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Higgs Data Offers Joy and Pain For Particle Physicists

scibri writes "So now that we've pretty much found the Higgs Boson, what's next? Well: 'There's going to be a huge massacre of theoretical ideas in the next couple of years,' predicts Joe Lykken, a theoretical physicist at Fermilab. The data has shored up the standard model, but technicolor is dead and supersymmetry is starting to look pretty ropey now. Theorists are now poking at the mathematical chinks in the standard theory in the hopes of being the first to find a deeper truth about how the Universe works."

186 comments

  1. Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    C'mon slashdot, you're better than that.

    Yes I'm being funny (or trying to).

    1. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Githaron · · Score: 0

      Not cool man.

    2. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I rather poke at the mathematical cunts.

    3. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The amount of data collected by LHC in one year of data-taking is on the order to 3 petabytes per experiment"

      So, which one is it? Is 3 petabytes per year? Or 3 petabytes per experiment?

      What if one experiment takes one second? (One collison) That makes it 3 petabytes x 60 * 60 * 24 * 365. That would make it one hundred million petabytes.

    4. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Goatse is FAR worse

    5. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will continue the line of brilliant jokes.

      "PETAbytes? So we're talking, like, three quarters short of a normal byte?"

    6. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might want to rethink that. Seriously, do you really want to get it on with a chick who'd be able to tell you to the nearest millimetre just how small your penis is compared to her previous experiences?

    7. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by malacandrian · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Experiment" in this context refers to each of the six installations on the ring: ALICE, ATLAS, CMS LHCb, LHCf, and TOTEM. So that's 18 PB/y in total.

    8. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      3 petabytes per experiment per year. Also, experiment != collision.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    9. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by lightknight · · Score: 2

      See, there's your problem right there. That's two men holding each other's penises, not the developer version of Mac OS X Mountain Lion.

      (If it were Mountain Lion, there would be an Apple logo in there somewhere.)

      --
      I am John Hurt.
    10. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibly, this value is for CMS and ATLAS only. The others don't get as much data as the "big two". Well, maybe ALICE does, due to the messy collisions.

    11. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So which one is you and which one's Mountain Lion?

    12. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by Eponymous+Hero · · Score: 1

      yeah they clearly don't know which ports are used for what

      --
      insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
    13. Re:Stopped reading at "Mathematical chinks" by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      Just wait till you tell a girl you've never experience a complaint before and she responds that "they were just being polite".

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  2. I for one welcome the death of String Theory by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    I for one welcome our Higgs Boson overlords and the subsequent replacement of String Theory with the more sound concept in Physics of Stringy Cheese Theory.

    I'd like mine with mushrooms, thanks.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I'm just wondering how "The Big Bang Theory" is going to respond to all of this when next season starts. Will Sheldon be devastated, will he defend String Theory against "this silly, inept Higgs experimental data," or will he somehow hop on the Higgs Bandwagon?

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    2. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you miss the part about "looking ropey"? That's String Theory on Steroids.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    3. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

      I'm just wondering how "The Big Bang Theory" is going to respond to all of this when next season starts. Will Sheldon be devastated, will he defend String Theory against "this silly, inept Higgs experimental data," or will he somehow hop on the Higgs Bandwagon?

      I think he will rail against it at first, but his gf will convince him to change. After a few mild electric shocks.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    4. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Did you miss the part about "looking ropey"? That's String Theory on Steroids.

      or, as I said, Stringy Cheese Theory.

      hold the anchovies.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    5. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 2

      Hey, I thought string theory wasn't falsifiable. Did you guys figure out something last time I looked at it?

    6. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, you effect things when you observe them, but c'mon. You're not THAT important.

    7. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      String theory has many, many variations. Falsifying them means first narrowing down which variations just might have some correspondance to physical reality, then finding ways to test those further. All the ones that we could call interesting (because they might fit 'objective reality for this universe'). involve very high energies, so we can't build an accelerator nearly powerful to test them by that particular method. That's not the same as being untestable - for example, a particular string model might make predictions about something else, like Proton decay, that we can test. Some versions imply things about cosmolgy that we can test by astronomical observation.
            The point is, that we probably won't test all the variants much or at all. Sometimes, a physicist may decide to toss out a bunch of variants because the equations look needlessly complex or full of fudge factors - scientists often look for certain types of style or form in fundamental equations, as when Einstein decided to not add the complexity of a Cosmological constant to General Relativity. It's not the same as doing a scientific test for falsifiability to just decide not to look at the more complex equations at all and hope you will either find something going through the more beautiful and elegant versions, or shoot them all down, and then some grad student can try some of the more complicated variants.

    8. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, I thought string theory wasn't falsifiable. Did you guys figure out something last time I looked at it?

      Of course it is falsifiable.
      You just have to choose wisely which universe among the 10^500 possible ones you're using to describe our universe. The inability to do just this is what leads to a model which "predicts" everything and the contrary of everything under the sun.

    9. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sheldon will just have to start dealing with that, and other for him unpleasant ideas, like the fact he is just a physicist and not proper mathematician.

      Theoretical physicist, that is what you become after failing mathematics, right ?

    10. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sheldon will just have to start dealing with that, and other for him unpleasant ideas, like the fact he is just a physicist and not proper mathematician.

      Theoretical physicist, that is what you become after failing mathematics, right ?

      /sarcasm on

      Nope, that one is called a Mathematical Physicist.
      A Theoretical Physicist is someone that failed to become a physicist (you know, someone that does designs, carries oout experiments and understands the results).
      Even Einstein recognised to be the epitome of a theoretical physicist was a damn good experimentalist in his younger years..

    11. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      That crossed my mind when I first heard about them finding Higgs, but what I though was Leslie telling Sheldon "See? Told you so, dumbass!"

      Whatever happens, hilarity will certainly ensue. I think my two favorites were when Stephen Hawking found an arithemetic error in Sheldon's paper, and when George Smoot said "With all due respects, Dr. Cooper, but are you on crack?"

    12. Re:I for one welcome the death of String Theory by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      You're making me feel very sad

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  3. Did we really find it? by EdIII · · Score: 2

    From what I understand it was only one single experiment that showed us something that we think is where/what the Higgs Boson would look like.

    Has it been reproduced or confirmed?

    Scientists using the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva have announced the discovery of a new subatomic particle to very high confidence that is consistent with what we expect the Higgs particle to look like.

    That's not very definitive. Can anybody else around well versed in particle physics tell us if the Higgs has really been found or not?

    1. Re:Did we really find it? by busyqth · · Score: 2

      From what I understand it was only one single experiment that showed us something that we think is where/what the Higgs Boson would look like.

      Has it been reproduced or confirmed?

      Not yet, but soon!
      I'm building my very own Large Hadron Collider in my backyard in order to try to reproduce the results.
      Of course I don't have superconducting magnets, but I'm hoping that by using ALL the the letters of the alphabet I can get close enough to the required field strength.

    2. Re:Did we really find it? by Goaway · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is not confirmed, but it is not expected to not be confirmed, so nothing lost by starting on the theoretical work ahead of the confirmations. In the unlikely case it turns out to be something else, we can just start over.

    3. Re:Did we really find it? by insecuritiez · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's unknown but really likely. There is definitely a particle at around 125 GeV but there certainly is a (very small) chance it could be something else.

      The standard model predicts a number of different ways the Higgs Boson can decay and what probability it has for each type of decay.

      The most common easy to measure decay modes are:
      Higgs -> Two Photons (high energy gamma rays)
      Higgs -> Two W Bosons -> 4 leptons (electrons or muons)

      So what they are actually seeing is the decay products and they measure the energy of each component of the decay and add that up to find the original energy of the Higgs.

      The measurement of the two photons is called the "gamma-gamma" channel or "diphoton" channel. They call the 4 lepton channel the "golden channel" because it's a pretty clean signal with a low "background" (noise). That is, they get a good signal to noise ratio from the 4 lepton channel.

      The theory says that the two photons should happen a certain % of the time and the 4 leptons should happen a different % and the other decay modes should happen with other probabilities.

      One of the reasons to believe they have found the Higgs boson and not some other particle is that the decay relative rates for each type of decay are pretty close to what the theory suggests.

      The best way to study the Higgs would be to produce lots of them accurately without producing other particles. The best-known way to do that is with a linear collider that smashes leptons (usually electrons) together. They can tune the energy of the collisions to the exact value to produce Higgs. This is how the W boson was studied so accurately at SLAC. A new international linear collider (ILC) would need to be built to reach the energy levels needed to make the Higgs. Luckily, it's a pretty low and easy to reach energy compared to what it could have been which makes an ILC somewhat reasonable to build.

    4. Re:Did we really find it? by bledri · · Score: 5, Informative

      From what I understand it was only one single experiment that showed us something that we think is where/what the Higgs Boson would look like.

      Has it been reproduced or confirmed?

      ...

