Chances are they were prepared on a Mac. One of the presentations apparently used Comic Sans, so I suppose you could say that Microsoft did make it to the party for a bit of comic relief.
It validates the Higgs mechanism, which explains why elementary particles have mass. Now the Higgs boson is no longer considered hypothetical, likewise the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs field, mediated by the Higgs bosun. Speaking as a layman.
The precise quote was not "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it" as I wrote above, but: "as a layman, I would now say I think we have it. Do you agree?" (applause) -- Rolf Heuer, Director of Cern.
Linux already owns the phone market and will completely destroy Microsoft on tablets, then laptops next Face it, you guys are done for. Maybe if you could fire Ballmer, but you can't so suck it up.
they have sigma 4.9 confidence level that it is the boson responsible for the Higgs field
Not exactly. Both experiments reported 5.0 sigma confidence that they had found a new, scalar boson with mass of approximately126 GeV/c2. They did not claim it is the Higgs, but neither did they leave much doubt.
this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities
No, it is because they were ramping up the sigmas. They knew where the Higgs was months ago, and as I understand it, the Tevatron people also had a pretty good idea, based on data collected years ago.
It sounds like they're saying they "think" they found it. Which is not the same thing.
We'll save the "bittersweet" nonsense until it's confirmed.
I watched both the symposium and the press conference online, real time. In the symposium the project lead was much more blunt. I forget the exact words, they were something like "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it". The applause and cheering, likened to a football match, left no room for misinterpretation. In the press conference they were all very careful to stay well short of that. My layman's opinion: with two independent experiments both getting close enough to 5 sigma to call it that and with no observations contradicting Higgs, they found it, it's the Higgs. By the way, the first mention of "5 sigma" was by the CMS experiment lead Joe Incandela at 9:45 Geneva time. I did a time check. As far as I am concerned, that counts as the time at which the Higgs was officially "discovered". Fabiola Gianotti, the Atlas experiment lead, also said the 5 sigma word a little over an hour later. Many graphics of curves nicely centered at 125.something GeV were shown. I think CMS found 125.3 and Atlas, 125.5 GeV, something like that. Close enough for horseshoes. These two experiments were supposedly "blind" to each other in order to strengthen the case for independent discovery. It does strike me as a little convenient that they both hit exactly 5.0 sigma on nearly the same day. No doubt this has something to do with how the machine power ramped up and got stable, but still... I strongly suspect there is a bit of chivalrous "after you, please" going on. Higgs himself absolutely refused to take credit for anything and declined interviews, although he did record a great video probably the day before the event. Still very much part of the theoretical physics scene apparently.
The thing is, the rankings actually have very little to do with performance. The opposite, more like it. If you're good, somebody above you feels theatened.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I gave it to him and he knows where I live.
were they MS Powerpoint slides
Chances are they were prepared on a Mac. One of the presentations apparently used Comic Sans, so I suppose you could say that Microsoft did make it to the party for a bit of comic relief.
OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be.
Linux Is Not UniX
If Microsoft had been involved they would have discovered the Zune boson, the particle that mediates pogo dancing.
Speaking as a layman, I don't think this discovery validates the Higgs mechanism yet.
That duck waddling in through the fog already looks enough like a duck to satisfy me.
China thinks ahead, but doesn't play nice.
Never mind not nice, how about not legal.
It appears that you and I are star debris.
Speak for yourself. I'm big bang debris.
True, and that was not the question.
It validates the Higgs mechanism, which explains why elementary particles have mass. Now the Higgs boson is no longer considered hypothetical, likewise the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs field, mediated by the Higgs bosun. Speaking as a layman.
Just try doing actions that require a pointer with a keyboard. Couldn't possibly work. Oh wait.
The precise quote was not "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it" as I wrote above, but: "as a layman, I would now say I think we have it. Do you agree?" (applause) -- Rolf Heuer, Director of Cern.
That's not sounding good for Microsoft at all. But we knew that.
Linux already owns the phone market and will completely destroy Microsoft on tablets, then laptops next Face it, you guys are done for. Maybe if you could fire Ballmer, but you can't so suck it up.
Joe Incandela distinctly said 5. Yes, he also said 4.9 earlier in his talk. When he said 5, that's when the applause broke out.
That's in the desktop market, the tablet market reaction to Windows 8 is unpredictable.
I will predict it for you. <raspberry-sound/>
Do you sometimes wish that you actually understood what P/E means?
They should have recorded a song about discovering the Higgs Boson...
They did. It's awful, no need to sue :-)
There's not a whole lot more to do to prove it is what they think it is.
Way wrong. They have hardly even begun to analyze its properties.
they have sigma 4.9 confidence level that it is the boson responsible for the Higgs field
Not exactly. Both experiments reported 5.0 sigma confidence that they had found a new, scalar boson with mass of approximately126 GeV/c2. They did not claim it is the Higgs, but neither did they leave much doubt.
One chance in three million :-)
Here is what Atlas found for the confidence level at various energies. The spike at 126.5 GeV breaks out to 5 sigma.
this whole thing about "we're getting close" was mostly that they were getting close to the end of the list of possibilities
No, it is because they were ramping up the sigmas. They knew where the Higgs was months ago, and as I understand it, the Tevatron people also had a pretty good idea, based on data collected years ago.
It sounds like they're saying they "think" they found it. Which is not the same thing.
We'll save the "bittersweet" nonsense until it's confirmed.
I watched both the symposium and the press conference online, real time. In the symposium the project lead was much more blunt. I forget the exact words, they were something like "I think we all agree it's fair to say we found it". The applause and cheering, likened to a football match, left no room for misinterpretation. In the press conference they were all very careful to stay well short of that. My layman's opinion: with two independent experiments both getting close enough to 5 sigma to call it that and with no observations contradicting Higgs, they found it, it's the Higgs. By the way, the first mention of "5 sigma" was by the CMS experiment lead Joe Incandela at 9:45 Geneva time. I did a time check. As far as I am concerned, that counts as the time at which the Higgs was officially "discovered". Fabiola Gianotti, the Atlas experiment lead, also said the 5 sigma word a little over an hour later. Many graphics of curves nicely centered at 125.something GeV were shown. I think CMS found 125.3 and Atlas, 125.5 GeV, something like that. Close enough for horseshoes. These two experiments were supposedly "blind" to each other in order to strengthen the case for independent discovery. It does strike me as a little convenient that they both hit exactly 5.0 sigma on nearly the same day. No doubt this has something to do with how the machine power ramped up and got stable, but still... I strongly suspect there is a bit of chivalrous "after you, please" going on. Higgs himself absolutely refused to take credit for anything and declined interviews, although he did record a great video probably the day before the event. Still very much part of the theoretical physics scene apparently.
The thing is, the rankings actually have very little to do with performance. The opposite, more like it. If you're good, somebody above you feels theatened.
You really think they spend as much as 30% of their time working?
Seems to me, this whole misbegotten idea was invented at GE. Let's see how that worked out for them.