

Turn up to 11 at LEP

[Anonymous Coward]

What about thse who ran LEP, the Large Elecron positron collider at CERN up until 2000 ?

If they had "turned it up to 11" and just a bit beyond 200 GeV to about 220GeV, then the centre of mass energy would have passed the threshold for creating a Z boson and a H boson .....

LEP would arguably have beaten the SSC to it even if it wasnt't cancelled and the Higgs could have been discovered in 2000.

I would ask whether the LHC would have been built then ?

Herman Wouk, "A Hole in Texas"

[dpbsmith]

Herman Wouk (of all people--he's better-known for "The Caine Mutiny" and "The Winds of War"--) wrote a reasonably amusing novel about the project, published in 2005, entitled "A Hole In Texas." I'm afraid I don't remember the plot twists--it's not a layman's crib sheet on either the physics or the history of the supercollider. If you enjoyed the atomic bomb background material in "War and Remembrance," it's that sort of thing... and as Abraham Lincoln probably didn't say, "People who like this sort of thing will find it just the sort of thing they like."

Canceled in 1993

[Anonymous Coward]

Democrat in the White House.
Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
Democrat-controlled Senate.

It would appear that Democrats are the anti-science party.

Re:Canceled in 1993

[Anonymous Coward]

they were too busy making up money from the first gulf war, and a decade of reganomics which devastated most of the slack jaw morons that voted for them TYVM

the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking

[Anonymous Coward]

I regret the loss of technicolor.

Not cost effective

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't the project canned because they couldn't work out how to weaponise it?

Rant.

[bmo]

There are people out there who are pooh-poohing the Higgs Boson. "What can we do with it?" they ask, implying that we can't ever do anything with basic science almost sneeringly because they can't wrap their own tiny minds around why we do basic scientific research. They can't figure out why we try to discover why the Universe is the way it is.

James Clerk Maxwell unified electromagnetic theory in the 1860s. This was the basis for all modern electronics and radio, and had implications for special and general relativity. There were absolutely *zero* practical implications at the time. It took people a while to figure out what to do with his equations.

It wasn't until the 1920s that broadcast radio started to become common. This was a gap of 80 years, more or less. That does not even include the implications for the nuclear science and MRI and such. We are still using his equations and the math of those who followed, like Einstein, Szilard, Bose, Feynman, et alia, as the basis of new technology more than 140 years later. We probably won't figure out the full implications of the Higgs Boson in the next 200 years. So what if there are no immediate applications for the Higgs? Discovering how the universe works helped the "primitive" hunter-gatherer track his lunch, and it has helped modern man in more ways than can be described here.

But that's not enough for certain people. These are the people who decry the study of fruit fly genetics as a waste of time and money because they can't possibly ask someone why we do such research. They are politicians, wannabe politicians, media dunderheads, demagogues, and people who don't see advancement of basic science as the self-centered advancement of themselves. They are the Sarah Palins of the world. They are the ones who, if actually listened to, would put a halt to all basic science because, to them, it is "useless."

Because they think their 8'th grade (if that) misunderstanding of science and technology trumps that of people actually doing the hard work of basic science.

Fuck them with a rake.

--
BMO

Re:Rant.

[Kohath]

Shorter version: "I hate people with different priorities than me. Give me money."

Re:Rant.

[Anonymous Coward]

James Clerk Maxwell unified electromagnetic theory in the 1860s. This was the basis for all modern electronics and radio, and had implications for special and general relativity. There were absolutely *zero* practical implications at the time. It took people a while to figure out what to do with his equations.

The practical applications of electromagnetic theory are practical tests of electromagnetic theory. If it were not possible to test electromagnetic theory without a large hadron collider then there would be no broadcast radio or other practical applications, because a large hadron collider is not practical.

This is the question: is it possible to test "Higgs theory" without a large hadron collider? Are there any practical tests? If not, how could there be any practical applications?

Re:Rant.

[bmo]

>This is the question: is it possible to test "Higgs theory" without a large hadron collider? Are there any practical tests? If not, how could there be any practical applications?

Reading comprehension. How does it effin' work?

1. We don't know. We've only had one way to do it so far.
2. The LHC test *is* the practical test.
3. We don't know.

But since we can't answer `1 and 3 immediately, the LHC and Higgs are both useless to people who can't think more than 5 minutes into the future or about anything but themselves.

--
BMO

Re:Rant.

[bmo]

No, you stupid fuck.

I'm not anywhere near "basic science" and everything I do is around applied science, but I at least know where all this applied science and engineering comes from. Apparently you are apparently completely ignorant of those facts and don't care to know them.

You're the kind of person my rant was directed at.

--
BMO

Re:Rant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading comprehension. How does it effin' work?

How indeed!

1. We don't know. We've only had one way to do it so far.
2. The LHC test *is* the practical test.
3. We don't know.

The LHC is not a practical test. See, I used the same word there as in "practical applications".. ah.. now I suppose you'll tell me that a radio receiver the size of the LHC is practical.

But since we can't answer `1 and 3 immediately, the LHC and Higgs are both useless to people who can't think more than 5 minutes into the future or about anything but themselves.

The LHC project, by definition, was not even an attempt to test "Higgs theory" without a large hadron collider.

Re:Rant.

[bmo]

>The LHC is not a practical test. See, I used the same word there as in "practical applications".. ah.. now I suppose you'll tell me that a radio receiver the size of the LHC is practical.

