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Why Were So Many "Crazy" Higgs Boson Stories Published?
The presumed discovery of the Higgs boson may be one of the most important scientific discoveries ever, but it did bring out quite a bit of "strange" science reporting. In addition to blogs, many mainstream news sites jumped on the crazy headline bandwagon. The ability to soon travel at the speed of light, the building of a Star Trek style transporter, and many stories of the particle proving God doesn't exist have made the rounds in the past week. Is the particle's discovery just on the fringe of common scientific knowledge and therefore prone to wild speculation, or does this all come down to having the most sensational headline?
Let me steal this first post to invite fellow slashdotters to a Higgs Boson Scientists Launch Party next weekend in San Francisco. We have friendly people, interesting discussions and huge orgy. Everyone is welcome to come! WOOOHOOO
The exact same reasons we read headlines about creating universe eating black holes when the thing started up.. about global pandemics that are going to wipe us all out.. about “Africanized” bees. It gets eyeball time, which is what it’s all about.
“A long held theory has been possibly confirmed”
Vs.
“THE FUTURE IS HERE, LIVE LIKE THE JETSONS IN 5 YEARS!”
One of those is going to sell a _lot_ more toothpaste.
I didn't see any articles like that, are you confusing random small blogs for mainstream news sites? Or was this an American news thing?
thus it is very easy to jump on. You have one story, and thousands of different news outlets - all of them trying to find *their* angle on the story. Thus you wind up with 1% news 99% cruft. If you look below the surface, this happens with all 'news'.
Some day we'll be able to dial up velocity to 1.1 times c!
I'm waiting for the one-time-application tooth-enamel-protector we will surely have in 5 years thanks to the discovery of the Higgs!
Sorry advertisers, your current pre-Higgs-announcement product lines are already obsolete so I won't be buying any of them.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A little from column A, a little from column B.
Could be that the book by Leon Lederman in 1993 which was going to be entitled "That Goddamn Particle" got turned into "The God Particle" by his publisher. Typical disregard for fact in favor of sensationalism to promote sales.
Science journalism sucks.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Everyone at CERN, as per usual, but with a little more enthusiasm, was getting gossipy about the 4th (as far back as a few weeks), they were handjobbing the media, but yes, with more gusto, more finesse in the wrist if you will. Hornily leaking things over Skype phone calls, I kid you not, I have an audio file of it.
Its just the usual gutter-press SOP.
Now anyone and their dog can publish "news" and "comment", d'you think that we're going to get intelligent and well thought out reporting? Eh?
Yeah, that must be why CERN used Linux. So then MS shill, let's see MS's contributions...
And journalists are morons.
It's been a slow news Summer.
Unless you have a thick enough skin to get involved in the US election campaigns, which are like droning, dull soap opera.
Come to think about it .. that's probably why Higgs-Boson was so exciting - it's a diversion from the horror or the rest of the news.
Higgs-Boson Party at my house! Beer! Party hats! Quantum Physics! Whooo!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Calling Higgs boson "The God Particle" is probably the greatest marketing decision in the history of science.
I am not the GP, but Microsoft uses Linux too. Microsoft provided research to CERN, not OS. CERN probably used Linux because it's highly customizable. Windows is too, but not to that extend, and it suits Microsoft just fine. Unlike FOSS zealots, they understand the importance of using right tool for the job.
It's really just a terrible name calling it the "God" particle. It's only called that because the publishers wouldn't let Lederman publish with the title "The Goddam Particle" which would 'offend' people. It's too bad people don't read the actual CERN report, which was very good and accurate. Nothing like letting the mainstream news fudge everything up as always.
...as the actual science.
CERN datacenters run Linux..... the fact that Microsoft research also runs Linux servers is no surprise. Its all about using the right tool for the job. They could have crunched numbers on iPad's but it would have just taken longer so why do it.
Stupid sells even better than sex.
WALSTIB!
I count as "crazy" any story that referred to the Higgs boson as the "God Particle."
When it comes to quantum physics, almost everyone is a moron.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/q-and-a-the-higgs-boson-and-you.html
Don't even try to read the rest of it, unless you like wasting your time.
Based on this famous quote:
“Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
That would put this sort of annoying Higgs boson chatter squarely in the realm of average minds.