      That's not very definitive. Can anybody else around well versed in particle physics tell us if the Higgs has really been found or not?

      I think that the announcement is based on a couple of years of data collected by two different teams using different methods, so calling it a single experiment seems a bit of an over simplification. See Higgs Discovery: The Data blog entry by Matt Strassler.

      --
      Some privacy policy Slashdot.
    5. Re:Did we really find it? by dAzED1 · · Score: 1

      nothing is lost, except for when using the unconfirmed information to discredit opposing theories...one of which may well be more right than the standard model. But otherwise, yeah...nothing lost, we're good to go.

    6. Re:Did we really find it? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2, Funny

      A new international linear collider (ILC) would need to be built to reach the energy levels needed to make the Higgs.

      . . . so we built a billion dollar ring, that told us, that we need a straight line . . .

      Brilliant!

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    7. Re:Did we really find it? by insecuritiez · · Score: 5, Informative

      The LHC was built to find any new physics, not just the Higgs. The fact that we've been able to rule out SUSY for large mass ranges is part of that. To measure the specific properties of one particle though does need something a bit more purpose-built. They'll be able to measure a lot about the Higgs boson but not anywhere near as much as a linear collider could measure.

      Also, for part of the year they stop injecting protons and instead inject lead nucului. This is meant to measure extremely messy but very high energy collisions that should generate quark-gluon plasmas.

    8. Re:Did we really find it? by As_I_Please · · Score: 4, Informative

      Discrediting a theory isn't a permanent thing. Any theory can be brought back if evidence warrants it. Even Einstein's "biggest blunder," the cosmological constant, is now the most popular theory to explain the universe's accelerating expansion.

    9. Re:Did we really find it? by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 1

      It was TWO experiments (ATLAS and CMS, both at the LHC) that confirmed a new boson. It is very likely to be a Higgs.
      Whether it is a Standard Model Higgs or not is the current big question.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    10. Re:Did we really find it? by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      In the unlikely case it turns out to be something else, we can just start over.

      So we can spend millions of dollars, and perhaps billions if a huge linear accelerator is built, going down the wrong track instead of waiting a few months or years to confirm the single experiment. IResearch funding should be spent on confirmation rather than advancement based on a single experiment.

    11. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A few corrections:

      Higgs -> Two W Bosons -> 4 leptons (electrons or muons)

      This is actually H -> ZZ -> 4 leptons

      This is how the W boson was studied so accurately at SLAC.

      I believe this is also incorrect. The W boson was discovered at Gargamelle and studied at LEP, CERN.

    12. Re:Did we really find it? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 1

      The difference isn't where funding will go. This will impact what the theoreticians are doing for a year or two if it doesn't end up getting confirmed. The primary cost in that context will be for chalk and erasers.

    13. Re:Did we really find it? by insecuritiez · · Score: 2

      Yeah you're right, it is H -> ZZ -> llll

      The WW decay is H -> WW -> lvlv

      Sorry about that.

      You're also right about it being LEP and not SLAC that studied the W boson with so much accuracy.

      Thanks for the corrections.

    14. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Y U NO SAY WHAT "v" STANDS FOR?? ;)

    15. Re:Did we really find it? by slew · · Score: 3, Informative

      The "v" in the context of W decay to "lv" is a neutrino ("v" is a close approximation to the lowercase N or Nu in greek ν)

    16. Re:Did we really find it? by zero.kalvin · · Score: 1

      The higgs has definitely not been found. They only found a particle that looks like the higgs at some mass. If you saw the conference that announced the new "particle" none of the people behind the table said that they found the higgs, they kept on repeating that they found a new particle. To verify whether or not it is the higgs, you need to study the individual channels and verify if they belong to a higgs interaction or not ( and this will take time ). But I repeat we have no proof that this is the higgs.

    17. Re:Did we really find it? by PiMuNu · · Score: 1

      No it was really two separate, independent experiments, CMS and ATLAS. Both reported discovery independently at the 5 sigma level (10^-5 probability of error or whatever it is). Both discovered a particle at the same mass, within experimental error. There was no shared knowledge or data between the analysis teams. They were working on the same accelerator (LHC), but at different points in the ring, so no cross talk or anything is possible between the two experiments (several km of rock in the way). The only thing they have in common is that the same protons were whizzing around.

    18. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      only one single experiment

      Actually, it was two different experiments: CMS and ATLAS. The LHC is the big ring-like structure that accelerates particles around it; CMS and ATLAS are two detectors at different points on that ring that watch as the particles collide with each other. Both CMS and ATLAS have detected a new particle, with the same mass (~125 GeV), with about the same significance (~5-sigma, or about a 1-in-50-million chance of getting that result by chance).

      The mass is about what the standard model of particle physics predicts for the Higgs boson, so it looks very much like this new particle is it. But the physicists are being careful not to state outright that they've found it, because there are certain properties that the Higgs is expected to have - charge, spin and parity, I think - which they haven't been able to measure yet. When they've got enough data to measure those, and if they match what the Higgs is supposed to have, then they'll state that they've definitely detected it.

    19. Re:Did we really find it? by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      If you saw the conference that announced the new "particle" none of the people behind the table said that they found the higgs, they kept on repeating that they found a new particle.

      I did see the conference. What they all kept repeating over and over again, in so many words, was "further research is needed". In their position I would have said the same, no matter how many sigmas I showed in my powerpoint.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    20. Re:Did we really find it? by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      This is either a troll or you really do not understand the costs of theoretical research. If it is the former then you got me. If it is the latter then here are a few more costs to consider;
      1. Wages of the PHDs.
      2. Wages of the grad students helping the PHDs.
      3. Administration costs for above payroll.
      4. Costs of lab space.
      5. Costs of computer time for simulations.
      A two year research project with a team of 2 professors and 4 grad students could easily run over a couple of million dollars. If many universities have research programs based on this unproven discouvery the combined costs could be quite high. Theoretical research is not cheap. How about we save the money till we are sure.

    21. Re:Did we really find it? by Stuarticus · · Score: 5, Funny

      Stupid universities wasting time and money trying to advance human knowledge. They could use that money to.............. Buy a tomahawk missile?

      --
      If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
    22. Re:Did we really find it? by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Now that is either a troll or a very stupid poster. I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt and go with the former.

    23. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You'd take education over tomahawks? Good man. So rare to see sanity on /. These days.

    24. Re:Did we really find it? by Goaway · · Score: 1

      You seem to have missed the word "theoretical" in my post.

    25. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "v" in the context of W decay to "lv" is a neutrino ("v" is a close approximation to the lowercase N or Nu in greek ν)

      No, no. NI. NI.

    26. Re:Did we really find it? by justforgetme · · Score: 1

      I was always dissatisfied by string theory to be honest. Not from the science per se but from the philosophical implication that after you wade through all the scales there actually exists one distinct smallest and one distinct largest scale.
      I mean, come on! The Universe can do better than that! And what about recursion? Huh that is a bit poetic at least!

      --
      -- no sig today
    27. Re:Did we really find it? by superzerg · · Score: 2

      It is already confirmed as 2 LHC's detectors (ATLAS and CMS) obtained the same result. This is the main raison why there are these 2 detectors instead of just 1. The team of physicists are different, so are the framework and analysis involved in the discovery.

    28. Re:Did we really find it? by MindStalker · · Score: 1

      Oh no, that isn't true. The Higgs Boson is a small but consistent data blip in a multitude of a huge number of experiments. Its only been found in this one collider though so the blip in the data could be due to an issue in the equipment.
      http://theskepticalteenager.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/higgsbosongraph1.png
      As the Input Energy of the collisions changed the expected output of the collisions changed following a predicted exact graph. The Higgs Boson is predicted to alter that straight curve at an exact spot and it did alter the curve at that exact spot. The issue is wither its a glitch in the detection or a different particle that isn't predicted.

    29. Re:Did we really find it? by JoshuaZ · · Score: 1

      No, I understand them just fine thank you. It is possible that I misjudged how my statement would be interpreted. I didn't expect it to be read quite so literally. The point is that theoretical research is comparatively cheap compared to building new particle accelerators, which your earlier statement specifically talked about building. You are talking about costs that are at least an order of magnitude smaller. And what would you have those PhDs and grad students do in the meantime? To be ready to actually look at the right theory and be up to date, it helps to have them explore everything. The theoreticians who aren't thinking stopped being theoreticians and go do other jobs, sometimes not even physics related, and so you lose those minds when you really do need to think about things. And even the wrong theories often lead to interesting insights or interesting math.

    30. Re:Did we really find it? by Magada · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the cosmological constant, is now the most popular theory to explain the universe's accelerating expansion

      describe, not explain

      --
      Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
    31. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a feeling that you are smarter than everyone else in the world, yes.

    32. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the LHC teams definition of "highly confident" is much more certain than most. Five sigma correlation is saying 0.57 in a million that their observed event is wrong.... they'll probably increasingly correlate the event until six sigma--2 in a billion.