Oh wow, an argument in semantics.

Get fucked. I know I'm not going to change your mind so I won't bother.

--
BMO

Re:Rant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for conceding the argument. Now fuck off and stop wasting my taxes.

Re:Rant.

[Anonymous Coward]

So everything that science has discovered can be used to make money? What a load of shit. You bastards want to fool the masses and steal their taxes and fund your fantasy theories that *SOME OF THEM* .. *SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE* .. *MIGHT BE USEFUL*. Wow.. and that helps feed the starving kids how exactly? Great way to devalue existing suffering. Fuck you.. You should be the one who should be anally violated with not only a rake, but a spiked baseball bat.. with the spikes dipped in uranium first.

Re:Rant.

[bmo]

Your anger.

It pleases me.

--
BMO

I liked Clinton except for this

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Clinton kept our deficit low, and it was ingenious if he would have got a balanced budget amendment passed.

He spent 1/2 the money on this project getting it started then 1/4 closing it down, if he would have just spent 1/4 it would have been completed and bringing in physics jobs

Re:I liked Clinton except for this

[Rockoon]

Congress did try to pass a balanced budget amendment (TWICE, in 1995 and 1996) during Clinton's 8 years, but because it was the Republicans that proposed and promised the amendment (their "Contract With America") that most of the Democrats voted against it (because apparently there is nothing worse than Republicans getting credit for promising and then passing it.)

The 1995 act passed the House 300 to 132 but failed to get a 2/3rds majority (required for amendments) in the Senate with a vote of 65 to 35.

If you actually look at these references, you see that it was the Democrats voting against the balanced budget amendment and they are why it never got to Clinton's desk to be signed (although he had already stated that he would veto it anyways.) 97.7% of the Nay votes in the House were Democrats and 94.3% of the Nay votes in the Senate were Democrats.

Had it passed the Senate though, Clinton had already stated that he would veto it. You claim it would have been ingenious if he had gotten the balanced budget amendment passed, but in actually he and his party were hostile to it. The amendment itself was fairly benign, giving congress the power to still pass unbalanced budgets if they had to as long as they could get a 60% vote in both House and Senate.

You people act as if Clinton was great for the economy, but the facts transcend the media reporting, and obviously your ignorance. Clinton vetoed every balanced budget plan that hit his desk until after the government shutdown twice in 1995 for lack of a budget. There was no plan for a balanced budget until the Republicans took control of both House and Senate by promising exactly that. Clinton had already been in office for 2 years by that point, but he didnt even have a balanced budget plan. The media gave Clinton credit but he didnt deserve it. The media loved Clinton.

Re:I liked Clinton except for this

[Rockoon]

And here is the verbatim Amendment that the Democrats were hostile towards:

Section 1. Total estimated outlays of the operating funds of the United States for any fiscal year shall not exceed total estimated receipts to those funds for that fiscal year, unless Congress approves a specific excess of outlays over receipts by three-fifths of the whole number of each House by a roll-call vote.

Section 2. Prior to each fiscal year, the President shall transmit to the Congress a proposed budget for the United States Government for the fiscal year beginning in that calendar year in which total estimated outlays of the operating funds of the United States for that fiscal year shall not exceed total estimated receipts to those funds for that fiscal year.

Section 3. No bill to increase revenue shall become law unless approved by a majority of the whole number of each House by a roll-call vote.

Section 4. The Congress may waive the provisions of this article for any fiscal year and the first fiscal year thereafter if a declaration of war is in effect or if the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, or any successor, estimates that real economic growth has been or will be less than one percent for two consecutive quarters during the period of those two fiscal years. The provisions of this article may be waived for any fiscal year in which the United States is engaged in military conflict which causes an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by a joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each House, which becomes law, or if a presidential declaration of major disaster is in effect.

Section 5. Total estimated receipts of the operating funds shall exclude those derived from net borrowing. Total estimated outlays of the operating funds of the United States shall exclude those for repayment of debt principal; and for capital investments. The receipts (including attributable interest) and outlays of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund shall not be counted as receipts or outlays for purposes of this article.

Section 6. The Congress shall enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation, which may rely on estimates of outlays and receipts.

Section 7. This article shall take effect beginning with the later of the second fiscal year beginning after its ratification or the first fiscal year beginning after December 31, 2016.

No surprise there

[InspectorGadget1964]

After all, Texas is home for creationists and arms dealers. Anything that smells like science and will not translate in creating bigger explosions is considered irrelevant.

Re:No surprise there

[El Torico]

That's the problem, it wasn't presented to the American people right. It should have been packaged as "We're going to SMASH them there atoms SO HARD that we'll tear reality itself a new asshole!" Once in a while, they could let the MythBusters use it.

Thank god it wasent found in the US.

[ASDFnz]

Someone there would have patterned it and it would have been tied up in the court's for years!

We would end up having to pay the pattern holder if we were demonstrated to have mass.

"Cancelled by Congress"

[Kevin108]

With every virtually every federal election lies the possibility for massive changes. The fact that such important research was based solely on the availability of government funds shows exquisitely poor planning.

Destructive experimentation

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

Do subatomic particles exist in the same way that atoms or a grain of sand exist? What if the Higgs and other subatomic particles exist only as the product of the LHC and other particle smashers.

