UPDATE 5:57 AM The live webcast from CERN is overloaded but it appears that uncertainty still exists about the HB, they may have glimpsed its signal around 126 GeV – see below – Anthony
“The God Particle” may have been found.
Scientists in Geneva are expected to announce they have caught a glimpse of the elusive Higgs Boson on Tuesday in a press conference planned for 8 AM EST.
The particle is a vital factor in science’s understanding of the universe, but it has never been seen by scientists in any particle accelerator, perhaps until now. The theory of its existence goes all the way back to 1964.
Finding the Higgs Boson is one of the main goals of the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which recently started operation amidst worry that the search for the HB might open a rift or create a small black hole.
If scientists have gotten a glimpse of the Higgs, it could have far-reaching consequences in particle physics. It is the only particle predicted by the current favored theory of particle physics that has not yet been observed experimentally. Its discovery would likely validate the Standard Model theory.
Some trivia from the Wikipedia entry on it:
The Higgs boson is often referred to as “the God particle” by the media,[50] after the title of Leon Lederman‘s book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?[51] Lederman initially wanted to call it the “goddamn particle,” but his editor would not let him.[52]
I’m sure our physicist friend Luboš Motl will have some coverage at The Reference Frame once the announcement is made for us folks that are three quarks shy of full set of fermions.
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The Guardian reports on live tweets and what portions of the webcast they could view
While Fabiola Gianotti goes through the slides from the Atlas experiment, excluding various energies for the Higgs signal, here’s some thoughts from Prof Stephan Söldner-Rembold, Head of the Particle Physics Group at the University of Manchester:
ATLAS and CMS have presented an important milestone in their search for the Higgs particle, but it is not yet sufficient for a proper discovery given the amount of data recorded so far. Still, I am very excited about it, since the quality of the LHC results is exceptional.
The Higgs particle seems to have picked itself a mass which makes things very difficult for us physicists. Everything points at a mass in the range 115-140 GeV and we concentrate on this region with our searches at the LHC and at the Tevatron.
The results indicate we are about half-way there and within one year we will probably know whether the Higgs particle exists with absolute certainty, but it is unfortunately not a Christmas present this year.
The Higgs particle will, of course, be a great discovery, but it would be an even greater discovery if it didn’t exist where theory predicts it to be. This would be a huge surprise and secretly we hope this might happen. If this is case, there must be something else that takes the role of the “standard” Higgs particle, perhaps a family of several Higgs particles or something even more exotic. The unexpected is always the most exciting.
…
From Cern: “#ATLAS sees a small excess at a Higgs mass of 126 GeV coming from 3 channels. Local significance: 3.6 sigma but only 2.4 sigma globally”
That’s not enough for a “discovery” (which techically needs 5 sigma) but it is very interesting evidence for the Higgs.
Also: “#ATLAS excludes a #Higgs mass between 131 and 453 GeV at 95% confidence level at #CERN Higgs seminar”
…
Fabiola Gianotti has finished her presentation. So far,we know that Atlas seems to have found evidence for a bump around 126GeV for something that looks like the Higgs.
Next up is Guido Tonelli, spokesperson for Cern’s other main detector, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS). As @iansample says, “So. What we’re looking for now is whether CMS detector has seen Higgs-like signals around the same mass (126GeV).”
…
How science has changed…doing some searching on the Atlas experiment, I came across this commercialization of the science at the Atlas store. At least they aren’t offering Pecan logs.
Tallbloke: Good to see you are considering the electromagnetic perspective of solar system physics.
Regarding the announcement: Be reasonably sceptical, but have an open mind to the presented evidence. In the current state of Big Government Physics, be wary of pronouncements that confirm long-held theoretical physics.
Why?
Because there is tremendous political pressure to confirm those long held beliefs and therefore there is a strong tendency for “confirmational bias”. In other words, to find what one is looking for.
James F. Evans says:
December 13, 2011 at 10:53 am
Because there is tremendous political pressure to confirm those long held beliefs and therefore there is a strong tendency for “confirmational bias”. In other words, to find what one is looking for.
