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Interviews: Ask Physicist Giovanni Organtini About the Possible Higgs Boson Disc
Giovanni Organtini of Italy's National Institute of Nuclear Physics (well, Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) has agreed to answer questions about the recent observations of a particle consistent with the Higgs Boson. Dr. Organtini is part of the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. He is careful to note that while the researchers "[believe] that this new particle, with a mass 125 times that of a proton, is the famous Higgs boson," they "need to study that new particle more deeply in the next months to be conclusive on that. Organtini likes free software (he's written Linux device drivers, too) and has his own physics-heavy YouTube channel, mostly in Italian. Please confine questions to one per post, but feel free to ask as many as you'd like.
In regards to the Higgs Boson, what's the stupidest thing you've seen in the press? Has anything in particular made you really laugh or groan? Has the reporting been overly irresponsible for this discovery process or just the same old press that you're used to?
My work here is dung.
"Interviews: Ask Physicist Giovanni Organtini About the Possible Higgs Boson Disc"
Is the Higgs Boson disc-shaped or is Timothy too lazy to use the preview button before posting ?
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How much do you hate people who say "disc" instead of "discovery" and lead halfwits everywhere to believe the Higgs particle is disc-shaped somehow?
Since you're a fan of free software, why don't we see more open data efforts in particle physics? I see headlines like this and they're kind of a turnoff. Aside from this super confusing applet I haven't been able to find torrents of the data available on these tests. Why is that? I mean, as a software developer there is a legitimate effort of folks writing open source software and then there's a legitimate effort of people using that software to accomplish many things and everyone deserves credit. So why are particle physicists so keen on being the collectors and (at least initially) the sole keepers of their data? It would seem to make sense to me that people should be rewarded based on their collection of data and how meticulous and well they do that while any group can consume and derive results from said data. I understand the process has gotten more open but why so slowly? Why not torrent your data to whoever wants it immediately after you get it?
My work here is dung.
While I know it is rather early to comment, what do you think the future applications of today's research into Higgs Boson will be?
Don't be afraid to be a little bit sky-high. I for one am already fantasising about space ships propelled by manipulation of the Higgs field on a local scale.
I'm only asking because, a century ago the electron was discovered and nobody was quite sure what to do with it. And it runs the world.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
What success or failure factors can/should/will be used to determine whether or not the new particle is actually the higgs, or something else unexpected?
So say hypothetically that with this discovery we quickly unify the four fundamental forces of our universe. Does the 'particle hunt' end there? Is there any reason there aren't more fundamental particles -- even ones that might not be predicted by the Standard Model but do exist? If your answer is "no one knows," what is your gut feeling and why?
My work here is dung.
What does it mean to say a particle that gives all other particles mass...has mass itself?
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Despite the reference to the Higg's Boson as the "God Particle" in popular science journals and mainstream media, just how important is this discovery as far as weak interactions, gravity, etc., are concerned? Is this discovery going to change the face of quantum chromodynamics as we know it?
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Dr. Joe Incandela of UC Santa Barbara and CMS director said recently of the CERN Higgs results:
"This is so far out on a limb, **I have no idea where it will be applied**, We're talking about something **we have no idea** what the implications are and **may not be directly applied for centuries**."
(source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/04/stephen-hawking-and-higgs-boson-bet_n_1650024.html)
My questions: Do you agree that the direct application of the findings are as nebulous and abstract as he describes?
Please discuss the implications of your answer and how they relate to the economic choices of how humans use their scientific resources.
Thank you Dave Raggett
With every passing news item about particle physics, it seems everyone's pet theory mutates or breaks off into different sects. I read some Brian Greene in high school and have since become a little flustered with string theory ... or rather the many variations. The cynic in me fears that any new information on the Higgs Boson (or lack thereof) will result in more not less theories that should unify the four fundamental forces. Could you explain how information on the Higgs (one way or the other) would rule out certain symmetries or models that many people have been theorizing? Can I expect this to at least reduce our set of possible theories and not just provide N more mutations for each existing theory that strives to account for what we just found? Or should I just buckle up for everyone pushing their version through these results no matter what they show?
My work here is dung.
The initial call for questions included a factoid that I had somehow missed in all the other layman summaries: "He is careful to note that while the researchers '[believe] that this new particle, with a mass 125 times that of a proton, is the famous Higgs boson,' they 'need to study that new particle more deeply in the next months to be conclusive on that.' "
I'm totally not familiar with the details here. For some reason I was expecting that the boson would be a much smaller thing, in the same scale as quarks or even strings, and that other particles including the proton would owe their structures to this. If the Higgs "explains" mass, to me that implies it is responsible for mass. How would you explain the mass of other massive particles like the proton? Or is comparing it to a proton not really accurate?
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Prior to the possible discovery announcement, the LHC was often called one of the last big science experiments of our generation--- big science being a casualty of recession budgets. Do you think this discovery might persuade governments to invest more in big/expensive/multinational investigations?
Once this particle is examined, and let's assume it's the elusive Higgs, is there a continuing reason for large particle accellerators?
Basically, I'm asking in ignorance. If this confirms the standard model, what do you see for discoveries of this nature in the.future?
In regards to the discovery of the Higgs Boson, what is an example of a practical application of this discovery. I find that physics is best explained with real-world examples.
The Higgs boson is famously associated with how particles acquire a 'mass'. But mass is, in itself, an interesting property. As I understand it, the Higgs boson is only associated with inertial mass. If this is so, do you expect gravitational mass and inertial mass to be always the same? If so, would you speculate on the mechanism that ensures this is true?
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I think it has to do with the equivalence between mass and energy, at the fundamental, quantum level.