Or put it this way: Imagine I have created, in my disgust at Apple's patent practices, the Gimongous Apple Smasher. (Apple fans can use my other invention, the Android+ Smasher.) Because of the way it's constructed, whenever I use the iSmasher, I wind up with five pieces of broken glass. Am I justified then in proclaiming that the iPhone screen consists of five pieces of glass cleverly joined together (subatomic particles) rather than a single sheet of glass (an atom)?

Re:Destructive experimentation

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can break something down further, then there is something that that thing is made of smaller than itself. If there were no such subatomic particles and for the sake of explanation here say that the atom was the smallest possible unit, you wouldn't end up with any 'pieces' you'd just have an atom moving in a different direction.

Re:Destructive experimentation

[Electricity Likes Me]

Not strictly true, but not wrong either. Like all science, its a positivist model which we test against the data. It turns out you can fairly accurately simulate atomic nuclei as consisting of protons and neutrons trapped inside a potential well. Are they actually protons and neutrons in that state, or do they just behave that way under certain types of probing?

It really doesn't matter - in so far as long as prediction continues to match experiment.

Re:Destructive experimentation

[schroedingers_hat]

Uhm, you seem to be on a rather circuitous route towards what quantum physics is all about -- or at least field theories.
To take an example, a large atomic nucleus doesn't have a bunch of distinct electrons whizzing about it, it has a bunch of electron-ness in its general vicinity.
The electron-ness can only be poked/prodded removed and replaced in set amounts. Electron-ness consists of energy, charge, spin and a few other things. These quantities must always be added and removed in specific ratios if you're adding or removing electron-ness. You must remove charge in chunks of 1 electron/proton charge, angular momentum in a fundamental unit of spin (plus a bit if your whole system is spinning), energy in electron masses plus a bit if your whole system is at a different potential, and so on.
But when the electron-ness is all together, there's no way we know of to distinguish the different bits, and it's even provable that they share certain pieces of information.
So to go back to your glass analogy, it's as if we discover that we can break an iphone screen into five chunks of glass, and _everything_ glass is made of some integer multiple of chunks that mass. When you have a whole piece of glass, it looks like that -- an unbroken whole, but you can only break bits of a certain mass off no matter what you try (the concept of size is a bit more finnicky). Also if you hit one part of the screen really hard and listen to the echo it'll sound like that portion of the screen was an individual chunk, much smaller than one fifth of the screen for a moment, but if you wait a little while and poke it gently it looks like one unbroken whole again.

Re:Destructive experimentation

[beerbear]

Great post! Only thing missing is a car analogy!

Re:Destructive experimentation

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

I'm assuming that there are subatomic particles, but wondering what gives physicists the confidence that there are so-and-so types of particles. To continue with my analogy, what makes them assert there are five pieces of broken glass and not four or six?

Re:Destructive experimentation

[psiclops]

it's like you take your car and go to a drive in physics lecture and then can see that there really is something smaller that makes up the glass.

Re:Destructive experimentation

[geekoid]

SO you are saying that the standard model seems correct because just by sheer coincident collider create the predicted particles?

Also, if what you say is true we wouldn't find unexpected particles; which have been found.

consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Not spending has consequences..

Nope.

[mosb1000]

You are incorrect. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally at the end of World War 2. The terms demanded by the allied powers were laid out in the Potsdam Declaration and require an unconditional surrender. These terms were initially rejected by the Japanese. After the bombings, the Japanese agreed to them and surrendered unconditionally.

The emperor was removed from power, as the terms required, but continues in a purely ceremonial role.

Seems the LHC's win was an IT win

[jmichaelg]

The Tevatron in Illinois is capable of reaching 1 tera volts or 8 times as much energy the LHC needed to produce the Higgs.

Seems to me the LHC found it because they were able to pull the signal out of the background which was more a data analysis feat than a "let's smash protons together even harder than we have before" feat.

Then again, I'm not a physicist so perhaps I missed something.

Re:Seems the LHC's win was an IT win

[Phroon]

You have it exactly backwards. The LHC has 8 times more energy and smashes significantly more protons. The LHC has gotten nearly as much data in two years as the Tevatron collider got in its ~15 year lifetime.

Re:Seems the LHC's win was an IT win

[TomJetland]

The LHC has 8 teraelectronvolt collisions, with that extra energy making it many times more likely that a 'fragment' of the collision will have the 125 GeV needed to form the Higgs Boson.

Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[Taco Cowboy]

I remember, back in the late 1980's and the early 1990's, the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) region was so excited over the prospect of having to host the "Super Conductor Super Collider"

And then, the congress killed it

At the time they were saying that congress couldn't find enough $$$ to build such a thing

However, I think there's another reason - the Congress of the United States of America simply does not like Texas

Maybe I am wrong on this, but that's my hunch
 

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[Karmashock]

It's certainly a factor. Texas is disliked by by certain political factions that find it's political power and economic ascendance to be inconvenient.

Don't take it personally. All the powerful states have enemies. I live in California... believe me. We have our enemies. Texas tends to get screwed more often then California by national politics but that's because texas is bad at playing political games.

Look at texas politicians... are they known for being great orators? It's a problem. Indifferent to the state's politics, they need to hire more competent politicians or they're going to get screwed repeatedly. They have more then enough power to protect themselves if they're defended competently.