This is even more the case for fringe-physics. The ‘100-fold increase of high energy electrons’ is a prime example. These electrons are not solar wind or interstellar medium particles, but galactic cosmic rays and their density is extremely low [millions of times smaller than the number the EU folks claim]. Not that I think it makes any difference, but here are some pointers:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse/programs/presentations/Moiseev_20110405.pdf
http://heliophysics.nasa.gov/SolarMinimum24/papers/florinski_ferreira.pdf
Pardon me for saying this, but after ‘climate science’ I just can’t seem to gain much interest in anything that carries a label ‘science’.
Fermilab has already seen hints like these and expects to present further results at the spring and summer meetings. http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2011/12/13/fermilab-hot-on-trail-of-higgs-boson-with-lhc-tevatron/
The problem with the search for the Higgs Boson is that it has a foundation in the belief of the big bang theory. This theory like many before it is an anthropogenic conceit. Just as we wanted the earth to be the whole universe, or the centre of the solar system or our solar system to be the centre of the universe, big bang theory says more about us than it does about the true nature of the universe. We cannot cope with a “snap, crackle and pop” universe that continues in an infinite cycle oblivious to our irrelevant existence. Give us red shift and confirmation bias kicks in. We can believe in a universe with a beginning, middle and end. A universe that follows a cycle just like us and everything we know around us. How comforting.
The harder they collide the particles together and the better they build detectors, the greater the number of shorter lived particles they will detect. Infinite complexity will exist at the fractal boundary between energy and matter. Perhaps a parallel and possibly more useful area of research would be to try to create matter from colliding energy. Short lived particles at first and eventually hydrogen. Just how does the energy emitted from what scientists call black holes condense to form new matter?
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear
and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There
is another which states that this has already happened.
eyeonsu@12.29 – I have to agree especially if the word God is involved
In related news:
Congratulations to myself for having predicted the outcome.
Konrad says:
December 13, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Perhaps a parallel and possibly more useful area of research would be to try to create matter from colliding energy. Short lived particles at first and eventually hydrogen.
This is precisely what CERN is doing. Matter and Energy are equivalent [E=mc^2], one can be created from the other and vice versa.
According to this guy, Dayton Miller and Michelson-Morley got “non-null” results. Here’s a project for a Physics class, review Michelson-Morley, Dayton Miller, and the “Shankland” paper.
Since discussion of the Higgs bosun brings up the subject of inertia, an alternative to the Standard Model is Mach’s Conjecture, specifically the formulation, “inertia originates in a kind of interaction between bodies”, leading to the Woodward Effect. Woodward claims to have achieved 1 micro-newton of thrust from his apparatus, which at least has the virtue of not costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Does this mean that there will be a 20th adjustable parameter added with the “hocus pocus” (Feynman) of “renormalization”?
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/issue.aspx?id=12395&y=0&no=&content=true&page=2&css=print
“It would be surprising if the strange world of subatomic and quantum physics did not lead the field in mysteries, conceptual ambiguities and paradoxes, and it does not disappoint. The standard model of particle physics, for instance (the one containing all the quarks and gluons), has no fewer than 19 adjustable parameters, about 60 years after Enrico Fermi exclaimed, “With four parameters I can fit an elephant!” Suffice to say, “beauty” is a term not frequently applied to the standard model.”
If discovering one God particle causes this much of a stir imagine how exciting it will be when physicists discover the rest of God. 🙂
re Cyber above,
If every particle has an “anti-particle”, as a matter of accepted theory, then is there not a theorized “anti-Higgs” particle, and from that an implied “anti-Higgs field”?
I have not heard that anyone has a solid theory on the issue of “dark energy” accounting for the accelerating expansion of the universe. Could an anti-Higgs field act as dark energy?
KW
Cyber says:
December 13, 2011 at 8:45 am
“LaForge to Captain Picard! I’ll have the warp engines back online in less than two minutes, Captain!” Interesting times we live in. Higgs bosons. Warp drives. Dark matter and dark energy. My dad was a small child when the Wright Brothers flew in 1903 and saw Armstrong and Aldrin land on the moon. Interesting times, indeed.
