Higgs' Boson? - We Have A Discovery

[Vile Consort]

They appear to have found a new particle at CERN (all good stuff for science and humanity) yet this particle is nowhere near to being confirmed as the Higgs boson. The hype today reminds me of the 'cold fusion' stuff a number of years ago.

The Higgs boson is an incredibly complex mathematical construct, as indeed a lot of particle physics is. When it comes to what they've been doing at CERN, it's not a case of making the theory fit the facts, but more a case of making the facts fit the theory.

Don't get me wrong, particle physics is very important (for instance, a digital computer can only work because of quantum phenomena - without this stuff no one would be able to use computers that allow you to post on forums like this). However, the Standard Model, of which the Higgs boson is a kind of last piece in the jigsaw puzzle, is a very, very long way from explaining life, the universe and everything.

What a load of ill-informed bollocks this is.

Cold fusion was a phenomenon that the vast majority of scientists were extremely sceptical of. It flew in the face of theory, and nobody was able to reproduce it. Likewise Eric Laithwaite's eccentric (and incorrect) pronouncements about gyroscopes in the early 70s, which destroyed his career. This result, on the other hand, has been seen in three separate experiments (two at CERN and one at FermiLab) so it is nothing like cold fusion.

What exactly is it you want? An experiment (cold fusion) flies in the face of theory: you conclude it's obviously rubbish. An experiment (CERN and the Tevatron) agrees with theory: you conclude they are making the facts fit the theory - i.e. that it's fraudulent. You obviously have no conception of how the scientific method works - viz: you make a theory, see whether it predicts some new phenomenon, then perform experiments to see whether the phenomenon is observed. If it is, this strengthens the theory. If not, and you have looked hard enough, you try to improve the theory to fit the facts.

And the fact that the Standard Model is along way from explaining life, the universe and everything? So what? Newton's laws, Maxwell's equations, general relativity and thermodynamics are even further from doing so, but it doesn't mean they are (a) wrong or (b) useless or (c) not interesting or (d) suitable objects for the derision of the ignorant.

"The fact that Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment, is nowhere better illustrated than in the two fields for slight contributions to which you have done me the great honour of awarding the the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1923. Sometimes it is one foot that is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both—by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it on beyond, and so on in unending alterations." - Robert Millikan.

Of course, Budapest, in his/her infinite wisdom, doesn't agree with this. How do I know? He/she just said so quite explicitly.

And please don't patronise us by telling us how important quantum theory is. We don't need you to tell us that.

[Quarky]

The announcement by Rolf Heuer, director-general of Cern,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18701200

and a delightful response from Peter Higgs "a remarkable thing that has happened in my lifetime!" (he first wrote about the possibility of the existencve of the Higgs'Boson in the early 1960s)

I am wondering why the Higgs Boson is denoted by Prof. Higgs name, and not by one of the other half a dozen or so physicists that claimed to have proposed the particle independently, including at least one pre-dating Higgs paper.

These things are taken extremely seriously by the world of Science, so I am guessing there was something in Prof. Higgs work that showed a deeper appreciation of the issues involved than the others.

As with Faraday, who "discovered" electromagnetic induction, and others with claims, Henry in USA, and an Italian priest, who pre-dated Faraday, I assume the Scientific world preferred the quality of the scientific work product.

[Vile Consort]

I believe he shares your surprise and is embarrassed by it. He tends to refer to it as "the Boson that bears my name".

[amateur51]

I believe he shares your surprise and is embarrassed by it. He tends to refer to it as "the Boson that bears my name".

That's a lovely insight, VC - many thanks !

[vinteuil]

le Monde provides a rather good video cartoon explaining the Higgs boson (it's in English, and lasts about seven minutes) -

http://bigbrowser.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/07/04/kezako-comprendre-le-boson-de-higgs-en-dessin-anime/

[ardcarp]

I've been trying to hone some wonderfully witty comment about Bosondorfer pianos. But as you see, I've failed.

[Pegleg]

I'm not sure if it's because the little grey cells are now so few in number, but I cannot get excited about the Higgs boson and the work at the LHC. Well, not yet.

If Newton's clockwork universe was born from natural philosophy, then it seems to me that quantum mechanics has lived in a deeply philosophical world of its own for nearly one hundred years. A counter-intuitive world far removed for everyday experience, one of Lilliputian time and space dimensions where the description of nature verges on the absurd.

Have a go at reading the Wikipedia description of the Standard Model, the “theory of almost everything” :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_model

Perhaps there was a time when I could read and digest this and even claim to understand it. But let's face it, how many of us would cope with the maths?

So, I'll leave the particle physicists to push away at the frontiers of science and progress their scientific knowledge. Speaking of which, I think Vile Consort's description of the “Scientific Method” is perhaps a little too simple. I believe the relationship between theoretical and experimental physics is more of a two way street. Newton's work on “Opticks” and his experimentation using prisms to disperse light lead to his “corpuscular” theories, not the other way round.