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Neither you nor the parent remember any history at all. The only reason that the SSC was sited in the DFW area is because Jim Wright (the Representative from DFW) just happened to be the Speaker of the House at the time. Everybody else on the planet wanted to site it at Fermilab, and use the existing equipment in situ, rather than starting from scratch. So, once again, politics trumped engineering.

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[wvmarle]

Didn't the two presidents Bush come from Texas?

Look at texas politicians... are they known for being great orators? It's a problem.

It does prove your point of course :-)

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[BancBoy]

Didn't the two presidents Bush come from Texas?

Massachusetts and Connecticut, as it happens. I can't imagine where you got the impression that they were from Texas...

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[wvmarle]

Well, this and this for example. Just the first two links of a Google search on "hometown of george bush". Hometown to me is where someone grew up, or lived most of their lives, not necessarily where they were born.

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[Joce640k]

I wonder if congress will forbid scientists from using the results of those dirty foreign experiments. It would certainly be unpatriotic to use them, right?

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[evilRhino]

They were allegedly born in Massachusetts and Connecticut respectively, but are associated with Texas (the latter being elected governor of the state, even).

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[contrapunctus]

call them freedom particles

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Texas and California are annoying, incompetent braggarts. Why can't you both be more like well behaved Delaware or Indiana?

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[interkin3tic]

The projected cost did spiral from 4.4 billion in 1987 to 12 billion in 1993 (source). I think rather than not liking Texas, it was a matter of congress at one time being concerned with billions of dollars. Granted, they never would have batted an eye had this been a military expenditure even then, but the costs were significant too.

Re:Why they cancelled the Texas Super Collider?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally wrong, Google the history.

How could it have been found in Texas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you not read the story? It turned out to be in Switzerland!

Please

[Anonymous Coward]

God forbid that it wasnt discovered in america....

They would have sold it to a patent troll

[ross.w]

You have mass, therefore you owe a licence fee.

So how educated are you?

[csumpi]

First though, stereotyping is stupid and unfair. I could say that based on your bullying, calling the other guy an idiot, Fox News watcher, global warming denier, I could guess your political views.

Life is not as black and white as you make it out to be. For example I'm a Catholic, have conservative views, tend to agree more with Republicans, watch the O'Reilly Factor every once in a while and will vote for the Republican nominee this year. However in '08 I voted Democrat, studied nuclear physics in college, do believe that the Earth is warming, disagree with our reliance on foreign oil, drive a hybrid car and installed a geothermal heating system in our house. My best friend is gay, I'm not against abortion and my kids play with Asian and African-American kids. I also don't own any guns and there is evolution.

But let's get back to you calling the other guy uneducated. A simple search on wikipedia reveals that Catholics have been historically Democrats, and recently:

"Their party independence continued into 2000, and Catholics became the large religious grouping that most closely reflected the total electorate, ahead of mainline Protestants. 50% of Catholics voted for Al Gore versus 47% for George W. Bush in the very close 2000 election. 52% of Catholics voted for Bush's successful reelection compared to 47% for the Catholic John Kerry in 2004, versus 51% to 48% overall.[4] Barack Obama, who chose the Catholic Joe Biden as his running mate, received 54% of the Catholic vote in 2008 compared to John McCain's 45%, close to the overall 52% to 46%."

Most Jewish people are also Democrats, Republicans hardly get any votes from them.

But I won't do your research on all religions. You should do that, before you call the next guy an idiot.

Al Gore could lose a couple pounds, and if he really believes in the sea levels rising, he should not buy an ocean front mansion nor fly around on his private jet.

And just before I let you go, you should know that discovering Higgs boson will not put a dent in Creationism and there's nothing wrong with people having different beliefs. Religious freedom is what our great country was built on.

Re:So how educated are you?

[icebraining]

Where exactly in that post did PopeRatzo implied anything about religion or religious people? I think you have a bit of a persecution complex.

Re:So how educated are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are free to believe anything they want(pink unicorns, god, gnomes, fairies, whatever), denying scientific research is what makes them look super stupid in my eyes. Science is all about predicting things based on observations. If things don't happen like you predict with your model your model is wrong ( most likely they are all wrong, but right enough at the same time ). If the model is wrong you fix it. Religion goes stupid when they decide something, and then can't switch their opinion when new evidence is found.

Re:So how educated are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

" My best friend is gay, I'm not against abortion and my kids play with Asian and African-American kids. "

What the hell is wrong with you?
Is this your site? http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com/

Re:So how educated are you?

[geekoid]

"l vote for the Republican nominee this year. "
Why the hell would anyone do that?
His economic position have never, not once, gotten any country in our situation economically better.
The economy has improved a lot with Obama policy's. Economically they have worked to get countries in similar situation out of it.

" he should not buy an ocean front mansion "
Why not? please, what great logical leap have you come to the means an increase in ocean sea levels over the next 100years means you can't buy a home on the sea now?

"nothing wrong with people having different beliefs."
ther is when one is provably wrong and those people want to shove it down peoples throats.

" Religious freedom is what our great country was built on."
Yes, to keep you fuck twads from infecting other people. It was built to escape religious oppression. Something Catholics, and many other religious groups are trying to create. Yes, FORCING people into your belief system is oppression.