    33. Re:Did we really find it? by AchilleTalon · · Score: 1

      "From what I understand it was only one single experiment that showed us something that we think is where/what the Higgs Boson would look like.
      Has it been reproduced or confirmed?"

      CMS and ATLAS are TWO like 2 independant experiments. So, yes, if data in both experiments converge to the same conclusion, it would have been confirmed and reproduced. Physicists aren't idiots and this is the reason they are running two different experiments with the same goal and working in isolation to each other.

      Now, the point is measurements of the characteristics of this new particle are required to formally identify it to a Higgs and which Higgs. So, for now, as the CERN and LHC said, this is a Higgs-like particle.

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    34. Re:Did we really find it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, for part of the year they stop injecting protons and instead inject lead nucului. This is meant to measure extremely messy but very high energy collisions that should generate quark-gluon plasmas.

      Let's hope this doesn't lead to more powerful nukular weapons!

    35. Re:Did we really find it? by jklovanc · · Score: 2

      You are talking about costs that are at least an order of magnitude smaller.

      An order of magnitude less than horrendously expensive it still very expensive.

      And what would you have those PhDs and grad students do in the meantime?

      How about working on the data from the current experiment to prove it rather than assuming it proves the theory. Isn't there other things to work on in theoretical physics rather that work based on the unproven existence of Higgs bosun?

      I think I see where we diverge in our ideas. I see a huge difference between a theoretical physicist and theoreticians. To me theoretical physicists takes proven fact and theorizes one or two levels and describes what they think is real. A theoretician doesn't care how many layers of conjecture are between facts and their theory. To me there are so many layers of conjecture up to the Higgs bosun that going past that is a flight of fancy.

      This reminds me of an old joke;
      Three PHDs are on a train to Glasgow; an economist, an engineer and a mathematician.
      The economist looks out the window, see some black sheep and states "All the sheep in Scotland are black".
      The engineer looks out the window, shakes his head and states"Some of the sheep are black".
      The mathematician looks out the window, sighs and states "In Scotland there exists at least one field where the sheep are black on at least one side".
      The mathematician is absolutely correct because all that was observed was one field and one side of each sheep.

      In this instance it seems that one experiment has a hazy picture of a black animal and the theoreticians are trying to state "See, black sheep are everywhere just like we theorized; lets move on".

    36. Re:Did we really find it? by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I didn't know that climate scientists were involved

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  4. When the string-theory gets ropey... by santax · · Score: 1

    I, for one, will pull my hand back from that pair of trousers!

  5. Really? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

    Theorists are now poking at the mathematical chinks

    I realize Asians are known for excelling at math, but do we really have to bring race into this?

    I'm very, very sorry. I couldn't resist. I understand I'm a terrible person, you don't need to reply and tell me that.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    1. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mathematical gooks? Oh. Goofs.

    2. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're a terrible person.

    3. Re:Really? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1
      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    4. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She looks really cute in it

    5. Re:Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are one nasty nerd. Hehehe.

  6. That's racist!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >> poking at the mathematical chinks

    Not all Maths graduate students are Chinese, you know.

    1. Re:That's racist!!! by busyqth · · Score: 2, Funny

      >> poking at the mathematical chinks

      Not all Maths graduate students are Chinese, you know.

      That's true. It's only the good ones.
      (They're especially good in wector calculus.)

    2. Re:That's racist!!! by fido_dogstoyevsky · · Score: 2

      >> poking at the mathematical chinks

      Not all Maths graduate students are Chinese, you know.

      That's true. It's only the good ones. (They're especially good in wector calculus.)

      No, that's actually a Russian specialty.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    3. Re:That's racist!!! by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      They've also had some success in building nuclear wessels.

  7. Is that permitted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    poking at the mathematical chinks

    I hope I'm not coming across as prudish, but isn't that illegal?

  8. Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Theorists are now poking at the mathematical chinks

    Really? The stereotype is bad enough, but now we're physically harassing them too?

  9. The real takeaway by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I predict, over the next two years, what's going to come out of this is the following:

    Physicists will have poked holes in most all the prevailing Standard Model-compatible theories, and will start talking about the inadequacies of the LHC and how we need a much bigger collider to prove or disprove the existence of those elusive super-partner particles required by supersymmetry.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:The real takeaway by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

      More like, we will find that quantum physics and standard model don't actually differ, but only in observation.

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:The real takeaway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't think we're already at that stage? LHC, being a hadron machine, is great for discovery but not so great for fine-detail studies. Now we know where to look we can build a leptonic machine to give us a closer look at that energy range so we can work out what kind of Higgs we've got ourselves.

    3. Re:The real takeaway by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Informative

      More like, we will find that quantum physics and standard model don't actually differ, but only in observation.

      They differ by virtue of belonging to different categories of things.

      Quantum physics is a general framework that encapsulates a number of particular physical theories, including quantum electrodynamics (interaction between charged particles and photons), quantum electroweakdynamics or whatever it's called (throw in the W and Z bosons and neutrinos on top of quantum electrodynamics), quantum chromodynamics (interaction between quarks, bearing a charge called "color", and gluons, the force quanta for the field generated by that charge), and the standard model (quantum electroweakandchromodynamics). So the standard model is a quantum theory, and thus falls under the general heading of "quantum physics" (as do atomic physics, nuclear physics, most if not all of what's called "condensed matter physics", and so on).

    4. Re:The real takeaway by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      While you can SM = Quantum Theory, the Standard Model is badly *incomplete*.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Standard_Model ... needed to explain the deficiencies of the Standard Model, such as the origin of mass, the strong CP problem, neutrino oscillations, matterâ"antimatter asymmetry, and the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Another problem lies within the mathematical framework of the Standard Model itself â" the Standard Model is inconsistent with that of general relativity to the point that one or both theories break down in their descriptions under certain conditions (for example within known space-time singularities like the Big Bang and black hole event horizons).

      Let alone the Fine-Structure Constant, of which Feynman wrote:
      âoeItâ(TM)s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the âhand of Godâ(TM) wrote that number, and âwe donâ(TM)t know how he pushed his pencilâ(TM)â (QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, page 131, Princeton, 1985)

    5. Re:The real takeaway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the strong CP problem

      Those perverts!

    6. Re:The real takeaway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      upgrades of the LHC are already proposed to increase both energy (up to ~33TeV) and luminosity.

    7. Re:The real takeaway by Tore+S+B · · Score: 1

      If the next step in discovering what makes the world around us tick involves a slightly larger tunnel, I'm all for it.

      --
      toresbe
  10. TF is Technicolor? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    TF is technicolor?

  11. You can't kill SUSY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every new discovery of the past few decades has supposedly "killed" SUSY, but every time it makes a comeback with a modification to avert whatever problem the observation caused. Other theories do the same, to a slightly lesser extent.

    I don't see why Technicolor is dead. The Nature article makes the claim that it's because Technicolor is Higgsless, but that's something of a falsehood. Technicolor lacks an elementary Higgs, because the role played by the elementary Higgs in the Standard Model is instead played by a composite particle. As far as I can tell it's perfectly possible that the bosonic state at 125GeV is a composite rather than elementary Higgs.

    (FD: I'm a PhD student with a thesis area based around technicolor)

    1. Re:You can't kill SUSY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for your comment. I was somewhat disappointed to hear about the Higgs when I realized it meant technicolor was dead, but now I have hope that it isn't dead yet.

    2. Re:You can't kill SUSY by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      Every new discovery of the past few decades has supposedly "killed" SUSY, but every time it makes a comeback with a modification to avert whatever problem the observation caused.

      Which just goes to show that supersymmetry theorists are very adept at predicting the past.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  12. Where's the pain? by FiloEleven · · Score: 1

    I understand that it would be frustrating to see years of labor on a theory go down the tubes, but at its root the finding means that we now have a slightly better understanding of reality. I would think that for many if not most people in the field, if the implications are as stated in the summary, this is exciting because we have a better idea of what direction to theorize in. Falsification is just as if not more important than making hypotheses.

    1. Re:Where's the pain? by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Every baby that dies is a win for evolution. But that's not how the baby sees it at all, nor the parents!

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    2. Re:Where's the pain? by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

      I understand that it would be frustrating to see years of labor on a theory go down the tubes, but...

      Ever since relativity and quantum theory came along, a lot of physicists have been looking for nifty or non-intuitive explanations for things. They keep looking for unexpected stuff in contrast to the "standard model". You know "new physics" is a common term and probably helps to get funding. The more exotic hypothesis (I won't give them the satisfaction of calling them theories) have been people hoping for something exotic in physics that they can be associated with and they are now getting the message "STFU" from the experiments and it sucks for them.

    3. Re:Where's the pain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I understand that it would be frustrating to see years of labor on a theory go down the tubes, but...

