Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[Orphia Nay]

Originally Posted by Tubbythin

You are getting confused between conservatism and speculation.

Well said, Tubbythin.

[lionking]

Apropos to nothing, my kids always mock my pronunciation of almost everything (sometimes correctly). Anyway my youngest son, who actually knew what I was talking about, took issue with my pronunciation of "boson". Until a physicist came on the news and said it the same way.

Yes, a rather pathetic win.

[Jorghnassen]

Call me when they find the "mother of god" particle, the Higgs bosom which gives all existence a meaning, not mere mass.

[Dumb All Over]

Originally Posted by quarky

Hence, dog.

Maybe the Higgs boson is simply a small, regurgitated piece of corndog and George Simpson is ruler of the Universe.

[alexi_drago]

Originally Posted by commandlinegamer

Wouldn't it be ironic that in the year of the Earth ending (thanks Mayans!), we discover how the universe works?

Game Over

Congratulations you have completed the universe

Score 13987665433

Trophies 35%

New costume unlocked - Grey Alien

Start new game?

[Deneb]

Coming soon: The Higgs Master-Cleanse Diet

Shed precious pounds by getting rid of those nasty mass-causing fundamental particles, which are associated with every known disease, by wearing our bracelets and pendants containing quantum matrices infused with all-natural cosmic radiation from the Big Bang!


My apologies if this post inspires an actual woo product...

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by ben m

CMS results:

The two high-resolution, actually-see-a-peak searches (Higgs decaying to two photons, and Higgs decaying to two Z-bosons, both decaying to ee or mu mu) combine for a 5+ sigma discovery. Clear as a bell, you can see the Higgs peaks with the naked eye. In the ZZ channel that means what looked like (eyeballing my memory of the viewgraph) 7-8 Higgs-like events on top of a nearly zero background.

Several the other channels, of the sort that see broad mass-insensitive excesses, have slightly lower-than-expected counts, which pulls the all-combined discovery number to 4.9 sigma.

The ATLAS talk is ongoing ...

Excellent!

I'm off to check out the entire presentation now.

[Olowkow]

Surely the "god particle" must consist of three parts. {groan}

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Orphia Nay

CERN live webcast - the source of the announcement - on now.

http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/play_higgs.html

Btw, for anyone who missed the live webcast, the recording is here: https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Olowkow

Surely the "god particle" must consist of three parts. {groan}

[Ferguson]

Originally Posted by Maartenn100

If a pseudoscientist would mention 'it could be this' or 'it could be that', the critical thinker would answer: 'it could be this or that' is no science at all.

Except you have it exactly backwards.
The pseudoscientist usually says "The answer is this! Even though I have no evidence and no math."
The scientist says "Here's the evidence and math supporting this, but one can never be certain, it could be always something else."

[Senex]

Nothing in my groundbreaking paper has been contradicted by these European rascals latest testing.

[MattusMaximus]

Btw, does anyone know when we could expect to see the official, scientific journal article on this discovery published? I would very much like to read that article.

[Ocelot]

Originally Posted by MattusMaximus

Btw, does anyone know when we could expect to see the official, scientific journal article on this discovery published? I would very much like to read that article.

There will be more than one.

[fuelair]

Originally Posted by Ocelot

There will be more than one.

But...but..I clearly remember somebody saying "There can be only one!!"

[Zelenius]

If you think this "God particle" nonsense is annoying now(not that I don't think this is a great discovery, I just don't like how this "God" label got attached to it), wait till the movie version of the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the CERN atom-smasher comes out. The film-makers will definitely play up the whole "God" angle. They may even twist it around into something like the "Da Vinci Code" and have Tom Hanks staring in it.

I'm pretty sure it won't even be worth seeing. Still, I definitely love reading about this discovery and its implications on physics and all science.

[Bram Kaandorp]

Originally Posted by fuelair

But...but..I clearly remember somebody saying "There can be only one!!"

I abstained from making the joke. I even typed it, but didn't post.

I regret it every second.

[OnlyTellsTruths]

My thread from 2 weeks ago is totally jealous of this thread.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=238230

[Wowbagger]

But, why would God need to be made out of particles?!

Why does no one explain that?!

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sorry, lay person question here: Is the collision creating the boson or revealing the boson?

[Skeptic Ginger]

And second lay person question: Given all these particles and the amount of mass/space that they actually have/take up respectively, and say whatever is in between them is empty space (or space fabric if that's better), what would be the approximate % of 'stuff' vs empty expanding space? I'm trying to get a better handle on the singularity thing here.