They can usually come up with something good to say about events most of us understand. But they can't understand the Higgs boson. Doesn't matter: the media is all about generating copy, this is the highest imperative. Making sense is secondary. And so not understanding doesn't prevent them from trying to say something. Nor should it, according to the logic of their profession, since the logic of their profession says the editorial has to be filed on time, the column must fit so many square inches of space, the front page must have timely links about today's news.
And so they all come up with this WHARRGARBL like the NY Times story above. Welcome to the media industry.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Perhaps it shows how much people are waiting for the next frontier to happen. You know .. space ships and robot hookers ... in fact .. forget about the spaceships.
I wanted to be a theoretical physicist when I grew up (oh, childhood dreams) and I've got an above average understanding of particle physics just from my general fascination with the subject. Even I have a tough time grasping the nitty gritty details of the Higgs field. The sensationalism stems from 1. The general population not understanding particle physics and 2. The general population not understanding the nature of the announcement. The Higgs wasn't so much discovered as it was confirmed to be exactly where we expected it to be all along. No new technology will come out of this so much as our understanding of the universe has been strengthened considerably - we're on the right track with the Standard Model after all.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Journalists don't understand any of this, that's the simple truth. Its just gibberish which they copy verbatim and add any old bullshit they can find to it.
Bottom line, its the result of an extremely poor education system.
So what does this discussion have to do with open/closed source again?
SCIENCE JOURNALISTS KNOW LESS SCIENCE THAN GEORGE W BUSH
But it's not exactly news, is it? Science journalism works like this:
1 Scientist writes paper about the biodiversity of the average suburban house
2 Press officer at scientist's institution is bored and decides to read paper
3 Press officer gets through three words of the paper before going to ask scientist for a canned summary
4 Scientist writes a 20 word canned summary highlighting the unexpected variety of creatures to be found in the average household and how this is a good thing for preventing the onset of various respiratory illnesses in children
5 Press officer cuts the canned summary down to four words and runs it backwards through a thesaurus
6 Journalist reads the remaining four words, which are probably "Mutant Bacteria Infest Drawers" and write an article with the headline "ALIEN STD THREAT".
7 ???
8 Profit!
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
It's obviously because of the name, I think it would have been better for the name to remain "Goddamned particle"... also prepare for similar reaction if they call a particle "the Devil's particle".
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Everybody is actually both a moron and a genius at the same time, until observed.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I wish I has karma to give you, as I was coming to say the same thing.
The wikipedia entry on the Higgs Boson has some quotes from the author who nicknamed the Higgs Boson "the god particle":
While use of this term may have contributed to increased media interest, many scientists dislike it, since it is sensational and overstates the particle's importance. Its discovery would still leave unanswered questions about the unification of quantum chromodynamics, the electroweak interaction, and gravity, as well as the ultimate origin of the universe. Higgs, an atheist himself, is displeased that the Higgs particle is nicknamed the "God particle", because the term "might offend people who are religious".
Lederman said he gave it a nickname because the particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive," and added that he chose "the God particle" because "the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing."
I understand he did it so his book had a catchy title, but the media decided to go crazy when talking about it. Sure, it's a big discovery to physicists and understanding how our universe works, it really shouldn't be receiving the coverage it's getting. There is just too many ignorant reporters trying to explain something, which is creating a lot of mis-information.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
poor trolling, mostly.
Journalism sucks. But let me qualify. Science journalism and journalism in general suck when they're written to beat the deadline in attempt to be "fresh" or "hot off the press" (conference). You can picture the reporter emailing his or her story to the editorial department and the editor, finding the report, a bit dull decides to sex it up just a little, adding "factoids" lifted from Google or Wikipedia (the two not being mutually exclusive) or making snappy generalizations that can reduce to two or three words WTF the whole event is about.
Let's be honest, which would you rather read: "God particle may explain creation" or "CERN scientists discover new subatomic particle"?
A common trick in newspaper headlines is to give off the impression of certainty where there is none. When you read something like "500 feared dead" the day after a disaster, you can be sure that the "500" is an approximation that most likely came from some random bloke or bureaucart.
Wait a few more weeks or months, and the science reporting will get more sober.
any one who thinks they understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics
American journalists are idiots when it comes to science reporting. They even fail at the "Mr. Wizard" level of science. It's truly abysmal.