      Ever since relativity and quantum theory came along, a lot of physicists have been looking for nifty or non-intuitive explanations for things. They keep looking for unexpected stuff in contrast to the "standard model". You know "new physics" is a common term and probably helps to get funding. The more exotic hypothesis (I won't give them the satisfaction of calling them theories) have been people hoping for something exotic in physics that they can be associated with and they are now getting the message "STFU" from the experiments and it sucks for them.

      Physics, even Theoretical Physics isn't reduced to High Energy Physics. There is plenty of fascinating stuff going on in other branches of physics, so lets just leave these high energy crackpots to themselves. If they want to go on working on models that never predict anything so be it. The problem is that high energy theoretical physicists have put all their eggs in the same basket (String Theory) to the detriment of everything else. So of course they're pissed when an experiment comes along that points to supersymmetry being absent. Without supersymmetry you can't have a non contradictory String Theory.

  13. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by grouchomarxist · · Score: 2

    The experiments indicating the existence of the Higgs Boson at now at 5 sigma, which validates the "pretty much" qualification for particle physics.

    The existence of God fits into a entirely different ontological category. There are no experiments you can perform to confirm or invalidate the existence of God.

  14. Maybe by eclectro · · Score: 1

    So now that we've pretty much found the Higgs Boson

    Maybe the Higgs Boson wanted us to think we found it.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:Maybe by sconeu · · Score: 1

      No, it just wants you to think *THAT*.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  15. Re:learning by smashing by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is an idiotic analogy. This isn't about breaking things, it's about reproducing the kinds of conditions necessary to observe phenomena. Do you feel the same way about dissecting animals to learn about internal structure or heating various substances to get spectral signatures.

    If you're going to confirm or throw out a model of subatomic physics you're going to have to use accelerators to produce the conditions where particles can be observed.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  16. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Teresita · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Uh, I hope you realize that Dark Matter doesn't have anything to do with the universe being "dark". Besides, it's not dark in the microwave band anyway. The Dark Matter "bandwagon" is trying to account for 23% of the mass of the universe which does not interact with the electromagnetic field, and hence is "dark". Much of this is hot dark matter consisting of neutrinos (generated by the conversion of a proton into a neutron) and antineutrinos (generated by the conversion of a neutron into a proton). These reactions were known in the Twentieth Century. Neutrinos have a very low rest mass, and travel at just under the speed of light. So infrequent are their interactions with normal matter that a neutrino would be able to pass through a light-year of lead with no scattering events. That leaves warm dark matter (with velocities from 1 to 10% of c) and cold dark matter (with velocities below 1% of c) to be discovered. The negatinos and positinos of supersymmetry theory were promising in this direction, but apparently have been falsified. But no one is "afraid".

  17. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by santax · · Score: 2
  18. Summary of the Higgs Boson "Finding" by Crypto+Gnome · · Score: 1

    consistent with The Higgs Boson

    The short version of what scientists are *actually* saying boils down to:

    We theorised where IT would be and when we finally looked THERE we found SOMETHING which isn't Absolutely Not IT.

    Reports I've read (forgot URLs, sue me) indicated the result found was NOT exactly as expected, but also not so massively different that they'd be sure it was NOT The Higgs.

    More like:
    Scientist1: Yup, that's the Higgs!
    Scientist2: But I thought you said it'd have black spots not very very dark brown.
    Scientist1: Well if we'd solved everything then what are we going to do after that?

    --
    Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
  19. Decay channels not rates by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

    One of the reasons to believe they have found the Higgs boson and not some other particle is that the decay relative rates for each type of decay are pretty close to what the theory suggests.

    Actually that is not really true because we do not have enough statistics to measure these rates with any accuracy. In fact the "most likely" value for diphoton rates for both ATLAS and CMS are quite a bit higher than the Standard Model predicts but the accuracy is sufficiently low that they are not yet inconsistent with the SM values. So really the rate measurements are currently far too inaccurate to have any idea whether this is a Higgs boson or not but things are improving rapidly as we gain statistics.

    What is far more important at the moment are the decay channel observations. Since it decays into photons, W and Z bosons we know it must be either a spin-0 or spin-2 particle and it cannot be a fermion (spin-0.5). The Higgs should be spin-0 so this is consistent but not conclusive. Essentially it decays into the particles it should do and it _potentially_ has the correct spin. We can get a more accurate determination of the spin i.e. whether it is spin-0 or spin-2 by looking at the angle between the two leptons (electron or muon) produced in the WW decay channel - expect results from ATLAS and CMS on this soon.

    However by the end of the year the rate measurements should be a lot more accurate and things will possibly start to get interesting if the current diphoton rates stay where they are but we end up with less uncertainty on the measurement.

  20. Pink elephants by WallaceAndGromit · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is worth a watch...
    http://vimeo.com/41038445
    Enjoy!

    --
    Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
  21. Higgs discovery is the nail in the coffin of ST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    String Theory has failed to even generate a single definitive prediction after 44 years of hype.

    ST is gonna go down in history as one of the biggest wastes of money and human potential ever.

    It's equivalent to religion since nothing in ST is (currently?) falsifiable and you have to believe in it to work on it.

  22. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > There are no experiments you can perform to confirm or invalidate the existence of God.

    Actually there is. Unfortunately it requires death as that results of that experience and the aftermath will provide all the proofs and more then one person could ever dream that indeed your consciousness simply changes state after death, and that there is a super-consciousness to the sub-consciousness of everyone. *Unfortunately* getting the results of said experiment back to the living is the catch. The other "kink" is that: Besides if you already knew the answer, it would (mostly) invalidate the purpose of being human in the first place.

    The other way would be to learn meditation and learn how to interact with your True Self. Again, unfortunately one could spend an entire lifetime before ones "get confirmation" that there is indeed far, far more to "who you truely are."

    The point though, either way the answer is largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. There are indeed many good people of all kinds of beliefs, faiths, and lack of said beliefs and faiths. If one has to rely on an external force / rules to be positive internally methinks one is the missing the *whole* point of religion which is little more then spiritual kindergarten. At some point one doesn't need others telling you to internalize how to treat others with respect, kindness, etc.

    The ignorance and arrogance of man is to simply assume that some questions are unknowable. They may not be easy to get, but they are indeed there if one dedicates their life to seeking them. Again, the proof of this, sadly, is also going thru the death experience.

    It is simpler to "just get on with life" - learning and loving. That's what its all about at the end of the day -- creating positive relationships with everyone else.

    The instant someone is trying to "sell you" a philosophy is the instant it would be good to be skeptical of their agenda.

  23. Holy crap by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Higgs Data Offers Joy and Pain for Particle Physicists"

    "Joy and pain"? Jesus, what are they doing, tying the boson in a knot and putting it up their bums? (I guess it would have to be a "boson's knot").

    Instead of the God Particle, they could call the "Oh God! Particle".

    [note: I only make this kind of off-color joke because it's past 9pm and the children have all gone to bed. I call this the "safe harbor" hours, when normal FCC rules moderating online behavior are relaxed, like a sphincter with a Higgs Boson in it. Thanks to these safe harbor rules, constitutionally-protected free speech rights of adults are balanced with the need to protect children from harmful content, like the word "fuck" and references to tying massive particles in knots and putting them up one's bum and then pulling it out slowly as climax is achieved (thus the expression "string theory"). Two physicist doing this while standing face to face are called a "Hardon Collider", named for the famous Scottish physicist Sir Ivan Hardon (1847-1903) who first posited that there's nothing else to do while waiting for the experiment to finish and there were so few female physicists back then that, hey, what happens in the lab stays in the lab. Tragically one of his experiments exploded while Hardon and a lab assistant were engaged in this act of outrage and since they had their pants down both of them got kilt.]

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Holy crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Instead of the God Particle, they could call the "Oh God! Particle".

      We already have an "Oh-My-God particle". It was a cosmic ray (a particle from space, probably a proton) that hit the atmosphere with a billion times as much energy as the LHC can achieve.

    2. Re:Holy crap by Halo1 · · Score: 1

      Instead of the God Particle

      Don't call it that, you fool!

      Tragically one of his experiments exploded while Hardon and a lab assistant were engaged in this act of outrage and since they had their pants down both of them got kilt.]

      Thank Science for the random Scotsman when you're in need! (I'm not sure whether that was on purpose, but if it was: very nice!)

      --
      Donate free food here
    3. Re:Holy crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, the original term was "God damn particle" but the author was persuaded to allow the editor to drop the "damn".

  24. Schrodinger Scientists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, are the physicists happy and sad at the same time? Makes sense... and not.

  25. Infinitely Unfalsafiable Theory by mbkennel · · Score: 0

    sociology with a few arbitrary symmetry laws.