[JihadJane]

The Higgs Boson walks into a church. The priest says: "We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here."

The Higgs Boson says: "But without me how can you have mass?"

[Jodie]

Well I for one was blown away by the news although they said it was a bit premature and would have liked to have a had a couple of more weeks to prepare. Evidently CNN was not impressed. I turned on the news at noon to see what folks were saying and all they were talking about was some fungus in the Himalaya's that acts like viagra. They didn't even mention it.

So what I gathered is the discovery of a new boson is profound in and of itself because it gives substance to everything else but further research needs to be done to see how it fits the model that predicted it's existence? Right?

Well call it what you will, god, the "OM", or the universal french seam holding everything together, it is what it is.

What implications does this have for further research? What direction will they go in now?

[Bram Kaandorp]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

The Higgs Boson walks into a church. The priest says: "We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here."

The Higgs Boson says: "But without me how can you have mass?"

*Cringing laugh*

[ben m]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Sorry, lay person question here: Is the collision creating the boson or revealing the boson?

It's reasonably safe to say "creating".

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

And second lay person question: Given all these particles and the amount of mass/space that they actually have/take up respectively, and say whatever is in between them is empty space (or space fabric if that's better), what would be the approximate % of 'stuff' vs empty expanding space? I'm trying to get a better handle on the singularity thing here.

There's no reasonable sense in which bosons "have size" or "take up space". It's like looking at a radio antenna and asking whether there's space between the radio waves.

[edd]

Originally Posted by ben m

There's no reasonable sense in which bosons "have size" or "take up space". It's like looking at a radio antenna and asking whether there's space between the radio waves.

Nitpick - mesons.

[Belz...]

What's this sigma business ?

[Almo]

Originally Posted by Belz...

What's this sigma business ?

Standard deviation. It measures how confident they are that the result isn't just a random event.

CNN was interviewing a scientist today about it. The chick asked him, "Why should I care about this?" I think she meant it as a genuine question hoping he would tell her how it would impact her life. But since it's not that kind of discovery, he had a tough time answering. It came out something like "If you want to know a little more about how the Universe came to be, then you should care."

[Rolfe]

Originally Posted by JihadJane

The Higgs Boson walks into a church. The priest says: "We don't allow Higgs Bosons in here."

The Higgs Boson says: "But without me how can you have mass?"

Is that original?

Rolfe.

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Belz...

What's this sigma business ?

As someone said, sigma is synonymous with standard deviation. In this context, a signal generated by a particle passing through one of the LHC detectors isn't usually considered even to be an "observation" unless it hits the three sigma mark (i.e. three standard deviations off from the background). Specifically, a signal of three sigma would have about a 0.3% chance of being a fluke signal.

However, given the number of collisions that take place and other factors, the bar is set ever higher for a signal to be considered a genuine "discovery"; that bar is set at 5 sigma, or 5 standard deviations. That would mean that if you had a 5 sigma signal, such as the ones associated with this latest announcement, then the chances of it being a fluke are about 1 in 1,744,278.

Bottom line: the higher the sigma value of your signal, the more rare and (if repeatable) the more likely it is to be the real McCoy.

ETA: I goofed my explanation a bit. See edd's correction below.

[edd]

I keep banging on about it, but I do so because I think this is important. It does not tell you the chance that it's a fluke. It tells you the chance that if the effect didn't exist (in this case if the Higgs did not exist) you would get such a fluke. The two are not the same thing.

To get that value you have to assume it's a fluke so it clearly can't tell you the probability that it's a fluke - although it is useful information in determining that.

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Jodie

Well I for one was blown away by the news although they said it was a bit premature and would have liked to have a had a couple of more weeks to prepare. Evidently CNN was not impressed. I turned on the news at noon to see what folks were saying and all they were talking about was some fungus in the Himalaya's that acts like viagra. They didn't even mention it.

So what I gathered is the discovery of a new boson is profound in and of itself because it gives substance to everything else but further research needs to be done to see how it fits the model that predicted it's existence? Right?

Jodie, check out this link for a quick idea of what the Higgs field and Higgs boson are all about: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/vi...gs-boson-video

Quote:

Well call it what you will, god, the "OM", or the universal french seam holding everything together, it is what it is.

Yes, one has to wonder what the next thing in physics will be that will attract the "god" label.