And I took so long typing this, because I could not find the series of physics programs I grew up with as a kid in the early 70s. They involved a quite intense physics professor, and he used phrases like "boys and girls" when explaining things like magnetism and diamagnetism or thermal expansion and had this ... unique way of pronouncing "thermometer" as "thermal meter"
It was on WGBH and it was a Canadian import.
Halp. This is driving me nuts.
But anyway, I was going to say that journalists also fail at that level too.
--
BMO
Remember how horribly stupid the media/news is about things they don't understand next time there is a story about the "right-wing" or they use eye-grabbing words and phrases like "fundamentalists" and the like. Chances are facts are blown out of proportion, details distort or flat out omitted, and everything is phrased in the most extreme way possible.
Just as most scientific discoveries (like the Higgs boson) are rather mundane (by comparison to what the media/news tries to sell us) so are most people. That includes people... most people only want to be left alone to raise their family, do their work, and live life happily. Sure, there is the occasional true story about crazy people who do and believe crazy things, but those are so extremely rare that they do not deserve the excessive amount of attention they get.
we all want to understand G-d, and will even claim understanding. Thus, per the very nature of our being, we have theories about the H-B ;)
Many people have trouble rationalizing the billions (trillions?) of dollars in expenses attributed to the LHC just to prove what we already knew to be true, and so have little trouble constructing absurd mythologies around the experiments.
The problem with science today is it seems more concerned about disproving God rather than solving the mysteries of the universe, etc..
(senior quantum physicist)
"may be one of the most important scientific discoveries ever"
BS. Science does not evolve by critical jumps made by one person in one tiny micro-region of science space. It evolves by hordes of scientists opening new fronts all over. (comment: it might well be the most expensive and publicised in the whole history of science, though)
"Is the particle's discovery just on the fringe of common scientific knowledge"
Isn't that 100% redundant? every discovery is at the fringe by definition.
Some days ago I was telling a friend that every time my parents come with a "hey, have you heard about (...) scientific discovery?" it takes me at least 10 minutes to relate the newspaper's title to the real news, even if the news belong to my field of research. Even if journalists were not interested in sensationalizing the news, and even if they were not complete idiots, which I am sorry to know they are, they could NEVER post reasonable scientific news, because they do not understand the content. No matter how much you try to explain the Higgs mechanism, lay people are never going to understand it, you need the maths for that, no way around. They could grasp some fairy-tale-ishly drawn picture of an approximate explanation, but never the reality. This is such an obvious concept to people who are expert at a given field: you can only understand what you know about, in other fields you are just like a little baby wandering in the dark.
But, hey, let's keep with the false illusion that being mediocre and ignorant is no problem at all.
The concept of the Higgs Boson is undeniably part of a branch of physics that the average person barely understands. In a society where concepts and values have to be expressed in terms of "real world" metaphors, like "The length of 6 football fields", or "The amount of concrete used could build a sidewalk from Boston to New York", or "Faster then NASCAR!", instead of just reporting on the fact that Higgs Boson was discovered reporters felt obligated to "enrich" their reporting by suggesting what could be done with the Higgs Boson discovery, including references to Star Trek.
The bottom line is that the average person (i.e. American) would think, "Wow, they actually achieved something useful and exciting" rather then the typical "Why dey gone done blowin my dough on da shit".
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The options presented in the post here are not mutually exclusive, and are probably both true. The general population is uneducated about science. News reporting sucks; science reporting is especially dumbed down, if not saturated with speculation and lack of comprehension of the topic.
I imagine it may have had something to do with the number of articles that talked about the role Linux played in the discovery of the higgs.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/07/05/1855212/linux-played-a-vital-role-in-discovery-of-higgs-boson
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&site=webhp&source=hp&q=linux+higgs&oq=linux+higgs&gs_l=hp.3..0i8i30.1397.8592.0.9661.15.12.3.0.0.0.391.2274.1j7j3j1.12.0...0.0.JkXqKuaocrQ
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
1. it's the current buzzword
2. it's cool
3. it's (mostly) European stuff
4. there's nothing more interesting at the moment
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Case closed.