See, they increased the energy on two protons beyond 125 GeV (where 125 GeV is the energy-equivalent of 125 protons, give or take). In any one collision at that energy there exist a number of possible results, and one such result was a particle with a mass of 125 protons. Via observing how that particle interacted with the universe (for as long as they could observe it) they deduced it's nature and whether it matched up with any relevant hypotheses.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
There's a slightly fuzzy line between cutting edge science and "hard" science fiction. Do you find this generates noise which distracts from the science, or would you support increased collaboration between science and science fiction?
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
The likely Higgs discovery would seem to validate Quantum field theory.
Would this then be best described as an ether, only instead of matter traveling through the ether, matter is manifestations of the ether (fields) itself. Would this also than mean that the motion of matter is not a physical movement of a "particle" but instead the transfer of the "excitement" of a field from one spot of the field to another?
And what, if any, implications does this disocvery have for unifying gravity or other areas of physics?
As I understand it, a Higgs Boson compatible with the standard model could have been found at a range of different masses, and the search for it has involved searching the possible mass range until it was either discovered or not.
Assuming that this new discovery is indeed the Higgs Boson as predicted and compatible with the standard model, what is the significance of the particular mass that it has been found to have? Are there any macro-scale predictions that depend on its mass?
It is my understanding that the higgs mechanism requires some sort of spontaneous symmetry breaking for the proposed higgs field to yield scalar mass.
Is this somehow related to symmetry breaking in other fields in the Standard Model (e.g., Spin0/hypercharge)?
Also, might there be a whole spectrum of scalar properties like mass that might exist from symmetry breaking in other Standard Model fields that might be discovered that could explain currently un-unifyable parts of theoretical physics (e.g., matter/antimatter ratio, gravity, dark energy, etc), but still within the general framework of the Standard Model? Or is the Standard Model essentially doomed with respect to these currently un-unifyable observations?
How do you feel about the fact that a large portion of the CMS was built by recycling military hardware? Do you see it as a sign that the world is finally moving towards peace and that large scientific projects like the LHC are helping it along that path; Or do you find it disappointing that it was the only option to acquire the necessary materials?
Particle physics data is not open because of the money, time and effort needed to analyse it. First data would never be released until first analysed by the collaboration - there is no way that you are going to get someone working on building and operating the detector without the reward of being among the first to analyse that data. We are physicists, not engineers.
Secondly analysing the data is a huge effort. You have to understand many varied and subtle detector effects related to how the detector was constructed. The not only requires a huge effort to pin the effects down but also a very detailed knowledge of the detector. It is highly unlikely that anyone who has not worked on the detector will be able to do this well or at least without considerable extra work.
Then there is the cost of storing and making available the petabytes of data an experiment like ATLAS generates each year. Who is going to pay for the network, disks, servers etc to make this all available not to mention the development of a simple event format and the processing needed to generate and fill it. Every pound/franc/dollar spent on this is one less to spend on the research itself.
Finally some experiments, like D0, have already made their data available after analysis which is the only time it is understood well enough to be converted to a simple format. The number of visitors to the website was in the single digits over a period of a year despite it being advertised to theorists.
Had the superconducting supercolider (SSC) been completed in the USA in the 1990s, would it have found this particle? Even with a 20 year technology advantage, LHC has taken some time to get there.
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I heard they may want to check several other decay paths for energy resonances.
I also heard there could be a family of Higgs bosons, so we may look for others?
I'm curious what's going on such that the top is heavier than the Higgs rather than the other way around. All I've been able to find is people asking why the top was found first. *That* I understand--the Higgs signal is much much smaller. I remember something from long ago about the top's mass "leaking," if you will, to the the lighter particles, but that doesn't mesh with how I understand the Higgs mechanism. Anyway, I would expect the Higgs particle manifestation to be the most massive of those that participate in the Higgs field.
Credo sim. - I think I am.
Assuming that this new particle is in fact the Standard Model Higgs boson, what more can we expect to discover with CMS? Is there any new physics you expect to be within the reach of CMS? Or this is pretty much the end?
I know this question is unanswerable, but your best guess would make me happy. I'm actually very worried by the prospects of running out of (falsifiable) theories to test...
entropy happens
This is an IT worker question, not a particle physicist question, so hopefully it's an easy one. How does the Higgs boson come into play when photons, which have a tiny amount of mass, are spontaneously created when a substance like metal gets hot. Is it a direct energy to mass conversion?
the so-called "laws of physics" are man-made constructs. Many have exceptions or are general guidelines (e.g. Ohm's Law vs. real materials which are not linear and some even have opposite properties of Ohm's law. So we alter the "laws of physics" all the time with new discoveries or better models.
... the answers to the dumbest questions are sometimes the most interesting :) I understand that the Higgs is responsible for giving mass to all the other particles, then it must be *everywhere*. Why is it so difficult to detect? Why does it take such a staggeringly powerful supercollider to find what ought to be as common as the electron or proton?
Also, I can't help but to visualize particles as something like billiard balls while I'm aware they're only mathematical abstractions from our point of view and that experiments like the double-slit experiment refute the billiard-ball model... is there a way to visualize the Higgs to make the answer to my previous question easier to understand?
One press report discussed the idea that the Higgs field might have the same transient existence that the aether did in Electro-Magnetic theory. Do you think there is a field that will interact with the Higgs field to produce an energy transmission function similar to that described by Maxwell's equations?
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
This FAQ from FermiLab on the Higgs may be of some use to many here to answer some of the more basic questions that seem to be emerging from this discussion. http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2012/03/06/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-higgs-boson/