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CERN May Not Have Discovered Higgs Boson After All
An anonymous reader writes Physicists Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize for discovering the Higgs Boson, but some scientists believe that the particle may not have been discovered yet at all. A new study by a group of scientists from the University of Southern Denmark raises the possibility that the data collected from the Large Hadron Collider could instead explain another type of subatomic particle. Mads Toudal Frandsen, a particle physicist, explained in a statement, "The CERN data is generally taken as evidence that the particular particle is the Higgs particle ... It is true that the Higgs particle can explain the data but there can be other explanations, we would also get this data from other particles."
"As you can see here, I have postulated another particle which would leave exactly the same evidence as the Higgs, but would not be the Higgs. I call it the 'Madds' particle."
OK, that's unfair, but "techni-quarks" which could make up dark matter? William of Ockham is going to need to set up a factory in Shenzhen at this point.
I'm pretty darn sure it proves the existence of Unobtainium.
There's a whole community out there of theoretical phycisists that do nothing but come up with alternatative theories explaining existing data.
This is their job, they might not beleive they're right, they just came up with the theory because it was not the currently believed one.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Many in the physics community were hoping for a "weird" Higgs boson, which might point the way towards new physics such as supersymmetry or technicolor.
Alas, the Higgs boson we actually discovered doesn't seem to require any new physics. It's covered by the Standard Model. It is, by physics standards, annoying dull. This has done a good job of killing off several people's pet theories (some models of supersymmetry and technicolor).
Rather than just admit that "when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras" (ie, the simplest explanation is usually the right one), they are busy adding epicycles to their pet theories to try to accommodate reality (which, admittedly, is how science works).
Being sensationalist and dumb, journalists hear things like "it *may be* that...", and trump up all sorts of stupid headlines like "ZOMG, scientists didn't discover Higgs after all." And we get Slashdot posts like this.
There are loads of Higgs impostor models where something else mimics the Higgs. Perhaps they're unlikely but it's not easy to come up with alternative explanations that are both mathematically consistent and don't contradict observations.
It's got nothing to do with those theories being 'imposters', it has everything to do with the the fact that no theory should ever be unchallenged, even if a theory is correct (as the Standard Model might very well be) it does not mean we should not try to come up with alternative explanations for the phenomena we observe in experiments.
If the Standard Model is correct it should ideally be "more" correct than those "imposter" theories.
Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
Yeah, perhaps, but science isn't religion and having hopes and strong beliefs into a replacement model doesn't make it real and valid. The most probable explanation for the bump in data observed at CERN LHC is the Higgs. The techni-higgs is much, much less probable, by many magnitudes of order because it relies on a yet to discover techni-force and so on.
So, unless we have a load of new data we cannot explain with the Standard Model, it is very unlikely this particle is something than Higgs.
But the guy got his 15 minutes fame.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I doubt many scientists believe that you can prove any scientific theory true.
+1 thank you. Fucking idiots don't know how science works. Science doesn't deal in "proof", just in making iteratively better models. Another gripe about a lot of commenters here: Science is also not reality. Physics is not reality. Math is not reality. These are all human created abstractions to help us model the underlying reality. The model is not reality.
Well, who's a tetchy Anonymous Coward then?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
TFSFS, i.e. The First sentence of TFS, is a load of crap. Physicists Peter Higgs and Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize for *predicting* the Higgs Boson, *not* for discovering it!
And the rest of the summary doesn't make me a bit interested in reading TFA either. There's been Higgs imposter models out there from before the discovery was made. And sure they have their merit. But as long as we have no new physics observed, the Standard Model covers it just fine.