  26. Non-borked Feynman quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    For those who want to pretend they understand:

    It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered more than fifty years ago, and all good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it. Immediately you would like to know where this number for a coupling comes from: is it related to Ï or perhaps to the base of natural logarithms? Nobody knows. It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly!
                    On the numerical value of α[ed: alpha], the fine-structure constant, p. 129

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

    PS - Whiners may wish to note Taco's response to a question in yesteday's Reddit AMA regarding lack of Unicode on Slashdot:

    Ihmhi 3 points 2 days ago

    One last one because I can't resist!
    Why did you guys get rid of ASCII/unicode support? Sure there were some nasty ASCII posts, but it also removed the possibility for creativity. It seems a bit stifling at times, and it's funny to me that there's a website in 2012 that can't handle, say, Japanese characters.

    CmdrTaco 4 points 2 days ago

    Jerks ruined it for everyone.

    ref

    1. Re:Non-borked Feynman quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's the same excuse any dictator uses, to suppress freedoms. Same as "The terrorists ruined flying for everyone".
      No they did not. It was Taco's incompetence/laziness in looking up the concept of "Unicode blocks" and filter both all chars <32 and those blocks that are for control characters.
      Because that's all that's needed. Other blocks don't contain any characters that can mess up anything! Such a separation in groups is the whole point of those blocks.
      And because he's from the US, he didn't have to give a fuck.

      Meanwhile, everyone else can do do it. Which is expected, since it's obvious how to solve it, if one understands Unicode blocks.
      So there's no excuse. It's just FAIL.

    2. Re:Non-borked Feynman quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So there's no excuse. It's just a failure.

      FTFY

  27. This article differs by Old+Wolf · · Score: 1

    from every other article I've read on the topic, which say that the measured mass of the Higgs boson is exactly where it should be if the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model is correct; and too low for any non-supersymmetric theory.

    http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-125-gev-higgs-boson-isnt-quite.html?m=1

    1. Re:This article differs by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      the measured mass of the Higgs boson is exactly where it should be if the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model is correct

      That doesn't sound right to me. I think "not ruled out by" is more accurate characterization than "exactly where it should be". The so called Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model definitely did not predict the Higgs' mass.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  28. Submission for the Journal of Improbable Physics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Theorist #1: "We have analyzed the Higgs Boson data, and the answer is 42."

    Theorists #2, 3, 4 ... 500 :"Oh #$!@. Now the bloody question changed!"

  29. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by grouchomarxist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is essential to science that experimental results are public and repeatable. What you are talking about doesn't fit into those categories. Perhaps you could call it knowledge, but it isn't knowledge in the ordinary sense.

    If I had a dream where I met Satan and he told me his favorite shampoo, you could call that knowledge, but it isn't knowledge in the scientific sense, or even common sense.

  30. Is mass loss in nuclear fusion just Higgs drag? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's say you have an atom consisting of 1 Proton (1P). You also have an atom consisting of 1 proton and 2 neutrons (1P 2N). Let's say you bang these together to create 2P2N.

    This apparently causes a decrease in mass, which is converted to energy.

    Since mass is apparently simply drag in the Higgs field, could it be said that there is something about 2P2N that makes its drag smaller than the sum of its parts, hence the rest is released as energy? That lead is the ultimate smooth sailer in the Higgs field, and as atoms on the lower side come together or on the higher side split apart, they enjoy a stepwise decrease in their drag?

    That in E=mc2, the important bit is really the c^2, because in order to create particles with mass you need not only the corresponding building blocks, but also c^2 of energy to couple the created particles to the Higgs field? Why does this coupling take the speed of light squared and not cubed?

    1. Re:Is mass loss in nuclear fusion just Higgs drag? by dido · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The three valence quarks inside a proton for instance have a rest mass of only 11 MeV/c^2, which they get by means of the Higgs mechanism. The rest of the 938 MeV/c^2 that is the full rest mass of the proton is its quantum chromodynamic binding energy, that is the energies of the gluons that are keeping the three quarks together, so the Higgs mechanism accounts for only 1% of the mass of a composite particle like a proton. Not all mass is drag in the Higgs field. It is by no means the final word on the origin of all mass. If the Higgs mechanism was the only way particles could acquire their masses, then the neutrino should have zero mass, and well, it doesn't.

      --
      Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
    2. Re:Is mass loss in nuclear fusion just Higgs drag? by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      Since mass is apparently simply drag in the Higgs field...

      Ah, I don't know anything about this to speak of, but obviously mass is not drag. Drag always slows things down while mass has momentum which tends to keep things going. I'm afraid the drag thing (journalists hanging onto thus slowing down celebrities) was just a crude analogy sombody cooked up in a press conference to try to explain the abstract mathematical nature of what is really going on to journalists and other mere knuckle draggers like myself. Frankly, I think they need to get back to the drawing board and cook up a better metaphor.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  31. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

    A 'skeptic' who denounces a claim without investigating the evidence is mearly an opinionated contrairian. Maybe if you acted like a real skeptic, the failure of Hawkings to denounce the Higgs and Dark Matter would be less surprising.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  32. Re:learning by smashing by darenw · · Score: 1

    Indeed. It's more a matter of finding at what pitch an object resonates, like the opera singer and the wine glass. Er, wait, no, that's still breaking things...

    It's like launching a rocket at the right speed and direction to get to Mars, or cooking food at the right temperature for best results, or leaning a two-wheeled vehicle just right to go around a curve, or tuning a musical instrument to blend in with the band to make a smoother sound. Something has to be adjusted to achieve a certain condition. Then, when things are in that condition, it's about transformation not breaking.

    A cell phone (it was a wristwatch in the old days) is made out of many parts which come apart and themselves can break, while a Higgs boson (or any other particle found by tuning beam energy) isn't made out of anything but itself, but given the right conditions may replace itself with a any set of particles that add up to the right energy, momentum, spin, charge and other quantum numbers.

  33. What does it actually mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Writing as an engineer not a physicist, what does it actually mean though.
    For the sake of keeping things simple, I'm going to assume in this post that they have found the Higgs boson (lets pretend they walked up to it and looked between its legs to check).
    Now.
    What does it actually mean for me as an engineer?
    From what I've read they've shown that something that something they were assuming to exist for their model to work, does in fact exist. Where does that actually get them besides saying "Well chaps. It looks like the model is right. As you were." (or what ever the Swiss version is).
    Granted they can write plenty of conference papers and journal articles and get more grants etc, but aside from that what?

    What I'm trying to ask, is, how does showing that something they were relying on existing actually exists helpful?

    1. Re:What does it actually mean? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Ask again in 50-100 years. It typically takes a while for technology to catch up with science. Especially fundamental science. Electricity was basically useless when discovered, and look how that turned out.

      My own pie-in-the-sky speculation? Since the Higgs field is responsible for inertial mass, if we can learn to manipulate it then inertial dampening may become possible,which could make interplanetary travel convenient, and interstellar travel feasible. Not to mention potentially revolutionizing on-planet transportation. Imagine semi's that could go a hundred miles hour in stop-and-go traffic with negligible energy consumption, while harmlessly bouncing off of pedestrians without anyone getting hurt because the momentum is so small. Or mile-long cargo trains pulled by one guy on a bicycle. In space things would get even more fun - orbits are determined by the balance of inertial and gravitational mass (unaffected by the Higgs, as I understand it) - disrupt that balance in a controlled manner and you could sling things all over the solar system at ridiculously high speeds without expending any energy whatsoever. Presumably you'd still have to expend the necessary energy to match specific energies with your destination when the dampener was disabled, but you could jaunt around the system at ridiculously high speeds while only spending the "optimal path" amount of energy. And as long as you stayed at the same SE

      Hmm, could poke some interesting holes in Newtonian physics though - Conservation of momentum holds m*v constant, so halving your mass would double your velocity, but that would correspond to a doubling in kinetic energy. My guess is that CoM would hold, and CoE would set the minimum energy cost of dampening, in which case we'd suddenly have a HUGE incentive to develop efficient batteries - considerable energy costs to be able to fling stuff around the solar system at high speed, but you get it all back (probably plus/minus changes in orbital energy) when you turn it off again.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  34. It has been reproduced by doru · · Score: 2

    The data obtained by two independent experiments (CMS and ATLAS, both at the LHC) is in excellent agreement for the mass of the particle. The results are also coherent with those obtained by two experiments (CDF and D0) based at the Fermilab. Something has been found, with a very high statistical relevance (five sigma level, so there is only a chance in a few million that this is a fluctuation). Whether this something is indeed the Higgs boson as predicted depends on its detailed behaviour, so it will take more time to find out. It does however look like it, or a close relative...

  35. There obviously is a deeper theory by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Obviously, there is a deeper theory because the Standard Model makes no attempt to explain why the elementary particles have exactly the masses they do, just to mention one huge gap of which this armchair physics watcher is aware. It's about time for another Einstein to come along and deduce it.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    1. Re:There obviously is a deeper theory by anandsr · · Score: 1

      I think Entropic Gravity is looking very promising.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropic_gravity

      Verlinde claims that it is starting to make some sense of the Dark Matter and Dark Energy problem.
      http://www.scilogs.eu/en/blog/the-dark-matter-crisis/2012-06-28/discussing-gravity-with-eric-verlinde

      This theory could change a whole lot of things in physics. And might provide a way to finally bring Quantum Theory and Relativity together.