It's interesting that Vile Consort should quote the words of Robert Milikan whose famous “oil drop experiment” lead to him receiving a Nobel prize for measuring the charge on an electron. Milikan has been accused at various times of cooking the books. Physicist Richard Feynman, himself a Nobel prize winner, talked about this in one of his many lectures as an example of the psychological effects in scientific methodology.

It's a long time since I tried to read Karl Popper's book, “The Logic of Scientific Discovery”, but there's more than one idea of what the “Scientific Method” is, or should be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_popper#Philosophy_of_science

[Serial_Apologist]

If Newton's clockwork universe was born from natural philosophy, then it seems to me that quantum mechanics has lived in a deeply philosophical world of its own for nearly one hundred years. A counter-intuitive world far removed for everyday experience, one of Lilliputian time and space dimensions where the description of nature verges on the absurd.

What I call "disa-peer group authority"

[Flay]

le Monde provides a rather good video cartoon explaining the Higgs boson (it's in English, and lasts about seven minutes) -

http://bigbrowser.blog.lemonde.fr/20...-dessin-anime/

That's excellent, Vinny. Fast bright minds at work. BBC's Horizon would have stretched that out to an hour.

[tony yyy]

Peter Higgs identified the need for the existence of such a particle in 1964, I think, in order to explain how everything in the known world has mass.

I believe several people could lay claim to having developed the theory of the Higgs mechanism in particle physics. I find Higgs's own modesty an inspiration. I think the concept was borrowed from Anderson's (non-relativistic) work in condensed matter physics. Deciding who to award the the Nobel Prize to could be problematic.

All-in-all, it's quite an achievement, if rather expensive.

[Budapest]

I'm not sure if it's because the little grey cells are now so few in number, but I cannot get excited about the Higgs boson and the work at the LHC. Well, not yet.

If Newton's clockwork universe was born from natural philosophy, then it seems to me that quantum mechanics has lived in a deeply philosophical world of its own for nearly one hundred years. A counter-intuitive world far removed for everyday experience, one of Lilliputian time and space dimensions where the description of nature verges on the absurd.

Agreed, with the caveat that much of quantum mechanics is not theory, it's been proven in countless experiments, which of course still leaves the question: at what scale do the laws of the macro world take over from the laws of the quantum world?

If I put forth the proposition that the brain works at a quantum level would you be more interested in all this particle stuff?

[french frank]

I believe he shares your surprise and is embarrassed by it. He tends to refer to it as "the Boson that bears my name".

As in 'le boson de Higgs'. You can understand the surprise and embarrassment.

Bit like Wimbledon, really: someone has to win.

[Budapest]

What a load of ill-informed bollocks this is.

Cold fusion was a phenomenon that the vast majority of scientists were extremely sceptical of. It flew in the face of theory, and nobody was able to reproduce it. Likewise Eric Laithwaite's eccentric (and incorrect) pronouncements about gyroscopes in the early 70s, which destroyed his career. This result, on the other hand, has been seen in three separate experiments (two at CERN and one at FermiLab) so it is nothing like cold fusion...

And the fact that the Standard Model is along way from explaining life, the universe and everything? So what? Newton's laws, Maxwell's equations, general relativity and thermodynamics are even further from doing so, but it doesn't mean they are (a) wrong or (b) useless or (c) not interesting or (d) suitable objects for the derision of the ignorant...

Of course, Budapest, in his/her infinite wisdom, doesn't agree with this. How do I know? He/she just said so quite explicitly.

And please don't patronise us by telling us how important quantum theory is. We don't need you to tell us that.

I was comparing cold fusion to the Higgs boson with regard to the press hype that has surrounded these announcements - incidentally, it's a bit of a coincidence that CERN is shortly going to be closed down, purportedly for a major upgrade before it reopens again in about three years time. During a major worldwide economic crisis, in which governments are slashing costs left, right and centre, it seems a bit dodgy that CERN announce that they "might have" found the Higgs boson shortly before they are about to be closed down for a revamp.

I should stress again that I'm all for research into particle physics (it's one of my great interests) and I have no axe to grind here.

With regard to me being patronising, maybe I am. All I can say in my defense is that many people are not familiar with quantum mechanics and I try to put it in terms that are hopefully a bit more understandable than you'll find on Wiki, or from the science correspondants of the Guardian, Telegraph, BBC et al.

Maybe I should also add that as part of my work I'm involved in quantum mechanics, and I can't come anywhere close to understanding the higher mathematics of it.

[teamsaint]

I am always suspicious of big announcements.
Politics everywhere, even in the lab.

[Vile Consort]

incidentally, it's a bit of a coincidence that CERN is shortly going to be closed down, purportedly for a major upgrade before it reopens again in about three years time. During a major worldwide economic crisis, in which governments are slashing costs left, right and centre, it seems a bit dodgy that CERN announce that they "might have" found the Higgs boson shortly before they are about to be closed down for a revamp.

What do you mean - purportedly? Why are they really closing it down? And how do you know?