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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."
Mexico regrets the loss of Texas...
If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.
Eleventy billion dollar grant.
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.
They have a Sigma 5 confidence level which is equivalent to one chance in a million that they're mistaken.
This is science, not a pissing contest. Where something is discovered is meaningless.
... they would have patented it then sued everyone for having mass.
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
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...
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.
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.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Find free books.
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).
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
:wq
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.
hmmm... an experiment must be falsifiable.
It's theories that must be falsifiable. Experiments should be repeatable.
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
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
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.
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?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Here we go...
Why don't you explain to us what you think "falsifiable" means?
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.
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.
Wait, what?
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...".
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's why they waited until they have 5 sigma confidence. They had 3 sigma last year.
Rethinking email
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...
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.
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.
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..
>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
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.
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.
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.
"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).
What makes you think they can keep a secret?
The Chinese will be selling Higgs Boson powered sex toys in 2 weeks.
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.
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.
love is just extroverted narcissism
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
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?
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.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
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)?
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.
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.
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
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
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.
love is just extroverted narcissism
>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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
"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.
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...
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.
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
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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.
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
> 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.
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
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Synchronizing stop lights across the US = one less nuclear power plant