      General Relativity actually adopted equations that would be consistent with Newtonian Gravity without deriving it from first principles.
      And probably that is the problem with its current formulation. The Entropic Gravity might provide the deriviation and mechanism for it.

  36. Actually... by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While disproving the existence of God is effectively impossible - proving it does exist would actually quite simple, provided you had His/Her/Its/Their cooperation. The fact that their is no credible evidence the existence of God suggests that either:
    1) It doesn't exist
    2) It doesn't desire to prove Its existence, or
    3) It's incapable of proving Its existence

    Considering we're talking about a being who most claim created the universe and intervenes in peoples life in ways both subtle and miraculous, number (3) seems unlikely - even just having one of his chosen messengers take part in a double-blind psionics test while God read out the cards to them would be enough to give the question serious scientific merit.

    Now (2) could very easily be the case, and is in fact perfectly consistent with some faiths. But in that case I would suggest that either It doesn't actually care about our worship, codes of conduct, or the other stuff religions tend to obsess over, or It's a complete jerk: "Yeah, I know it's been a hundred generations or so since I bothered to offer any evidence that I even exist, much less which of the hundreds of continuously-mutating religions I endorse, but you didn't follow the right one so you're getting eternally condemned anyway".

    Which leaves (1) as the default assumption. Either God doesn't exist, or It wishes us to be free to conduct our lives as though it does not - in which case spreading the "Good Word", especially through coercion, would seem to run counter to God's will.

    --
    --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    1. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Missing option:
      4) Doesn't desire to prove its existence...YET

    2. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe, for (2), He considers faith (as opposed to relying on senses) very important to human evolution, and deliberately makes some things, one being His existence, impossible to prove scientifically?

    3. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But why have humans evolved to believe that there is the "all-powerful being somewhere and everywhere in the universe, but you can't see him"? Do other great apes or mammals have any concept of creation, or a creator of their
      environment? Presumably gorillas could understand the concepts of mother/child and owner, so could they understand creator of the forest?

    4. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (4) How about he exists and gives enough evidence with the Bible. The Bible is widely available to most of the earth's population. In the Bible God gives his name and tells what his purpose is and his past dealings with mankind (Psalms 83:18). In it he claims credit for creating the universe and inspiring the Bible (Genesis 1:1, 2 Timothy 3:16). He also tells how he will accomplish his purpose in the future (Daniel 2:44, Revelation 21:3,4). The Bible doesn't endorse all religion (Mathew 7:13-14). If someone really wanted to know his purpose and please him and prayed to him about it he would definitely answer that request (1 John 5:14, 1 Timothy 2:3,4). Matthew 24:14 talks about a global preaching work that will occur before the end. That would likely be the way he would respond to someone's prayer. It would still be one's choice whether to listen or not.

    5. Re:Actually... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yes, but *which* Bible? One of the Abrahamic ones (Old Testamanet, New Testament, Koran, or one of the dozens of variations thereof? The Norse Eddas? Perhaps the Hindus have it right with their expansive pantheon? Their are literally hundreds of different religions out there, and most of them claim to be The One True Faith. How is a person not raised to one of them supposed to choose the right one? None of them offer the slightest shed of evidence that they are truer than the others.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    6. Re:Actually... by badatnicknames · · Score: 0

      Like you said there can't be multiple true faiths that conflict with each other. There's only 1 Bible that's the most widely available book which contains explains fully the past, present, future. It is also scientifically and historically accurate and contains fulfilled prophecy. In the Bible God tells you what happened, what he's doing about it, and what the result will be. Also there's only one hearer of prayer that would care whether people want to listen to him (Psalms 65:2, 2 Chronicles 16:9). If you pray to him with sincerity for guidance and he answers you by helping you understand his Bible and learn more about him that would certainly provide evidence.

    7. Re:Actually... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      But why have humans evolved to believe that there is the "all-powerful being somewhere and everywhere in the universe, but you can't see him"?

      Because we're more intelligent than our nearest living ancestors, and are smart enough to articulate and ponder our origins. Is this really some amazing concept? You might as well ask why we evolved to do better math than some birds that have some rudimentary counting skills.

    8. Re:Actually... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      There's only 1 Bible that's the most widely available book which contains explains fully the past, present, future.

      The Bible was written by a group of men who collected a bunch of stories and decided which ones were canon and which ones weren't. It doesn't explain shit, unless you believe in ridiculous Hebrew mythology like Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark, or that the Earth doesn't move and hence doesn't revolve around the Sun.

    9. Re:Actually... by badatnicknames · · Score: 0

      Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark. Consider Mathew 19:4-6 and Mathew 24:37-39. It also doesn't say that the Earth does not move. In fact at Job 26:7, it also says the Earth is hanging upon nothing.

    10. Re:Actually... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Jesus believed in Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark.

      So? Does believing in Hebrew mythology make him more or less credible?

      It also doesn't say that the Earth does not move.

      http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/q7.htm

      You can find relevant passages quoted there, along with an excuse which amounts to just re-interpreting the Bible, as is often the case whenever it is shown to be wrong. One of the reasons the Earth revolving around the Sun was initially rejected and consider heretical was because it contradicted the Bible.

    11. Re:Actually... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
      Or you could stop using a colloquial christian god as a strawman and perhaps focus on what religions are really saying about God.

      Put simply, God is one. We live in, and are a part of a sea of conscious energy, that collective consciousness is God or The Creator, we'll use God to be defined as a subset of that energy. Science now knows that we are vibrating energy patterns in constant interaction with the world around us, it's just not simple to grasp when your mind turns all these fluctuating vibrations into a concrete, constant world, this is why the senses have to be 'transcended' in spirituality.

      The energy of God can only be used and harnessed when one is sync with the intent of that energy. Gods can be created because a shared belief can act as a reservoir for the intent and energy of that belief. It's sort of like a Bose Einstein condensate. To become one with God and use the stored energy available there, one must lose individuality.

      Therein lies the problem, Gods today are fractured beyond belief. Personal gods are de rigueur nowadays, driven by the stupidity of the push for Individualism in the US (of course, gods were fractured before this, but it's a little ridiculous now). These new Gods are in a sense worthless and powerless because the energy going in is usually only from one person or a small group of crazy's and they have to contend against the Science God which is the most powerful now because of all the science fanbois who believe without understanding or proof.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    12. Re:Actually... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the fact that they all to some extent say exactly the same thing would be an indication that there is One God. It should be no suprise that humans with their different languages and different cultures have constructed different religions to try and explain all the God experiences of their culture. It should also come as no surprise that they bicker over this because they are still juvenile humans after all.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    13. Re:Actually... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yes, but what makes your holy book so special that I should listen to it in defiance of all the others? The only reason the Christian faith is so widespread today is because at one time Southern Europe had a technological advantage and engaged in militaristic expansion, conquering their neighbors and eventually most of the world, and they did their best to stamp out the local religions and impose Christianity wherever they went. Perhaps you see that as evidence of God's favor, I see it as the so-called cradle of human civilization had a predictable technological edge, amplified by the pressures of the environmental destruction they were wreaking. Christianity just happened to be the religion that was in ascension when the technology evolved to the point that it gave them a devastating military advantage.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    14. Re:Actually... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      It sounds like you are referring to something like the Godhead, Atman, Tao or similar concept, and I'll freely admit my argument has no standing against that; however, that also bears little resemblance to what most people think of as God. Gods are typically characterized by qualities of person-hood - intentions, desire, personality, will, etc., none of which apply to the Godhead. You don't get rules from on high from a god without person-hood. In Hindi, the ancestor of most modern religions that embrace the concept, they make a clear distinction between the Atman and the many gods, in fact they place buddhas above the gods because the gods are still locked into the world by their belief in their own selfhood. In some of the more distilled versions such as Buddhism and Taoism the entire issue of gods is basically ignored as being irrelevant to enlightenment, which incidentally (and probably by design) gives them much greater great cross-cultural potential because they are compatible with virtually any religion, even atheism.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    15. Re:Actually... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
      Just because people misunderstand God doesn't mean one should use their faulty definitions in argument.

      BTW, you could get rules from God, because the underlying rules of reality are the building blocks of right action in the human manifestation.

      Hinduism, not hindi the language, is very interesting in that their Gods are human, i.e., the properties of those gods are conveyed to the human which adopts the same energetic patterns (asana) as the god. True, these super powers where then associated with roadblocks to enlightenment as they require unbending intent in one direction which is antithetic to balance and equanimity.