What they also hope to find at Cern is mass dissappearing. That the sum of the bits will weigh less than prior to collision as mass has dissappeared into another dimension…and it’s information (what ever that is). Merry Christmas everyone.
…and you thought the scriptural account of christ dissappearing while sitting eating a meal with his disciples was impossible(which it is at our current level of knowledge). But your would have said nothing could dissappear (it’s mass)..into another dimension not long ago as well. Watch this space.
uninformedLuddite – Ah! The great Douglas Adams again.
Konrad says:
December 13, 2011 at 1:39 pm
The problem with the search for the Higgs Boson is that it has a foundation in the belief of the big bang theory. This theory like many before it is an anthropogenic conceit. Just as we wanted the earth to be the whole universe, or the centre of the solar system or our solar system to be the centre of the universe, big bang theory says more about us than it does about the true nature of the universe.
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The Big Bang is eerily reminiscient of the ‘bronze age sheep herder’ version. The Big Bang is Priema Fascia given the expanding universe. The Cosmic Microwave Background confirms the theory in black and white (well….colour actually but sounds better if it’s black and white). The Oscillating Universe idea has it’s fans but no experimental evidence has been produced as we can’t reverse past T -xxxxxx seconds after the Big Bang. So, we’re it….in infinity so far…although…something ‘banged’ into the nothing and everything eminated from something smaller than this ——-> , <———- . The idea of Infinity is a weird one and it's one thing bandied around quite a bit in the bible which i find interesting all by itself. The universe had a beginning but I didn't says the Lord and lo and behold, physics at the moment says the Universe had a big bang beginning and there had to be something to make it happen. A paradox,
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 13, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“This is precisely what CERN is doing. Matter and Energy are equivalent [E=mc^2], one can be created from the other and vice versa.”
No, this is precisely what CERN are not doing. They are colliding protons which have mass and observing the short lived particles and energy produced in the collisions. While this will lead to better understanding of the semi stable state of energy we call matter, it is not a direct attempt to create semi stable matter from massless electromagnetic radiation. The “vice versa” you mention.
To properly consider the creation of matter from energy it may be best to abandon the big bang theory and its proposed special initial conditions. Rather consider the “snap, crackle and pop” universe in which energy is neither created nor destroyed but matter is constantly created and destroyed.
While creating semi stable matter from electromagnetic radiation alone in a hissing sea of vacuum energy may be beyond our present abilities, empirical experiments could still be conducted in that area. A high power gamma source could be targeted at the epicentre of the hadron collider proton collisions. If the same quantity of particles were created with a larger mass and longer lifespan, this would be a step in the right direction.
Konrad says:
December 13, 2011 at 7:41 pm
No, this is precisely what CERN are not doing. They are colliding protons which have mass and observing the short lived particles and energy produced in the collisions
This is precisely what CERN is doing. Just gently colliding protons will not give you anything. You first have to accelerate the protons to give them a very high energy, then collide them, which will convert some of that energy to particles much heavier than the protons. This has nothing per se to do with the big bang [although the same process worked them: the energy released from the false vacuum was converted into particles which then were annihilated to create radiation again, leaving only a small residue [one in a billion] of particles to make up you and me]. Learn more here: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970724a.html
Konrad says:
December 13, 2011 at 7:41 pm
They are colliding protons which have mass and observing the short lived particles and energy produced in the collisions
A more colorful explanation of creation of matter from energy is here:
http://www.chemistryland.com/ElementarySchool/BuildingBlocks/AtomicParticles.html
Konrad says:
December 13, 2011 at 7:41 pm
While creating semi stable matter from electromagnetic radiation alone in a hissing sea of vacuum energy may be beyond our present abilities
It isn’t: http://www.invisibleculture.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=747
Leif,
If the mass of short lived particles is indeed greater than the mass of protons involved in the collision, then I would concede that CERN are creating matter from energy. This however does raise the question of “seeding”. The mass and velocity of the protons bring energy to the collision, but do the number of short lived particles produced exceed the number of subatomic particles brought to the collision?