First of all, what was found is a particle with the same MASS as that predicted by the standard model. They haven't yet confirmed spin or other properties. But what this amounts to is confirmation of what was already suspected. Unfortunately, this isn't all that helpful, because we already know that the standard model doesn't predict everything correctly. If we hadn't found the Higgs Boson, then perhaps it would have helped us to fix the standard model. As it is, this can't help us improve the standard model. In other words, this is great, and it's nice to know that brilliant scientists in the past century were right, but it isn't any kind of revolutionary progress.
http://www.thebunsenburner.com/news/a-higgs-boson-impostor-thats-the-theory-put-forward-by-physicists/
Besides if the Higgs Boson verified no energy is lost than in our ever increasing expanding universe no new energy is created and we will eventually expand into nothing as we stretch and thin out all the energy to where its ... well no one to notice it.
As if this kind of sensationalistic ignorance is confined to the Higgs discovery. Here is a similar example of a recent article by a NASA "science" writer. I can't even fathom what kind of leap of ignorance it takes to frame the relatively banal topic of connections between the Earth and Sun's magnetic field in terms of sci-fi "portals" (as in wormholes), but there you have it.
Liberty in your lifetime
Microsoft provided research to CERN, not OS. .
evidence please?
CERN probably used Linux because it's highly customizable.
LOL. Playing adult games with baby toys? Sure you do not even begin to grasp the computational tasks that are to be done in order to make a 5 sigma discovery of such heavy particle. You probably have a desktop-level knowledge of OSes, dont you? you could check the numbers, like data flow, amount of storage, flops etc which are needed in CERN...
Unlike FOSS zealots, they understand the importance of using right tool for the job
sorry to wake you up from your nice dreams, Linux is the only tool used in serious science, unless propietary hardware suffers from the windows lock-down. That's why you'll see more windows boxes in labs than in theory departments (in fact it is rather hard to see a theorist using anything but linux)
Piss poor science reporting, is likely due to the shit-for-brains idiots we jokingly call "journalists".
Bearing in mind here, that "media studies graduate" is a perjorative phrase for something a bit dense from a well-off background, who had Mummy and Daddy pay their way though university, and ended up doing a soft-option humanities course as a prelude to working as a "writer" or "journalist"; because they were too stupid and dishonest to try anything more challenging or of any social utility whatsoever.
I suspect too, that journalists are arrogant and conceited enough that that think they, as the gatekeepers between the news and the public at large, have the brains and skills to write all the news, whereas they are hopelessly ill equipped to handle anything even remotely technical. The last few years has taught the world how many "newsworthy stories" can break, that NO-ONE has the slightest clue about. The global financial crisis has been described as the first major disaster that nobody understood. We see this time, and time, and time again. Distortions, fantasy, inanity and outright lies on everything from finance and politics, to nuclear energy and particle physics.
Contributing to this is the fraudulent and dishonest postmodernist garbage that humanities types are so fond of. Because to these stupid pricks, the strange implications of quantum mechanics sounds so similar to the made-up garbage they're used to, they take it as a license to simply bullshit and make stuff up.
Idiocracy is upon it, because the gatekeepers of our public life, journalists, are so consistently, uniformly shit.
"Si tacuisses, philosophus fuisses" - Because this quantum wave easily collapses in the presence of human voice ;-)
Btw.: Since English is not my native language, can anyone tell me an appropriate English proverb?
Trolling is a art!
"We interpret the new particle at the Large Hadron Collider as a CP-even scalar and investigate its electroweak quantum number. Assuming an unbroken custodial invariance as suggested by precision electroweak measurements, only four possibilities are allowed if the scalar decays to pairs of gauge bosons, as exemplified by a dilaton/radion, a non-dilatonic electroweak singlet scalar, an electroweak doublet scalar, and electroweak triplet scalars. We show that current LHC data already strongly disfavor both the dilatonic and non-dilatonic singlet imposters. On the other hand, a generic Higgs doublet and a triplet imposter give equally good fits to the measured event rates of the newly observed scalar resonance, although a Standard Model Higgs boson gives a slightly better overall fit. The global fit indicates the enhancement in the diphoton channel could be attributed to an enhanced partial decay width, while the production rates are consistent with the Standard Model expectations. We emphasize that more precise measurements of the ratio of event rates in the WW over ZZ channels, as well as the event rates in bb and tau tau channels, are needed to distinguish the Higgs doublet from the triplet imposter. "
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.1093
Much of what is being said here is correct. Since the cancellation of the USA's SSC in the early 90s (a device that would have found the Higgs 15 years or so sooner), big science physics projects have had a hard go of things. Of course book publishers also will pounce on a catchy God particle marketing gimmick. Physicists will privately grimace even more at such over-hyping of the significance, but the difficulty of funding makes them shy away from outright rebuttal. The same people that are most "expert" in the domain have a direct interest in the domain seeming "interesting" to the ordinary folk who have to pay for it.