Keep your damn 'beliefs' to yourself and we don't have a problem. Present them as fact, and then make shit up to support them when they are shown to be wrong is a problem.
Ironically, one of the drivers in create this country was fear of Catholics. Because catholics where the worst at abusing people then.

"Higgs boson will not put a dent in Creationism"
of course not, it's an irrational belief, so even another ton of evidences it's wrong won't change their minds. Their minds where closed a long time ago

Re:So how educated are you?

[csumpi]

Hi Dad In Portland-

"Why the hell would anyone do that? His economic position have never, not once, gotten any country in our situation economically better. The economy has improved a lot with Obama policy's. Economically they have worked to get countries in similar situation out of it."

You would need to provide some proof for that. Otherwise it's just your belief, and forcing it on us would, as you said, be some sort of oppression. From what I see, after being on track to add $6 trillion to the deficit in one term, unemployment, housing, manufacturing still pretty bad. Even Obama said a couple of weeks ago, that the economy is not doing good. And all this deficit we are towering up, our children will have to pay back. I can't do that to my kids. Can you?

"please, what great logical leap have you come to the means an increase in ocean sea levels over the next 100years means you can't buy a home on the sea now?"

It seems disingenuous. I don't like our reliance on foreign oil, nor blowing through finite resources, so I drive a hybrid car and don't heat my house with oil. Even though I could afford a gas guzzler and the oil it would guzzle.

"Yes, to keep you fuck twads from infecting other people."

That's not all of it. It's to keep government out of people's personal business. Like give you free speech, so you can call others fuck twads, without worry. (By the way if you are really a dad, might want to watch that.)

"Keep your damn 'beliefs' to yourself and we don't have a problem."

While I'm a Catholic, I don't practice religion. I do not believe that God created the universe. But I don't have any issues with people who do. And be that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, (..insert more here..) religion teaches people to do good. Only a small fraction uses it for evil, but most people mean good.

"of course not, it's an irrational belief, so even another ton of evidences it's wrong won't change their minds"

So what will the discovery of Higgs boson mean to you? Will it really, in all entirety, prove to you exactly how matter was created? Because if not, will it not be just another belief? Will you be able to prove how the universe came to be? If not, how, for you, will it be any better than the guy who believes in creationism?

Re:So how educated are you?

[couchslug]

"there's nothing wrong with people having different beliefs"

If those beliefs cannot be supported by evidence yet are sold as truths, that makes them LIES and propagation of lies as truth is indeed "wrong".

Prove your God exists, now, and I'll recant and grovel before the Pope.

Re:So how educated are you?

[csumpi]

I forgot to mention above that while I'm Catholic by birth, I don't practice religion, nor do I believe in the Christian God. But that's beside the point.

I cannot prove to you that God exists. But you also cannot prove that God doesn't exist. And, proving pro or con is completely unnecessary. That's not the point of the whole "God" thing.

Believing in God or any Higher Power is a personal thing. It doesn't have to be the Christian God, or any other religion's God. You can make one up for yourself; it can be a group of people, your family, or even a doorknob. It should help and comfort you, especially in situations that are out of your control. Maybe you are just not ready yet?

There is also no reason why science and religion couldn't or wouldn't co-exist. From wikipedia:

Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule.

Not all beliefs can be supported by evidence, but are widely accepted. The Big Bang Theory is one of them. Yet it isn't a lie, is it? It's just the best we can do with all that we know.

you are refering to poe's law

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

and you sound like a dirty socialist

THAT WAS A JOKE

America should take a page out of China's book.

[dohzer]

Let other countries do the hard work and then profit from their research results. Chin up, USA!

Re:If discovered in Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

The particle would have been too big to mess with.

Choices

[Anonymous Coward]

It essentially came down to a choice.... International Space Station or Super Collider.... Thank You Congress! History will record the winner! ::Sarcasm::

How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, how sad that the USA didn't discover it first. Now they can't shove it in our faces like they do with everything else and demand that we respect them because "we can revoke your right to watch TV at any time since we invented it!"

But I guess they'll still claim that technically they 'discovered' it first because "we had the supercollider before the LHC was built", just like how they always say they invented the web.

Personally I'm happy that this was the result of international collaboration. It shows what we can achieve, as humans, when we gently push away those who like turning everything into a pissing contest.

Re:How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

scientists lament, an AC goes fucking bananas, news at 11

Head crabs.

[Anonymous Coward]

The USA drains the brains from so many countries because it leads in so many areas of science.

EWWWWW!

Texas? Texas!

[kstahmer]

With regard to Texas, consider Gunny Sergeant Hartman.

Were the Higgs discovered in Texas, Perry would want its secession from the Standard Model.

Could have, might have, if only.

[aslanuk]

Seriously, what is this post. Russia could have won the “space race”, hell Europe could have won the space race with enough funding. We could end would poverty with enough funding. Could have, might have, if only. Yawn, move on.

Texans who believe in Science...

[Anonymous Coward]

...should get more press. It is always good hear.

This would be interesting news 19 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

So who gives a shit. Who cares about some supercollider that died on the vine before Pokemon was around. Who cares about some scientists saying "what if" about some shit that was axed when Clinton was barely in office. Who cares what country the Higgs boson is found in. The laws of physics are the same in all countries, in case anyone was under some other impression. Shit is not even worth reaching my fingers over to activate the question mark button. All the comments on this article are basically "LOL Texas." Thanks for wasting our time with this!