Quote:

What implications does this have for further research? What direction will they go in now?

Well, that's one of the things they need to figure out, after all the t's are crossed and i's dotted regarding this current work. Personally, I have thought of a number of things already:

1. Why is it that photons do not interact with the Higgs field? That is, what is the mechanism which causes other particles to interact with the Higgs, thus creating mass, whereas photons lack this mechanism?

2. How does gravity fit into the Higgs? If the Higgs is responsible for giving particles mass, and gravitational forces act upon mass, is there some kind of tie in or connection between the Higgs field and gravity fields? (I'm particularly interested in this one)

3. What about dark energy? The Higgs field apparently penetrates all of the universe, because we observe all particles in the universe, no matter their location, to have mass (say, via gravitational interaction). And apparently dark energy, whatever it is, also permeates all of the universe; is there a connection between the two?

4. Can the discovery of the Higgs help in the search for dark matter particles? Since we know dark matter interacts gravitationally, then it must have mass, and if it must have mass there should be some kind of relationship to the Higgs field.

I'm pretty certain there are plenty of other questions, too. Those are just the ones off the top of my head.

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by edd

I keep banging on about it, but I do so because I think this is important. It does not tell you the chance that it's a fluke. It tells you the chance that if the effect didn't exist (in this case if the Higgs did not exist) you would get such a fluke. The two are not the same thing.

To get that value you have to assume it's a fluke so it clearly can't tell you the probability that it's a fluke - although it is useful information in determining that.

Ah yes, my mistake. Thank you for the clarification, edd

[MattusMaximus]

Btw, I have watched the press conference from CERN, but it was preceded by a more technical seminar, apparently. Does anyone know where I can access a recording of that seminar?

[Almo]

Originally Posted by edd

I keep banging on about it, but I do so because I think this is important. It does not tell you the chance that it's a fluke. It tells you the chance that if the effect didn't exist (in this case if the Higgs did not exist) you would get such a fluke. The two are not the same thing.

To get that value you have to assume it's a fluke so it clearly can't tell you the probability that it's a fluke - although it is useful information in determining that.

Great explanation. Thanks!

[Tubbythin]

Originally Posted by MattusMaximus

However, given the number of collisions that take place and other factors, the bar is set ever higher for a signal to be considered a genuine "discovery"; that bar is set at 5 sigma, or 5 standard deviations. That would mean that if you had a 5 sigma signal, such as the ones associated with this latest announcement, then the chances of it being a fluke are about 1 in 1,744,278.

I'm not sure about this bit either. Surely the size and nature of the background goes in to determining the standard deviation.
I've always thought the bar is set at 5 sigma because they don't want to be shown to be wrong at a later date.

Incidentally its worth noting that experimenters at LEP saw an indication of a signal for the Higgs at 115 GeV but not at the anything like the 5 sigma level (anyone know exactly what it was?). And then LEP was turned off to make way for the LHC. Subsequently that seems to have turned out to be a statistical anomaly. So this stringent 5 sigma requirement has proved, err, significant.

[MattusMaximus]

Originally Posted by edd

I keep banging on about it, but I do so because I think this is important. It does not tell you the chance that it's a fluke. It tells you the chance that if the effect didn't exist (in this case if the Higgs did not exist) you would get such a fluke. The two are not the same thing.

To get that value you have to assume it's a fluke so it clearly can't tell you the probability that it's a fluke - although it is useful information in determining that.

In my digging around the CERN website looking at the slides of the technical presentation, I found this one which seems to be displaying exactly the point that edd was making above...



Caption:

Quote:

The probability of background to produce a signal-like excess, for all the Higgs boson masses tested. At almost all masses, the probability (solid curve) is at least a few percent; however, at 126.5 GeV it dips to 3x10-7, or one chance in three million, the '5-sigma' gold-standard normally used for the discovery of a new particle. A Standard Model Higgs boson with that mass would produce a dip to 4.6 sigma.

Edd, or anyone else, am I interpreting that graph correctly given the context of our conversation?

[bpesta22]

Originally Posted by Olowkow

Surely the "god particle" must consist of three parts. {groan}

The father, the boson, and the holy spirit.

The boson of god has a nice ring to it.

[Jodie]

Thanks Maximus!!

[oglommi]

When we see how fast alternative medicine will incorporate this new discovery maybe it's time to reevaluate our skepticism?

Just a thought.