The Higgs mechanism only generates masses for the W and Z *gauge bosons*, not masses for quarks or leptons (see any good Wikipedia page) and certainly not "all matter" which is what a lot of the *officially* popular pieces indicate through inappropriate brevity. Without a Higgs-like particle the gauge bosons for the weak force ought to be massless like photons, but there was never, ever any problem with fermions like quarks and leptons having mass. Now, without W,Z,Higgs electroweak interactions would be very different, but it is almost totally insane to attribute everyday "mass" to the Higgs alone. Indeed, 99% of "everyday mass" comes from the binding energy of the strong force inside of nucleons, for example, not even the *rest* masses of quarks and electrons. "God particle" was never remotely appropriate. Various ideas about anti-gravity and the like are completely off track. It's important to be sure, but blown out of proportion (almost) beyond belief.
This all leads to "what bad analogies come next" in two to three decades when people want to fund (and promote) the Next Big Accelerator (NBA). The discoveries anticipated may have to do with supersymmetric partners. Could that lead to Jesus and Lucifer "offspring of God particle" or "wars in heaven" BS analogies or perhaps equally poor religion backlashes to already nutty analogies objecting to new pantheons or whatnot? Beats me. It seems likely that even allowing for global economic growth the "N.B.A." will be an even bigger fractional expense and so drive even greater craziness. Steel yourselves!
It is certainly nice to have confirmation that the standard model is on track, but what additional science does finding it actually allow? Does it really further sciences in any real way or just provide scientists with an opportunity to say that they were right. Would scientists otherwise be able to work further in a normal capacity operating on the mere assumption of its existence and properties?
Blind faith in everything that sounds sciency is the new thing to believe in. Humans need to believe in something, and they'll latch on to anything which sounds easy and doesn't require any sacrifices.
Michio Kaku popularized this sort of thing on the Art Bell show back in the late nineties. While Dr. Kaku can speak intelligently about such topics the average science reporter cannot, but that doesn't stop them.
Where does the Higgs get its mass?
I wrote this on the morning of the announcement because I suspected that some wild and wacky stuff would soon be dancing across the Intarwebs, because even the "straight" reporting was conflicting.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
It did?
Hilarious. To bad i have not read, seen (or previously heared about) any.
Yes.
I don't quite follow.
Ok now it comes..
Bingo!
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Lederman wanted to call it "the goddamn particle" it was his editor we have to thank for the stupid name.
Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.
Ben: Yes sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Ben: Yes I am.
Mr. McGuire: 'Higgs Boson.'
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in the Higgs Boson particle. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.
CBC did a radio show on that. The book was supposed to be the god damn particle, but the publisher dropped the damn and the name stuck. He was referring to how hard it was to find.
Corollary: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
"Si tacuisses, philosophus fuisses" - Because this quantum wave easily collapses in the presence of human voice ;-)
Btw.: Since English is not my native language, can anyone tell me an appropriate English proverb?
Maybe if you translated it first.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Si tacuisses, philosophus fuisses
I'll make a stab at it, quoting Mark Twain:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Two English proverbs come to mind. More apt:
"It is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
And a bit punchier:
"A closed mouth gathers no foot."
TFP gets it right. There are 'journalists' reporting that Lederman named it that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Is the particle's discovery just on the fringe of common scientific knowledge and therefore prone to wild speculation, or does this all come down to having the most sensational headline?
Ah.. I see. So it's not just slashdot that jumped into that wave? Are /. editors moving around jobs these days?
There are stupid people, and stupid arguments, on both sides of the discussion.