Frink

[Anonymous Coward]

I predict that in 20 years, there will be just 5 computers in the world, and they will only be affordable for the crowned heads of Europe.

For all you know, the ability for a few million future physics students to ponder the implications of the Higgs with certainty about its nature might lead to tabletop fusion. You. Just. Don't. Know.

Then, once we have safe tabletop fusion, the pocket hadron collider might be a simple matter. No puns or double entendres intended.

Higgs Boson found in Europe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Higgs Boson found in Europe - meanwhile, the US government found out that no evidence of mermaids exists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18692830

Welcome back to the scientific front, post-WW2 Europeans! :-D

A hundred years ago

[tanveer1979]

Electron has been discovered. Its pretty cool.
But I can't fathom whats the use.

Remember, particle physics discoveries usually take decades, if not centuries to result in something usable.
Look at Quantum theory viz quantum computers.

Too late for step 2

[The Creator]

It's the particle that gives mass, it's been weaponized ever since sticks and stones..

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

[Arancaytar]

Grind up a nation's education system and divert the science budget into tax cuts, and see what you end up with. The United States will have trouble competing with North Korea soon.

But at least schoolchildren won't be offended by hearing about evolution, and college students will just have to become indentured servants to pay off their debt. Who needs a functioning public education system anyway?

CWS

[Anonymous Coward]

Coulda
Woulda
Shoulda

HAHA!

[arginite]

HAHA!

USA, not America

[giuseppemag]

The world is much, much bigger than the USA alone... Also, in regard to TFA, well, the world is big and science is not really a competition.

Texas Scientist would have lost the contest anyway

[gedeco]

First they discovered timetravelling at LHC
http://news.softpedia.com/news/LHC-Could-Allow-Matter-to-Travel-Through-Time-189936.shtml

Rewrite history!

Those stupid politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

Would they have done this and that then we would have this great achievement. This is the tenor of most posts here. Well the truth is, you in the US elected these people who said no to that collider thing in Texas. It is not important if every slashdot-poster here elected them, but US citizens did. As the US is a democracy (on paper), you (US citizens) would have been able to elect other people, which were not that dumb and stupid and corrupt, but instead you choose those which are now sitting in office. What makes that you? Also dumb and stupid? Well, there is hope, you could educate and empower people instead of wining.

And by the way the CERN achievement is a all human achievement. Even the US invested some money. But the important thing is, we all as humans can now enjoy the growth of knowledge or ask dumb questions.

On a side note: The US is a declining society, which can be seen in the reduction of resources spend on education, science and social services on one side and the reduction of taxes for the rich, which results in a bigger divide in society turning people apart. There are similar tendencies in Europe. The best thing would be to engage each one of us in a) accepting certain facts concerning sustainability and b) act on them. So no winging: The environmentalist want to steel my car, instead find out how you could life without it. When we all do such things, we will get chance and that ends the decline in society and in the end you may build the next collider. Even though it is not important were it is build (beside for national pride, which sucks big time).

whine more americunts

[Anonymous Coward]

srsly, noone cares about you and your superiority/inferiority complex.
If you discovered it, you would fuckin copyright it and/or hide it from public anyway.
get real, you are not any superior nation (anymore), make sure, you will have any liquidity after 5 years before whining.

His nick.

[Kupfernigk]

PopeRatzo...a red rag to the remaining Catholics who actually take the Pope seriously. I know one of them and all I can say is, don't mention the Hitlerjugend, he goes ape. (For the record, my personal view is that the Catholic Church is a great institution which has been repeatedly let down by its management. In which it joins a number of banks, and many countries. As someone who believes that Hans Kung is a truly great theologian, I have nothing but contempt for Ratzinger. But giving yourself the nick of "PopeRatzo" is provocative, just as that Irish blogger who called himself Guido Fawkes while anonymously attacking the British government was being provocative. (I mention him just to make the point that Catholics can be tasteless too.. nihil humani a me alienum puto).

Re:His nick.

[PopeRatzo]

"PopeRatzo" is a nickname I've had since I was about 12 years old in the late 1960s. I grew up in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood and was an altar boy (thus, my smart-ass friends called me "pope" because I was such a goody goody and wore a dress in church with the priests. The joke back then was "What kind of sex do priests have? Nun." Of course, that was before we knew that so many priests were serial child rapists and that the church leaders all the way up to the Vatican and including the current Pope Benedict were complicit in protecting those rapist-priests.)

Next time, if you have a question, you should just ask me directly.

Re:His nick.

[csumpi]

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

In all fairness, you could've asked the person you yelled at about his political views, his news outlet preference, his education level, his views on global warming and science in general, before you tagged him an idiot.

Instead, here you are, spewing venom about religion, while you are trying to explain that your nick doesn't mean that you are against religion.

Re:His nick.

[PopeRatzo]

In all fairness, you could've asked the person you yelled at about his political views, his news outlet preference, his education level, his views on global warming and science in general

No need.

Instead, here you are, spewing venom about religion, while you are trying to explain that your nick doesn't mean that you are against religion.

I didn't say anything about religion.

Re:His nick.

[csumpi]

"I didn't say anything about religion."

"I grew up in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood and was an altar boy (thus, my smart-ass friends called me "pope" because I was such a goody goody and wore a dress in church with the priests. The joke back then was "What kind of sex do priests have? Nun." Of course, that was before we knew that so many priests were serial child rapists and that the church leaders all the way up to the Vatican and including the current Pope Benedict were complicit in protecting those rapist-priests.)"