      Buddhism is a failure as much as all the other religions. Along comes a person who understands what it means to be human, said person explains to everybody how the key to their enlightenment lies within oneself and they must seek it in their own manner. Everybody then ignores what said person said and falls to copying and worshipping the poor bastard.

      BTW, you're confusing Atman, the personal manifestation of a singular god consciousness in a person with the sum total of all consciousness, Brahman. Atman is not really above the gods, as atman is a full understanding of all the energetic qualities of all the gods, as the gods are only specialized subsets of Atman, i.e., one who has cleansed all nadis and controls them at will.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    16. Re:Actually... by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Right, been awhile since I looked closely at Hinduism, my vocabulary obviously got scrambled in the interim. God however is a moderately agreed-upon concept - ask almost anyone outside the scientific or theological disciplines what it is and you'll get variation on a "being" of some sort - something possessing person-hood, and as such I'd say that in general conversation that is the definition that should be used. (Scientists and theologians both tend to use the term as a metaphorical placeholder for more subtle and complex concepts, albeit not necessarily the same ones). There are plenty of other terms available - personally I like "Godhead" as it's clear even to those who don't know the word that you're referring to something related to but distinct from their preconceived notion of God(s), and as far as I'm aware it doesn't come with a tapestry of associated concepts like Tao or Brahman does. In fact if I remember my etymology correctly it was actually coined by a theologian only a few centuries ago specifically to facilitate discussion of the unknowable essence of god as distinct from the web of preconceived concepts we assign to the term.

      I'd agree that Buddhism is nothing special as a religion, but then it was never really designed as such, it simply stepped into the role - presumably as a way to secure funding. As a quasi-religious teaching on the other hand it has a lot to offer, beginning with the fact that like Taoism, and unlike the teachings at the heart of most religions, it comes right out and says "This is wrong! Everything I'm telling you is a lie!" which I think is an important thing to reinforce when discussing concepts that can't be accurately mapped to symbolic language. Also it's conspicuously free of authoritarianism - there's plenty of guidelines for those seeking enlightenment, but also an understanding that enlightenment is not for everyone. Then again broad authoritarianism seems to be a particular failing of monotheistic religions, so singling out Buddhism for praise on that front is likely undeserved.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  37. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    There are no experiments you can perform to confirm or invalidate the existence of God.

    Actually there is. Unfortunately it requires death...

    Is that an assertion you'd bet your life on?

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  38. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are no experiments you can perform to confirm or invalidate the existence of God.

    Bullshit. Matthew 7:7 claims "Ask and it shall be given unto you". And yet, I'm stuck with 4 inches.

  39. Lets not jump the gun by jklovanc · · Score: 1

    Theoretical research still takes people and computers; both of which cost money. A research team consisting of two PHDs and four grad students can easily cost $1Mill. a year. Multiply that by the number of interested research groups and the possible waste can be huge. Are you really willing to risk wasting millions of dollars in very scarce funding for theoretical research just because one can not wait to be sure that the single experiment was not an anomaly?

    Here is a quote from CERN Director General Rolf Heuer;
    “The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe.”
    Even the CERN director does not claim to have found the Higgs boson; just a particle consistent with it. As it is said earlier in the article, it could be Higgs or it could be something more exotic. At least replicate the experiment first.

    1. Re:Lets not jump the gun by Goaway · · Score: 1

      You are exaggerating to an incredible degree here.

      You think those people wouldn't be paid if they weren't working on the Higgs results?

    2. Re:Lets not jump the gun by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      You are exaggerating to an incredible degree here.

      What exactly do you consider to be exaggerations?

      You think those people wouldn't be paid if they weren't working on the Higgs results?

      How about we pay them to work on something based on a more proven theory rather than, what is at this point, yet another layer of conjecture. How many layers of conjecture does it take to change from theory to flight of fancy? If this is true and this is true and this is true and this is true and this is true then this could be true.

    3. Re:Lets not jump the gun by Goaway · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what you are even talking about any longer.

      This is a first experimental verification of a theoretical result. It fits what was expected. It is not enough for a solid confirmation yet, but for it to be false would be quite unexpected and surprising. We are not expecting further experiments to disprove this.

      Why are you so upset over a tiny little chance that maybe this will turn out to be a different particle, and that a few professors would have wasted a couple months of work on that?

    4. Re:Lets not jump the gun by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      Why are you so upset over a tiny little chance that maybe this will turn out to be a different particle, and that a few professors would have wasted a couple months of work on that?

      That assumes a couple of things;
      1. That it will take only a couple of months to replicate and prove. It may take years especially if funding get diverted to post-Higgs bosun study.
      2. That their estimates of probability are actually correct. From the article they stated that if one sensor detected decay as predicted for a Higgs bison it was 90% probability that it was one. Later they state that since two detected the decay simultaneously the probability goes up to 99.999%. From elementary probability if one event has a 10% chance of being wrong then the chance of the same error happening twice is 1% and not 0.0001%. What if there was a problem with the sensors and they bot sent incorrect readings?
      3. That the theory is correct. What if what they were seeing is a secondary decay from a higher mass particle. In all the papers they state that they have found something consistent with Higgs bosun and it may be something completely different and the theory may be completely wrong. When one has a theory and looks for it long enough one might just "find" it and then realize it was a mistake.

    5. Re:Lets not jump the gun by Goaway · · Score: 1

      That it will take only a couple of months to replicate and prove. It may take years especially if funding get diverted to post-Higgs bosun study.

      What funds are going to be diverted? Are we suddenly going to start paying professors more money?

      Also, if you can't even spell "boson", are you really sure you are qualified to talk about the value or likelihoods of these results?

    6. Re:Lets not jump the gun by jklovanc · · Score: 1

      If professors who are currently working on proving that the Higgs boson exists accept the current theory that it does as fact they may move to new research based on that assumption. So instead of continuing to work to prove the existence of the Higgs boson they are spending their research dollars on something else. That is how finding gets diverted.

      The experiment has not even been replicated. There could have been some flaw that created false results like the faster than light experiment done by the same organization. This 99.9999% certainty is based on the detection by two sensors. What is the probability that both sensors malfunctioned? What is the probability that the timing between those sensors was flawed so they didn't really detect the decay at the same time? What is the probability that one of the sensors was flawed and miss read an energy level making it look like they were the same? There are many things that can go wrong in an experiment which is why the scientific method requires replication. At least replicate it a few time before taking the results as fact. How many times was the experiment run without getting these results? Once in an anomaly, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

  40. Break out the check book by Chewbacon · · Score: 1

    Duhhhhh now we need an even bigger, costlier particle accelerator!

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
    1. Re:Break out the check book by Magada · · Score: 1

      The LHC is that bigger and costlier accelerator. It's being run at way less than nominal power right now.

      --
      Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
  41. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Tore+S+B · · Score: 2

    > There are no experiments you can perform to confirm or invalidate the existence of God.

    Actually there is. Unfortunately it requires death as that results of that experience and the aftermath will provide all the proofs and more then one person could ever dream that indeed your consciousness simply changes state after death, and that there is a super-consciousness to the sub-consciousness of everyone. *Unfortunately* getting the results of said experiment back to the living is the catch.

    But what if experiments were to conclusively prove that all aspects of personality can be explained by neurological processes? Then, consciousness would be tied to an observable, physical mechanism and then you would need to render the idea of a mirroring consciousness existing outside the observed - which is kind of a stretch, but those are not exactly news to theology.

    The basic point that should be made is that just because something cannot be disproven does not mean that it is more likely than any other arbitrary and absurd claim. The reason the belief in a deity is taken seriously is because it is more widely held than the belief that we all stem from an invisible Coca-Cola dispenser inside the core of the Moon; the two claims have the same amount of intellectual merit.

    --
    toresbe
  42. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We pretty much know this if you had a detailed enough cryptome of someones brain and a suitable substrate you could run a persons personality in a simulation. What makes a person unique is basically just a map of connections/connection strength/neuron type no magic just an unbelievably complex network.

  43. Life is but a dream by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Row, row, row your boat,
            Gently down the stream.
            Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
            Life is but a dream.

  44. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    You see, we have this little fact of life in which everyone dies; everyone will be given this opportunity to do their own science!

    In the meantime, enjoy life! It is too short.

    Besides, it is only a gamble, when you don't know the outcome or the odds. In this I already know both so to answer your question: mu.
    i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)

  45. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    > Perhaps you could call it knowledge, but it isn't knowledge in the ordinary sense.

    That is indeed correct, for there are two types of knowledge.
    i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori

    A priori knowledge or justification is independent of experience, and
    A posteriori knowledge or justification is dependent on experience or empirical evidence

    I prefer the word Gnosis = knowledge that can ONLY be understood from experience. e.g. Men have NO knowledge of what it is like to give birth. They obviously can _relate_ to the pain, but they will never truly know what this entails like a woman.

    Pray tell, what kind of experiment can Science devise that is
      a) repeatable
      b) objective
    that consciousness survives death?