Sufficient study and philosophical clarity will reveal (to the intellectually honest aspirant) that agnosticism is the only logically-defensable position. However, the desire for solid answers combined with the human tendency to oversimplify will land most people firmly (and, ultimately, wrongly) on either side of that fence.
Is the particle's discovery just on the fringe of common scientific knowledge and therefore prone to wild speculation, or does this all come down to having the most sensational headline?
Yes.
"- Because this quantum wave easily collapses in the presence of human voice ;-)"
"It's better to keep your mouth shut and give the appearance of stupidity than to open it and remove all doubt ". ;-)
(source unknown)
Or, to paraphrase the quote, both a moron and genius until they open their mouth.
That could be why you don't get laid.
Not many women like dicks so large they hurt.
Can you maybe like... keep it to yourself?
From the point of view of a typical journalist, it doesn't matter what they write about science so long as it is amusing. They don't even try to get this stuff right. They don't consider it part of their job description to get it right.
Wrong hole!
Hypothesizing that people are having more "larger than life" subjective experiences these days that can't be explained through old-fashioned science (I know I have), I would say that more people than ever are looking for some sensational reasons, and wild claims about the "god particle" seems to offer some insight.
If you think the Higgs Boson discovery has lead to a lot of wild crazy ideas, go back to what people were saying when Relativity was discovered by Einstein. Some of the most horrible scifi ever created was based on false notions of what Relativity meant.
Two English proverbs come to mind. More apt:
"It is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
King Solomon was English?
Free unix account: freeshell.org
I'd hate to cool you enthusiasm, but the presumed discovery of the Higgs boson is by no means one of the most important scientific discoveries ever.
Sure, it's something we've been looking for for decades, its the final piece of the standard model, it has cost gazillions of euros to find (i'm not sure how much a gzillion euros is in usd), and it is one of the most important scientific discoveries in decades.
But just because it's the last to be found or the hardest doesn't make it more important than anything else.
I mean really, think of all the great discoveries that changed the world from newton to Feynman, of the theories that turned our understanding of the universe upside down, the unexpected eurekas and those that took years of sisyphean work.
Now look at the higgs boson.
It's just the last piece that tells us we were right all along but doesn't tells us anything new.
The higgs boson was expected years ago, we knew it must be there in one variation or the other, but now that we found him, now the interesting stuff really begins.
What lays beyond the standard model? SUSY? strings? something completely different? nobody knows, there are tens or maybe hundreds of competing and complementing theories and ideas, and we are really in the dark here.
finding new physic, THAT would be something!
I haven't seen any crazy news lines. This could be a problem of your reading preference
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Feel how tight pussy is? Too much stretching of it tends to hurt.
I know it goes against everything we have been told about what women want sexually, but most women do not want a dick so big that it hurts. They want a nice comfortably sized one, just big enough, but not too big.
No, not all journalists are morons. Some are christians, jews, muslims, pagans, and even atheists. ;-)
I like my spaghetti with source.
So this Higgs Boson into a church, and the priest says "Get out, we don't allow your kind here!" and the Higgs Boson says "But without me, how will you have mass!"
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Seriously, 90% of what you post is drivel that you have to or should take back.
Weak sauce indeed. Pot. Kettle. HELLO?
satirical captcha; stucco
You interpreted come as show up in that context?
Slow news day.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
MS can contribute greatly by simply staying away as far as possible. MS getting any closer than infinite distance will only make already hard thing certainly impossible.
If higgs field is made up of higgs bosons, why do we need proton collisions to create them ? Aren't they present everywhere including vacuum ? Why do they decay to these other particles if it is so fundamental to higgs field ? Why does high's boson have mass (or is it just mass equivalant of energy) ? Does it mean higgs field has mass which in turn means vacuum has mass ? Why is higgs boson heavier than most other particles ?
For those of us that have had to justify the discharge of large sums of money given to you by taxpayers to do research, the answer is obvious. It varies by country and agency, but getting awarded a grant is the first step in the constant cabaret show that is justifying your use of said grant money. And some agencies--like DARPA--will even go so far as to take the money back if your leg kicks aren't high enough at one of your ridiculously frequent reviews. Thus, given the price tag, basically everyone involved in the LHC project has been engaged in a constant media blitz from Day One, ranging from the possibility of creating tiny black holes to (everyone but the actual scientists) peeing themselves over faster-than-light neutrinos that probably weren't. They learned the lesson of the SSC well. So, when the first evidence of the Higgs Boson was revealed, the PR machine went into overdrive trying to justify spending billions of Euros on a giant, underground doughnut that was vulnerable to baguette. Combined with the laughable quality of "science journalism" and the toddler-level understanding of science of the media and general population, stories about transporters and spaceships were a humorous inevitability.