Re:His nick.

[csumpi]

"No need."

Doesn't seem to be the best way to argue for science, nor that anyone's uneducated.

Re:His nick.

[PopeRatzo]

"I grew up in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood and was an altar boy (thus, my smart-ass friends called me "pope" because I was such a goody goody and wore a dress in church with the priests. The joke back then was "What kind of sex do priests have? Nun." Of course, that was before we knew that so many priests were serial child rapists and that the church leaders all the way up to the Vatican and including the current Pope Benedict were complicit in protecting those rapist-priests.)"

Again, what about my comment was about "religion"? It was an historically accurate statement about a particular organized church, not about religion in general. It's a comment about crime, not about religion.

Not every religion sanctions child rape, you know.

Snoop It

[Anonymous Coward]

It's irrelevant. Once the NSA ramps up its snoopsville out in hicksville all R&D in the US will plummet. Why waste money inventing stuff when you can just snoop and steal it?

Ni Hao Ma?

The tunnel still exists...

[SeanDS]

I believe the 87km circumference tunnel at the Superconducing Super Collider still exists. The land above it has been built upon since, according to Wikipedia. However, the tunnel is the most capital intensive investment in a collider project, so perhaps in the distant future there could well be a Texas collider producing new physics. In contrast to the 27km circumference Large Hadron Collider, which provided evidence for the Higgs yesterday, the 87km ring would allow even higher energies to be obtained, and, along with it, hopefully some new particles (e.g. those predicted by superstring theory and other ToEs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything)). As a citizen of the physics community and the world, here's hoping.

Re:The tunnel still exists...

[dainbug]

Pretty sure the tunnel is full of Fire Ants and illegals bring drugs into the country.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I know, anon poster and all, but:
GP got accidentally modded to +4 for pointing out:
1. His original position was false.
2. Republicans flocked about as hard as Democrats to kill this thing.

Despite the course language, parent is right on calling this out -- and should be modded up.

-- Anon.

Wait What?

[dainbug]

Did this story start with the words: Texas Scientists? Ok, too easy, sorry Houston.

the Higgs Boson might have been confirmed a decade

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you cry about it. Saddlebags

What question?

[Kupfernigk]

I just observed that referring to Benedict XVI* as "Pope Ratzo" causes the more papist Catholics to go somewhat ape. When I was a kid, there was a kind of jam which had a caricature of a black person on it, called a "golliwog". If you chose the nick "golliwog" because you liked the jam when you were 12, it would still be insensitive in 2012. I can't help your choices.

*Translates as "good speech 16th". If you happen to be Jewish or Muslim, YMMV.

Re:What question?

[PopeRatzo]

I just observed that referring to Benedict XVI* as "Pope Ratzo" causes the more papist Catholics to go somewhat ape.

Can you give an example? I've never heard of Pope Benedict referred to as "Pope Ratzo".

If I'd wanted to refer to Pope Benedict in an unflattering way, my nickname would have been "PopeBennieTheEnablerOfChildRapists" or something along those lines.

Who's to say they would have found it

[Anonymous Coward]

Should've. Could've. Would've.... but didn't

Since idiots question the methods

[Anonymous Coward]

Since idiots question the methods, the methods are by definition questionable. However, those questions did not invalidate the results.

You, my dear girl, are an ignoramus of the first order.

Re:Since idiots question the methods

[Jane Q. Public]

"Since idiots question the methods, the methods are by definition questionable. However, those questions did not invalidate the results.

You, my dear girl, are an ignoramus of the first order."

PROFESSIONALS have questioned them... including, as I pointed out elsewhere, the investigators who investigated the science. If you want to call them idiots, then you can't very well celebrate the investigators' conclusions of "no criminality", can you? You can't have it both ways.

And you call ME an "idiot". Haha.

They have been accused of using more-than-questionable statistical methods by professional, well-respected statisticians.

They have been accused of getting the physics of their models wrong by professional, well-respected physicists.

"You, my dear girl, are an ignoramus of the first order."

And you, sir, are apparently a sufferer of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. I've done my homework on this subject. You have not.

Like an Aircraft Carrier that Cannot Intimidate

[retroworks]

The collider funding may have passed USA Congress if it had been named the "USS Ronald Reagan" super-collider, that is how the military industrial complex gets these spending appropriations passed. Then they have some part manufactured in several states, to keep jobs for key legislators. The collider folks could have won an additional 25 votes that way, which may not have been enough. But the key problem was that you cannot intimidate anyone with the collider. Aircraft carriers are a gift that keeps on giving.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well when your government spends more time preventing the queers from marrying instead of doing actual science, you'll miss the mark on a few things.

I'm sure there's a patent troll out there looking to patent matter...

Incorrect.

[geekoid]

Another incorrect attack on Bill Clinton.. you haters are so sad.

  in 1993, Clinton tried to prevent the cancellation by asking Congress to continue "to support this important and challenging effort" through completion because "abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science"

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1993-book1/pdf/PPP-1993-book1-doc-pg864.pdf

Re:Incorrect.

[flyneye]

And yet that is how it went down despite saying one thing, yet doing another. Typical of his administration and several used car salesmen.
My kids tried that for a while, but were punished and that character flaw no longer exists in them.
Someone should wale on Bill for a while, it probably won't do any good at his age, but, what the hell.

