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CERN's Higgs Boson Discovery Passes Peer Review Publication Hurdle
MrSeb writes "CERN's announcement on July 4 — that experiments performed by the Large Hadron Collider had discovered a particle that was consistent with the Higgs boson — has passed a key step towards becoming ratified science: Its findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Letters B, effectively becoming science in the process. Before we actually know what the new particle is, CERN, the LHC, and the CMS and ATLAS teams must perform additional tests. The LHC had been scheduled to shut down for upgrades, but following the July announcement it has instead been smashing protons together nonstop, to produce more data for CMS and ATLAS to analyze. By December, it is hoped that both teams will have a much better idea of the properties of the new particle, and whether it is actually the Higgs boson."
Where is your god particle now?!
No, it is news in the same way that the January innageration of the winner of the US Presidential election will be news ( the winner having been announced in november). It won't be a suprise to anyone or really change anyone's life, but it will be a historical milestone that happens.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The impact factor of Physics Letters B is a mere 3.5. Not a high-profile journal by any means. This is a place where somewhat interesting results are published, not a place where one of the most important particle physics discoveries of the last decades should be published (Phys. Rev. Letters, Nature, Science, would come to mind as high-profile journals). This is a definite red herring.
In contrast to what many people think, passing peer review is not all that important. Among scientists, there is no such thing as 'ratified science'. This is only something that needs to be done to get a paper published in an scientific journal. That would be important if the publishers were trying to make other scientist aware of their findings or if they need publications in peer reviewed journals in order to secure money. Neither of those is really the case here.
What the hell is ratified science? Peer review is an important part of the scientific process, but make no mistake there is no process or entity (journals, institutions, or otherwise) which officiates scientific process. Our state of understanding of the universe is in a constant state of flux; even work that has been peer reviewed can be proven wrong by later work, or work that has been rejected by peers can later be proven correct. Peer-reviewed research has a little more credibility than otherwise, true. However, this talk about "how research becomes science" seems reminiscent of "how a bill becomes a law," and the scientific process simply doesn't work like that.
Well you do know that this is not yet pinned down as the Higgs boson!
I'm wondering, given the fact that scientific results are by definition falsifyable, what is the percentage of publications in major peer-reviewed journals (Nature, etc.), that eventually turn out to be (partly) incorrect?
(Not that I'm questioning this particular discovery.)
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
[HILARIOUS] RAP NEWS 14: Higgs Boson Unbound (with Prof. Scott Ridley)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xUd7Myeuk
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
"...Its findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Letters B, effectively becoming science in the process..."
This is nonsense. There is no requirement for 'peer review' before something 'becomes science'. Peer review can give a bit more authority (though it often has the opposite effect, of closing down the truth in favour of an establishment consensus, as happened, for instance, with the Piltdown Man fiasco.).
Science works quite simply. Someone writes up a hypothesis, with evidence. If someone - anyone - can find a flaw, the hypothesis is disproven. It doesn't matter if the paper is written up by the Head of CERN, and a greengrocer from a nearby town disproves it - if it's disproven, it's gone.
The idea that peer review is what MAKES science is a deeply dangerous one. It implies that there is a specific class of people who are the only ones allowed to 'know' technical things, or who are allowed to comment on them. It implies that people must agree with this technological elite, and are banned from thinking for themselves...
Higgs: the super massive superpac
No, it really isn't, though that would be the leading hypothesis and if there were betting pools on particle physics that's where the smart money would be. But much like how you can argue and bet on a sporting event but at the end of the day you need to wait for the game to play out, so too do they need to conduct many more experiments to actually figure out if it is what they think it is.
The enemies of Democracy are
No it is not. The new particle found is a higgs candidate. Look back at the press conference they made few month ago, none of the scientists claimed they found the higgs boson.
Has consensus effectively become science?
Is this particle "consistent" with what we believe to be a Higgs Boson, or is it actually a Higgs Boson?
Good point, but it would still merit a built point in the story about searching for the higgs.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
That is, of course, unless you bet the on steelers beating the browns!
Nope, it isn't. It's a boson, that's for sure, but its properties are not very well established yet. It really looks like a Higgs boson, or something quite similar, but that will take more measurement to tell for sure.
Eg: we're not certain yet whether it has spin 0 (like a Higgs boson should have), or spin 2.
So...how were the results replicated? Did another, unrelated team of researchers use the LHC to achieve the same results? If not, what the fuck, science? Aren't irreproducible results the butt of jokes? Ah, nevermind. I don't have a Ph.D., so as I have been informed many times before, on this very website, how am I to question Ph.D.s? I promise to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Peer review, shmeer review. I don't believe in the moon landing or global warming. And I don't believe in no stinkin higgs boson. [/sarcasm]
Now all we need is for someone to build another LHC to replicate the results.
I discovered the origins of the universe a long time ago when i read this sentence: "In the beginning, God ..."
I hope that particle turns out to have spin 2, and is something out of right effing field! A gravitino! It will turn out we broke super-symmetry, and out popped an honest-to-god 100s of GeV gravitino. Holy oh em gee it gets even better! Breaking the supersymmetry created dark matter that we are just waiting to discover in the LHC. It turns out that at high enough energy levels supersymmetry breaks but only the gravitino decays. A vector force, both push and pull. Imagine discovering/providing VERY strong evidence for supergravity, supersymmetry, AND one of the gravitational mediators all at once! Much less boring than the higgs imho.
Forgive my ignorance, but what's a "built point"?
Free Martian Whores!
Its like a bullet point, but has less letters.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.