Also, something that was predicted in 1964 cannot be on the "fringe of common scientific knowledge," a phrase that is itself just as hyperbolic as the examples cited in the OP. Now, the discovery of bacteria that can use As in place of P, that would have been at the fringe had it turned out to be true.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
Couple easy reasons why this happened.
The simplest reason is that most people don't know what a Higgs boson is and probably still wouldn't understand if you told them about it for half an hour. It WAS a large accomplishment, but how do you impart this to your mostly science illiterate audience? You dumb it down, draw analogies to things they do understand, or just tell them what cool stuff we may be able to make in the future with it.
The other most likely reason is that sensational headlines draw audiences and that bring advertising dollars. Its still a business folks. You print a magazine that has the Enterprise on it and slap the headline "Higgs Boson discovery may make Star Trek a reality" and you are guaranteed to sell it.
Off chance that the writers of these stories didn't know what the fuck they were doing.
Use the black one, the one with the singularity in it called the G-Spot.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
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(The empty string, the right answer to the question, in every language.)
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
You don't understand what Microsoft Research is do you?
The fact that CERN runs Linux in its data centre has nothing to do with the output from the scientific research division that Microsoft runs.
Actually Microsoft did provide OS to CERN and the LHC as well. In fact, the majority of the LHC detector control systems run windows.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/331/2/022029
Cut and pasting the abstract
The control system of each of the four major Experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is distributed over up to 160 computers running either Linux or Microsoft Windows. A quick response to abnormal situations of the computer infrastructure is crucial to maximize the physics usage. For this reason, a tool was developed to supervise, identify errors and troubleshoot such a large system. Although the monitoring of the performance of the Linux computers and their processes was available since the first versions of the tool, it is only recently that the software package has been extended to provide similar functionality for the nodes running Microsoft Windows as this platform is the most commonly used in the LHC detector control systems. In this paper, the architecture and the functionality of the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) client developed to provide centralized monitoring of the nodes running different flavour of the Microsoft platform, as well as the interface to the SCADA software of the control systems are presented. The tool is currently being commissioned by the Experiments and it has already proven to be very efficient optimize the running systems and to detect misbehaving processes or nodes.
Linux is the only tool used in serious science
So that wild jungle ecosystem of HP-UX, Solaris, IRIX, Linux, Windows, MS-DOS (!) and whatnot-based machine that grew over the years at the department where I did my PhD work supposedly means I did not do serious science there? Right....
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Two English proverbs come to mind. More apt:
"It is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
King Solomon was English?
Well, everyone knows the King James Bible was written in English, so yes, I suppose he was.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Lederman wanted to call it "the goddamn particle" it was his editor we have to thank for the stupid name.
He could have told his editor he didn't like the name, couldn't he?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Lederman wanted to call it "the goddamn particle" it was his editor we have to thank for the stupid name.
He could have told his editor he didn't like the name, couldn't he?
He did.
is so far out of the realm of their comprehension, it may as well be religion.
The weird articles are just an attempt to make the science vaguely analogous to something that they can actually understand.
That, and most "journalists" are lazy assholes.
Nearly four months ago, I noticed that my internet connection was very sluggish. Eventually getting fed up with it, I began to seek out software that would speed up the gigabits in my router. After an hour of searching, I found what at first appeared to be a very promising piece of software. Not only did it claim it would speed up my internet connection, but that it would overclock my power supply, speed up my gigabits, and remove any viruses from my computer! "This is a fantastic opportunity that I simply can't pass up," I thought. I immediately downloaded the software and began the installation, all the while laughing like a small child. I was highly anticipating a future where the speed of my internet connection would leave everyone else's in the dust.
