Slashdot Mirror
Growing Consensus: The Higgs Boson Exists
It's a long, slow road from tentative discovery, to various forms of peer review, to wide acceptance, never mind theory and experimental design, but recent years' work to pin down the Higgs Boson seem to be bearing fruit in the form of cautious announcements. FBeans writes with excerpts from both the New York Times ("Physicists announced Thursday they believe they have discovered the subatomic particle predicted nearly a half-century ago, which will go a long way toward explaining what gives electrons and all matter in the universe size and shape.") and from The Independent ("Cern says that confirming what type of boson the particle is could take years and that the scientists would need to return to the Large Hadron Collider — the world's largest 'atom smasher' — to carry out further tests. This will measure at what rate the particle decays and compare it with the results of predictions, as theorised by Edinburgh professor Peter Higgs 50 years ago.")
What is this Higgs Bosun?
Thank's for all your hard work, editor's.
Dear Lord... the creature's power comes from electricity | radiation | tachyons | nanobots | god particles!
crazy dynamite monkey
It's just short for Goddamn particle, because it was so hard to find..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Consensus is very much part of the scientific method as it is actually practiced, even if not in an over-simplified theory of it. In practice, the people forming the consensus are smart, rational folks who rely on the "mathematical property of repeated observations" as much as possible. However, even with a few experiments reporting the same number --- how well do folks trust that there were not common systematic errors impacting all of them (it has certainly happened before)? That the results are not misinterpreted due to mistakes in the calculations, or missed effects? Forming a consensus within the scientific community that the reported numbers are *trustworthy* is a critical part of the actual existing scientific process: it's called peer review, and catches a lot of honest mistakes that a "just trust the numbers; don't bring your human experience/intuition/skepticism into it" approach would not.
"generally accepted scientific fact" = consensus --- otherwise, what's the "generally accepted" part? There is no stronger scientific definition of "fact" that transcends a general consensus based on a multitude of apparently properly done confirming experiments.
... physicists celebrate mass.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
...no, no -- that's not how it's going to be "picked up".
Let's take a look:
NBC News: Particle confirmed as Higgs boson
Associated Press: Physicists say they have found a Higgs boson
Reuters: Strong signs Higgs boson has been found: CERN
Wall Street Journal: New Data Boosts Case for Higgs Boson Find
FOX News: Physicists say they have found long-sought Higgs boson
Washington Post: A closer look at the Higgs boson particle that helps explain what gives matter size and shape
Chicago Tribune: Strong signs Higgs boson has been found: CERN
Sky News: Higgs Boson: Experts Sure Of 'God Particle'
New York Daily News: Physicists say they have discovered crucial subatomic particle known as Higgs boson
Boston Globe: Physicists say they have found a Higgs boson
BBC (UK): LHC cements Higgs boson identification
BusinessWeek: Case for Higgs Boson Strengthened by New CERN Analysis
The Daily Mail (UK): Scientists say they HAVE found the 'God particle' - but admit they still aren't sure what type of Higgs boson it is
The Independent (UK): Have they found the Higgs boson at last? Cern physicists say they're confident of 'God particle' breakthrough
Telegraph (UK): Higgs boson: scientists confident they have discovered the 'God particle'
News Limited (AU): Higgs boson, the God particle, discovered by CERN
US News and World Report: Physicists Observe Higgs Boson, the Elusive 'God Particle'
None of these articles make any links to "God" other than a few -- mostly UK, not US -- sources referring to it as the so-called "God particle", but even those explain exactly what this particle is theorized to be, not anything supernatural, "proving God exists", or having anything whatever to do with God.
All these government scientists know they can keep getting grant money toeing the standard modelist line.
And besides, even if the Higgs Field does exist, it doesn't prove the theory is correct, so why should we be spending millions of dollars to change textbooks when there is nothing we can do with this knowledge anyway.
When the electron was discovered, it could have also, and naively been considered useless. However here we are commenting on the latest discovery of science, utilising that very knowledge. The point is, you don't know what will be usefull and what won't be useful. Besides it's fun, interesting and nearly always useful to learn how the universe works. The internet was made at CERN, you could say as a result of this research. So.....
The Higgs is merely a liberal myth to get funding from big government by Photoshoping particle path photos using smelly hippie open-source software to claim they almost detected it.
Next those commie atheist Sharia liberal hippies will tell you that subatomic particles work the same way inside poor people that they do inside wealthy job creators!
Equality of physics? What's next, free sunshine?
And those damned neutrinos CANNOT go through us Republicans. We have guns! Neutrinos only pass through surrendering cowards!
Table-ized A.I.
Yes, but what's the point of that? They're already believing in something that doesn't make any sort of rational sense, presenting them with further evidence isn't likely to do anything than cause your blood pressure to spike.
But believing in the Big Bang is logical? 13+ billion years ago everything sprang forth from a singularity of infinite density (lots of rational sense to be found there). Where did it come from? What caused it to explode? If it was infinite, where's the rest of it? Because we live in what appears to be an expanding universe, we take a leap of faith and assume that it all spring forth from a single point. I'm fine with this as we really don't have a better explanation, and it seems to be a workable theory to for now. But it takes some faith to believe it, even if many people don't like to admit it.
Personally, I believe in god. I know, that's a sure way to get modded as a troll on /. However I don't know if he/she exits for sure. I can accept that god may have been an alien, was even created by the mass consciousnesses from the belief of enough people, or even some sort of reality dysfunction that is left over from the big bang itself. Regardless, most religions tend to worship a god that tells us to be good to each other, so I don't really find this to be a bad thing. Generally it's power crazed nutjobs that pervert religions to commit acts of violence, which is a shame.
I really don't see how it's so hard to find a way to reconcile ones religious beliefs with their scientific ones. Anyhow, my point is, is that there is nothing wrong with what anyone believes, so long as they aren't hurting anyone else. If you want to believe that the universe just popped into existence for no apparent reason, I'm not here to argue with you. But I would also appreciate the same respect for my impossible to prove beliefs too.
Every predomently atheist society has the same rules, even those rare cultures that have no concept of religion. You're trying to argue that religion and morality are the same thing, which they need not be. It's true to a certain extent, most religions codify those morals, but then again, so do most governments.
Two points:
Firstly, a lot of people do use their belief in God to harm others, from opposing gay marriage to the twin tower attack, belief has caused a lot of harm.
Secondly, 'belief' in the Big Bang is different from belief in God, in that if a scientist discovered something which would make the Big Bang an unlikely explanation we'd all say 'oh, ok' and start believing the new hypothesis. There are still people trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old...
Interesting side note, my iPhone capitalized Big Bang for me, but not God...
Is 1563649 a prime number?