WRONG

[geekoid]

Congress killed it with a veto proof majority. While I think a president shoud veto something they don't think is right even ehen it has a veto proof majority, few presidents do as it is a waste of time. The best they can do is make a public statement, sign it and move on.
This applies to any president Clinton, Bush, Reagan, doesn't matter.

, in 1993, Clinton tried to prevent the cancellation by asking Congress to continue "to support this important and challenging effort" through completion because "abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science"

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PPP-1993-book1/pdf/PPP-1993-book1-doc-pg864.pdf

Boom boom!!!

[Fuzzums]

But no. Congress fancies other types of bang.
If they, and many other governments, would spend more money on research instead of war...

re

[enough2013]

They spent billions now we know as much as they do.....Win-Win

Higgs particle *was not* in Texas!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Higgs Particle *actually was* on the Swiss/French border, not in Texas. So it would have been a waste to look for it in Texas.

Texas has scientist?

[John Holmes]

Holy shit.

Nothing that helps fosters the truth..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing that helps fosters the truth of the world would ever be allowed in Texas anyway. So I doubt they care either way.

The "God" Particle...

[JonathanPDX]

Ha ha ha! Just wait til they detect an even smaller particle, and so on.
Will that be the NEW and IMPROVED "God" particle? Or the Protestant "God" particle?
Humans are so full of themselves. It's just a smaller particle. There will be many more.
Just because we can't detect something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Mankind's science is severely limited. It will take a much greater intelligence than he has
to discover the tiniest particles of matter.

Re:Texas eh?http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/0

[hey!]

Well you can't look at a vote without looking at the alternatives on the table. It wasn't so simple as "pro science if and only if pro SSC." There were at least two other debates going on here: "big science vs. small science" and "pure vs. applied." There were a lot of scientists who were against the SSC because they thought it was sucking away funding from many worthy small projects of individual researchers and small teams.

At the time of the cancellation, there was a sharp partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats over the funding of applied science, precipitated by radical changes in funding requests by Reagan and George HW Bush. The Reagan administration was strongly against any public funding of applied research unless it had military applications.

This led to a sharp difference in funding priorities between Republicans and Democrats. In the you-say-potato world of Washington politics, this made the SSC a political issue. It was easy for Republicans to get behind the SSC because it was a matter of national prestige and it didn't violate their funding ideology. The Democratic attitude towards the SSC was initially more apathetic than antipathetic; Republican support for the SSC made it easier for them to reason that we didn't really need it that much.

Even so, it wasn't quite the kind of sharp partisan divide we're familiar with today. Many Republicans were unenthusiastic about the project, and Democrats were pretty close to evenly split. Clinton was a supporters, although not a strong one. I don't think that the SSC funding issue of pro-science vs. anti-science, but a more complex one involving fiscal conservatism and ideologies about government spending.

These days we've moved on, and science controversies have become much more divided along partisan lines (climate change research, support for "creation science"). Iindividual lawmakers are voting more party-line than they used to.

on the other hand

[KingBenny]

some extremist non-americans might say it doesn't really matter where it was found, as long as it was

!Broken window fallacy

[dtmos]

No, it's not: I mentioned exactly how much the SSC would cost each citizen, had it been completed -- $40. The argument is that that $40 would have been a good investment for the country, for the reasons outlined, had it been made in 1993.

SCSC Cancellation was political

[hidave]

President Clinton cancelled the SCSC about five minutes after he assumed the presidency in Jan 1993. He was punishing the state of Texas for voting Republican in the 1992 election.

everyone just be quiet - eat or be eaten

[Anonymous Coward]

the USA is good to have advanced education provided for everyone who can apply and get it - out of country students come in, leverage our resources, apply their brains to our resources provided by the US of A... and then go home, apply it, produce it and sell it back to us.

shitty kind of globalization and economics.. yet.. we... the stupid people of America allow it without much of a fight.

I love engineering, I love my country, I love being a veteran, and I love my company and the results we produce.

The crux is the vision in our mission as a country. 95% of the people I know are non-engineering.. 5% maybe are, but they just want benefits, great retirement, and work 8-5, raise a family, and not compete for their job space in the sake of age, skill, and seniority. the baby boomers are all but falling off the cliff now of support, finding a decent wage, have enough for any kind of retirement, and I would like to re-iterate, NEVER retire.. just keep working until you are dead.

Retirement is an american myth as of 2010.. own a company, work it, love it, serve the people, get rewarded, and keep your living costs to 30% less than what you earn.. you will be fine.. ps. start to buckle up..

and Cowboy Up!

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[qinda]

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The real question is....

[Anonymous Coward]

how would America have managed to paint their flag on every Higgs Bosum particle

I for one am extremely glad it wasnt discovered in the US

Too good to pass up

[dtmos]

Ordinarily I don't reply to ACs, but this one's too good to pass up:

I find it laughable to listen to someone trivialize CERN, and the EU's investment in it, as an economic waste on the world wide web. Where do you think this wonderful tool came from, the sky? Don't you think that invention of the web alone added more to the economies of the investing EU nations than all the money they invested in CERN?

More Republitarian lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Try posting that under your actual UID.

Or are you one of the Republitarians who modded the comment down?

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