I was horribly, horribly naive. Immediately upon the completion of the software's installation, various messages popped up on my screen about how I needed to buy software to remove a virus that I wasn't aware I had from a software company I'd never once heard of. The strange software also blocked me from doing anything except buying the software it was advertising. Being that I was a computer whiz (I had taken a computer essentials class in high school that taught me how to use Microsoft Office, and was quite adept at accessing my Facebook account), I was immediately able to conclude that the software I'd downloaded was, in fact, a virus, and that it was slowing down my gigabits at an exponential rate. "I can't let this insanity proceed any further," I thought.
As I was often called a computer genius, I was confident at the time that I could get rid of the virus with my own two hands. I tried numerous things: restarting the computer, pressing random keys on the keyboard, throwing the mouse across the room, and even flipping an orange switch on the back of the tower and turning the computer back on. My efforts were all in vain; the virus persisted, and my gigabits were running slower than ever! "This cannot be! What is this!? I've never once seen such a vicious virus in my entire life!" I was dumbfounded that I, a computer genius, was unable to remove the virus using the methods I described. Upon coming to terms with my failure, I decided to take my computer to a PC repair shop for repair.
I drove to a nearby computer repair shop and entered the building with my computer in hand. The inside of the building was quite large, neat, and organized, and the employees all seemed very kind and knowledgeable. They laughed upon hearing my embarrassing story, and told me that they saw this kind of thing on a daily basis. They then accepted the job, and told me that in the worst case, it'd be fixed in three days from now. I left with a smile, and felt confident in my decision to leave the computer repairs to the experts.
A week later, they still hadn't called back. Visibly angry, I tried calling them countless times, but not a single time did they answer the phone. Their negligence and irresponsibility infuriated me, and sent me into a state of insanity that caused me to punch a gigantic hole in the wall. Being that I would require my computer for work soon, I decided to head over to the computer repair shop to find out exactly what the problem was.
Upon entering the building, I was shocked by the state of its interior; it looked as if a tornado had tore through the entire building! Countless broken computers were scattered all about the floor, desks were flipped over, the walls had holes in them, there was a puddle of blood on the floor, and worst of all, I saw that my computer was sitting in the middle of the room laying on its side! Absolutely unforgivable! I soon noticed one of the employees sitting behind one of the tipped over desks (the one that had previously had the cash register on top of it); he was shaking uncontrollably and sobbing. Despite being furious about my computer being tipped over, seeing him in that state still managed to make me less unforgiving. I decided to ask him what happened.
A few moments passed where the entire r
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About six months ago, I was overexerting myself trying to get rid of a terrible virus on a client's PC (I own a PC repair shop and have been fixing computers for over 10 years). Given my level of expertise, I thought I'd be able to get rid of it fairly quickly and without hassle, but as was made evident by my colossal failure, I was horribly, horribly wrong.
I couldn't remove the virus no matter what method I used. I tried all the latest anti-virus software and all the usual tricks, but it was all in vain. Failure after failure, my life was slowly being sucked away as I spent more and more of my time trying to get rid of this otherworldly virus.
Frustrated and stressed by my own failure, I began distancing myself from my wife and children. After a few days, I began verbally abusing them, and it eventually escalated into physical abuse. I was slowly losing what remaining sanity I had left. If this had continued for much longer, it is highly probable that I would have committed suicide. A mere shell of what I once was, I barricaded myself in my bedroom and cried myself to sleep for days on end.
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A few weeks ago, I foolishly ran a strange executable file that one of my acquaintances sent me by email. As someone who doesn't know much about computers, at the time, I thought nothing of it. "Why would my acquaintance want to hurt me?" Following this line of thought, I ran the file without question.
How naive I was. Despite having what was supposedly the best anti-virus software out right then, a virus took over my computer and held it hostage. It was pretending to be a warning from Windows telling me to buy some strange anti-virus software I'd never heard of from a company I'd never heard of to remove the virus.
This immediately set alarm bells off in my head. "How could this happen? My anti-virus is supposed to be second to none!" Faced with this harsh reality, I decided to take it to a PC repair shop for repair. They gladly accepted the job, told me it'd be fixed in a few days, and sent me off with a smile.
A few days later, they called me and told me to come pick up my computer. At the time, I noticed that they sounded like whimpering animals, but I concluded that it must just be stress from work. When I arrived, they, with tears in their eyes, told me that the virus was so awful and merciless that they were unable to remove it. "Ah," I thought. "That must be why they sounded so fru