    Science is a fantastic system. WITHIN its domain. But there questions (and answers) outside its domain that it will *never* be able to answer. But just because that _one_ system is unable to come to any conclusions, do not imply there aren't other ways of getting the answer.
    e.g.
    It is akin to asking a mother "prove" she loves her children. If she doesn't slap you for asking such a stupid question, she will tell you that "she *knows* that precisely _because_ of the experience."

  46. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    > But what if experiments were to conclusively prove that all aspects of personality can be explained by neurological processes? Then, consciousness would be tied to an observable, physical mechanism

    You fallacy is assuming brain = mind.

    Prove to me that :
      a) numbers are physical
      b) time is physical

    Our mind deals with meta-physical objects all the time. Our brain _represents_ these concepts and ideas mechanically, but you are confusing the representation with the actuality.

    See Peter Russell in the documentary "The Primacy of Consciousness" which points out the absurdity in Materialism
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7799171063626430789

  47. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Lithdren · · Score: 1

    As I understand it, there is a fish that can disprove the existance of god. Sadly, it also results in rather horrible death involving a zebra crossing.

  48. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Tore+S+B · · Score: 1

    > But what if experiments were to conclusively prove that all aspects of personality can be explained by neurological processes? Then, consciousness would be tied to an observable, physical mechanism

    You fallacy is assuming brain = mind.

    How on earth can you say my fallacy is that assumption when you're replying to a sentence which explicitly supposes it as a hypothetical?

    --
    toresbe
  49. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by icebraining · · Score: 1

    How will you know you are really dead?

  50. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

    My brain hertz

    --
    The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  51. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Raenex · · Score: 1

    Our brain _represents_ these concepts and ideas mechanically, but you are confusing the representation with the actuality.

    You haven't presented any evidence beyond the material, other than to meditate, which provides no evidence at all, as people have fooled themselves into thinking all kinds of bullshit based on such practices.

    If, in fact, you could directly experience this meta-conscience, you should be able to reliably and unequivocally demonstrate some knowledge gained in this manner that couldn't have been gained through normal means.

    On the other hand, there's a vast amount of evidence that points to materialism being the basis for our consciousness without some meta-consciousness that exists separate from it.

  52. God Particle is the proof of theUnification Theory by godparticlebook · · Score: 1

    The recent discovery on July 4th of the God Particle proves the Unification Theory that eluded Albert Einstein all his life. He is up there looking down now and smiling. Find the new twist on E = mc2 at: http://godparticlephysicsfordummies.com/ The Author

  53. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Yes, Stephen Hawking, the man with no spirituality in his life who is more robot than human living in a collapsing human husk. I'm all against the fallacy of genus, but seriously? In a cosmic joke he has rejected God in favour of his god Science, which in turn has forsaken him. When an academic attacks religion with childish name calling and not science then you know that his claim of 'truth' is just as unfounded as anybody elses.

    Great, now I'm probably going to have to listen to the juvenile debates between the christian and science fanbois. Got to love US'ians, at least they know how to pick sides.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  54. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Yoga is a subjective science. It has a given set of practices/experiments that give the same repeatable results (hence the reason they're passed on). All you have to do is devote yourself to finding the truth and you do. Of course, this will never take in the US which is so obsessed with the material world and false objectivity and in which most of the subjective experiences needed to start yoga are codified as markers of mental illness in the DSM IV.

    N.B.Yoga here is used in the true sense of the word with a history measured in millenia, not in the capitalistic physical gymnastic practice from the US measured in decades. Always funny to see some new yoga startup trying to poorly re-discover real Yoga, simply because they haven't read the body of repeatable knowledge that's available.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  55. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Science will eventually discover that most of 'personality', by which we really mean quirks and habits, are defined by a person's posture. Remember, I said it first, everybody else's IQ isn't high enough to understand :)

    What you missed in your science fanboi rant is that the reason there is such a widely held belief in a God is because so many people have 'experienced' God. Religions are just attempts at explaining these widely spread experiences. Of course, your posture will determine how much God experiences you will have, those with a highly developed right side and consequent left brain focus will tend to be shut out of these experiences by their close minded focus on their false perception of a concrete world.

    Yeah, yeah, I sound crazy but that's just because your puny mind can't assemble the total world.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  56. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    No, we don't pretty much know this. It has been theorized, never tested and never proven, then again this is slashdot where belief holds more sway than actual science.

    What you BPD sufferers confuse all the time is the mechanism with the reason. I was going to say 'what came first the chicken or the egg' but you guys have such low intelligence you still haven't solved that one and it's painfully obvious.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  57. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    Oh please, can you please point to this vast amount of evidence you speak of? There exists no such thing in science. There is a lot of evidence that supports the mechanisms for the transmission of that consciousness, but nothing for the actual seat of consciousness nor its reason for existing. It's exactly the same thing that would happen if humans were invisible and scientists were studying moving cars. Just because the cars mechanisms produce movement does not mean that they are the 'cause' of that movement. I guess it's the same garbage with DNA, it's only the mechanism (it does absolutely nothing unless prompted to by outside stimuli) yet the general populace and lots of science see it as the cause. I have hope for science that it will pass this kindergarten phase of only being able to grasp one cause and one effect at the same time, because you know, reality isn't anything like that at all, everything is co-dependent by the simple fact of sharing space.

    Learn what the word meditate means, erase the negative connotations of the word based on US experience of con men using meditation as a means to steal money (It's the US, con men don't have any qualms about using anything to acheive their goals), and you may find that meditation experiences are repeatable, and if taught properly, no judgement or explanatory systems are necessary to explain to the person what they are experiencing. That's how you spot a con man, they'll always tell you what you'll experience, and how much it'll cost you, as opposed to allowing you to experience sans interpretation and sans payment.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  58. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Raenex · · Score: 1

    There is a lot of evidence that supports the mechanisms for the transmission of that consciousness, but nothing for the actual seat of consciousness nor its reason for existing. [..] Learn what the word meditate means [..]

    So in other words, you acknowledge all the science that supports materialism, but then insist on adding in an additional component without any basis in logic or experiment.

    erase the negative connotations of the word based on US experience of con men

    It's not just con men. It's all the delusional and wishful thinking that surrounds this area, too.

    I have hope for science that it will pass this kindergarten phase of only being able to grasp one cause and one effect at the same time, because you know, reality isn't anything like that at all, everything is co-dependent by the simple fact of sharing space.

    Yeah, that's great. Now come up with your experiment and theory that doesn't amount to a bunch of hand-waving bullshit and collect your Nobel. Until then, science has progressed by discounting dogmatists like you.

  59. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

    So in other words, you acknowledge all the science that supports materialism, but then insist on adding in an additional component without any basis in logic or experiment.

    Learn to read. I'm not adding an additional component. I'm using logic to include all human experiences instead of the science default of excluding all human experience. While you're at it, learn to think.

    My theory is almost complete, i'm just working on the computer system to explain it to people who live in a dark deterministic world like you do.

    BTW, you're the science dogma bitch in this conversation, I'm the one working at breaking the dogma of both science and religion by developing a universal system that logically takes into account ALL human experience. But nice try at making yourself feel superior to overcompensate for the emptiness inside which you created but not allowing god to shine through.

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  60. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Raenex · · Score: 1

    I'm not adding an additional component. I'm using logic to include all human experiences instead of the science default of excluding all human experience.

    What experience would that be? There's a reason science is exclusive, because there's too much bullshit theories without being so.

    BTW, you're the science dogma bitch in this conversation, I'm the one working at breaking the dogma of both science and religion by developing a universal system that logically takes into account ALL human experience.

    Thanks for the laugh.

  61. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Jmc23 · · Score: 1
    I'm glad your low IQ, inability to follow a train of thought, and inability to complete an argument have brought you laughter.

    After all, ignorance is bliss right?

    BTW, it always makes me laugh too when dogmatic people accuse others of dogmatic belief, a true cosmic joke. I know you're a dogmatic science fanboi, so logic and rhetoric aren't necessary skills for you, but I'll throw you a bone to help your reading comprehension. When I said "...include all human experiences" the experiences I was talking about were, well, ALL HUMAN experiences.

    Logically, any explanation of a system has to take all components of said system into account otherwise it's not a true explanation of the whole system. Don't they teach you anything in school except how to join sides unthinkingly in US and THEM debates?

    --
    Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
  62. Re:brilliant, clap, clap by Raenex · · Score: 1

    I'm glad your low IQ, inability to follow a train of thought, and inability to complete an argument have brought you laughter.

    It's just your grandiose dreams, arrogance, and reliance on magical thinking that brings me laughter.

    When I said "...include all human experiences" the experiences I was talking about were, well, ALL HUMAN experiences.

    All you've stated so far was hand-waving bullshit without anything specific. I can experience the Flying Spaghetti Monster in all his awesomeness, but that doesn't mean I should come up with a scientific theory about him.