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CERN May Not Have Discovered Higgs Boson After All

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-so-fast dept.

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."

7 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Other particles by russotto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

    1. Re:Other particles by michelcolman · · Score: 5, Funny

      So now Higgs and Englert are in a superposition of having deserved the nobel prize and not having deserved it, right?

    2. Re:Other particles by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure, 300 years ago it was enough to simply have a more elegant theory. The fundamental idea of empiricism was still becoming the more formal idea of the scientific method.

      Today, though, while the Standard Model is roundly disliked for its inelegance, and more elegant, simpler hypotheses abound, the Standard Model sticks with us because it keeps doing a better job of predicting new data, while many more elegant ideas have already fallen by the wayside with LHC data (alas, poor Supersymmetry, we hardly new you). When the LHC re-opens next year with its new beam intensity, the culling will continue.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. Mind tricks by Latent+Heat · · Score: 5, Funny
    (waves hand)

    These are not the Higgs' you're looking for . . .

    (Associate Editor turns towards reviewers) Let their paper through . . .

  3. When pet theories die... by MetricT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Problem with inductive reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I doubt many scientists believe that you can prove any scientific theory true.

  5. Re:April 1st? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Color charge in physics was named because it behaves abstractly like the addition of primary colors, and that made a decent analogy for the description. Technicolor is the name of a theory that extends the Standard model with some stuff that originally was similar to the color charge, so the name reflects that. The theory does a nice job of wrapping up some loose ends from the Standard model, and doesn't require fine-tuning. But like most extensions to the Standard model, it will be a while before alternative theories are confirmed or strongly eliminated because the most obvious results of models extending to high energies require particle accelerators large than what we have.