"God Particle" found?

[arcticbiker]

The BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3546973.stm - sorry, don't know how to make that into a real link, browser security settings mean the buttons don't work) has an article about the possible detection of the Higgs boson. The evidence is far from bullet-proof, but won't it be cool if it turns out to be right?

I don't really like the implications of calling it the "God Particle", lots of people could get the wrong idea from that.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

What wrong idea? Got is a really heavy particle, man.

~~ Paul

[Kullervo]

What's next, the goddess particle, aka the graviton?

[Dragonrock]

hmm, Kullervo, that's an interesting concept. Would you care to explain more about the graviton?

[arcticbiker]

The wrong idea I was thinking of is someone who isn't that scientifically literate reading the article (or just the headline) and thinking "oh look...scientists have found evidence for God after all...", which would not be the case for most peoples' concept of God.

If someone who really knows about this stuff (Tez? Stimpy?) would care to explain what the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson would mean for the standard model, I'd really appreciate it. Specifically, does it confirm some theory of quantum gravity?

[Tez]

I dont really like calling it the God particle - I guess Leon Lederman, whose book of that title is a fun read, is probably responsible.

THe Higgs is an essential part of the standard model - pretty much the only part which has yet to be verified. Actually I guess its not essential - there are some other proposals for describing mass within the standard model ("technicolor" being the only other one I have any inkling about) so the Higgs is not necessary, but its what most people expect will show up.

Personally I'm skeptical about data taken while a machine was being pushed to its absolute limit just before they dismantled it. We'll know when the LHC comes online - it has to find something exciting (most people guess supersymmetry) since it'll be going to energies past those where the standard model breaks down...

[iain]

Originally posted by Kullervo
What's next, the goddess particle, aka the graviton? I think the graviton is the answer to the question "how do two bodies transmit gravitational force to each other." The idea is that for body A to feel the gravity of body B, there must be something passing between them to transmit it, and that is the graviton. Current theories suggest that our detection apparatus is not yet sensitive to detect gravitons, so no one knows if such a thing as a graviton exists and, if it does, what its properties are. Actually identifying one has got to be worth at least one Nobel Prize though :) .

(note : If you see a graviton, please notify your local university physics department immediately. Do not attempt to approach it yourself.)

[arcticbiker]

iain said:
(note : If you see a graviton, please notify your local university physics department immediately. Do not attempt to approach it yourself.)

I don't try to approach them! Honest! They just come zinging right at me! I don't know what I can do about it...

[RCNelson]

I feel nothing for neutrinos, but I'm strangely attracted to gravitons.

[arcticbiker]

Originally posted by Tez
Personally I'm skeptical about data taken while a machine was being pushed to its absolute limit just before they dismantled it. We'll know when the LHC comes online - it has to find something exciting (most people guess supersymmetry) since it'll be going to energies past those where the standard model breaks down...

I agree that at the moment it's not certain (the BBC article says there's a 9% probability that it's just noise), so I'm anxiously awaiting confirmation. (Do I really have to wait until 2007? Can't they hurry it up a bit?)

I'm certainly intrigued by the possibility of the LHC finding exciting new physics, considering how far technology has gone with some pretty old physics. And I just love Fendetestas' sig line:"Physics is like sex; sure it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

[Tez]

Originally posted by arcticbiker


I agree that at the moment it's not certain (the BBC article says there's a 9% probability that it's just noise), so I'm anxiously awaiting confirmation. (Do I really have to wait until 2007? Can't they hurry it up a bit?)

I'm certainly intrigued by the possibility of the LHC finding exciting new physics, considering how far technology has gone with some pretty old physics. And I just love Fendetestas' sig line:"Physics is like sex; sure it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

Well, Fermilab will probably push the Tevatron to its absolute limit in a bid to beat LHC to the Higgs, so they may be able to confirm this (or refute it) before 2007...

[Fendetestas]

Originally posted by arcticbiker

And I just love Fendetestas' sig line:"Physics is like sex; sure it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

Thanks. I believe is from Richard P. Feynman, but as I'm not sure, I haven't included his name after it.

As for the Higgs Boson, we know of four kinds os interactions:

-Gravitational
-> unlimited range
-> very weak
-> transmitting agent: graviton (?)
-> effects: large scale structure of the Universe

-Weak
-> very short range (0.001 fm)
-> weak intensity at low energies and an intensity similar to that of the EM interaction at very high energies
-> transmitting agents: W^{+-}, Z^0 (very heavy vectorial mesons)
-> effects: desintegration of the neutron, beta radiactitvity, neutrinos interaction, solar combustion

-Strong
-> short range (1 fm)
-> very intense
-> transmitting agent: gluons (wieghtless particles)
-> interaction between quarks (stability of protons and neutrons)

-EM
-> medium intensity (measured by the famous alpha constant)
-> unlimited range
-> transmitting agents: photons (weightless particles)
-> atoms, light, electricity, chemistry...

Now, if we count the 24 basic "blocks" of matter (6 leptons and 6*3 quarks, three colors for each of the six flavours) and the 12 transmitting agents of the 4 iterations (8 colors for the gluons and excluding the hypothetical graviton) If we add their antimatter counterparts, we have 60 fundamental entities which should explain the strong, weak and EM behaviour of matter (not the gravitational one) But in fact we need another particle (symbol: H) called Higgs, with spin 0, neutral and mass yet unknown (between 77 GeV/c^2 and 1 TeV/c^2)

In short, the Higgs boson is important beacuse it would confirm the current stantard model.

[Fendetestas]

Some good links about the standard model:

-PhysLink (http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae304.cfm) Good summary about what does the Higgs do

-Particle adventue (http://particleadventure.org/particleadventure/) Interactive guide to the standard model

There you should find all you want to know about this. For those of you feeling brave, there are also lecture notes from various courses in the internet:

-P. Suranyi, Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, provides lecture notes (http://physuna.phs.uc.edu/suranyi/Modern_physics/Lecture_Notes/modern_physics15.html) on particle physics for a course on modern physics.

-D. Bailey, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, provides lecture notes (http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/DBailey/SubAtomic/Lectures/Lect.htm) for a course on nuclear and particle physics.

-N. Walet, Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology in Manchester, UK, provides lecture notes (http://walet.phy.umist.ac.uk/P615/Notes/) for a course on nuclear and particle physics.

[Martin]

Originally posted by Fendetestas
Thanks. I believe is from Richard P. Feynman, but as I'm not sure, I haven't included his name after it

WikiQuote (http://wikiquote.org/wiki/Transwiki:Richard_Feynman_Quotes) agrees that it's Feynman.