higgs boson

[billy]

so what next

will we get anything from knowing it imparts mass?

[Erthona]

We may not even know that. All we know at the moment is that a particle exists around 126 GeV which is where they expect to find the Higgs. It may tell us some things about the weak force though. Regardless, it will take years yet.


Dale

[billy]

will it have any implication, more than just filling in some of the empty space of e=mc square, and will we be able to utilize any of it's properties do you think.

[tectak]

will it have any implication, more than just filling in some of the empty space of e=mc square, and will we be able to utilize any of it's properties do you think.

Well I'm still hoping to get my Jet-Pack which I was promised back in 1959 in the Reader's Digest. We were all going to have one by last year but I guess no Boson, no Jet Pack.
Regarding the utilisation of properties of Higgs Boson, the euphoria is not because we've made one but because we think we know where it was hiding and though we found it had popped out for a smoke, the place stiil smells as if it had been there.
So we are utilising it all the time or, anthropically, we would not be here to ask where it is. Hmmmmm. No worries, there, then. It's gotta be good for Britain and our main man Higgs. (Erthona would have you believe it was found first in some hick town near Chicago, at some nondescript laboratory called Infirmilab or some such. Take no notice.)
Jest,
tectak

[Leanne]

What it does most of all is confirms the validity of the Standard Model -- which puts us one massive step closer to a grand unifying theory (though I kind of hope we never figure it all out, that would spoil a lot of fun -- besides, dark matter and gravity don't want to play nice).

If we can figure out exactly how mass is conferred on particles to slow them from light speed, we can theoretically figure out how to do the reverse, but I suspect the transport industry is safe from an invasion of boson-driven close-to-light-speed vehicles for at least long enough to fully exploit fossil fuels.

Full credit to Messrs Higgs (UK), Kibble (UK), Brout (Belgium), Englert (Belgium), Guralnik (US) and Hagen (US) -- plus massive props to Satyendra Nath Bose, whose contribution deserves a capital B for Boson, and his partner-in-crime, some bloke called Albert.

---

PS. Tectak, Readers Digest is nothing but disappointment... sea monkeys aren't real monkeys either.

[Erthona]

However, none of it helps resolve the incompatibility between General Relativity and the Standard Model, in fact, it actually widens the gulf. It is probably because there is an inherent flaw in both approaches, that is in their approach to description. Obviously mass interacts with space in some fashion to create this effect we call gravity. I think that the idea of a field, separate from space will be a fatal flaw. This of course does not even take into account all of the missing matter and energy. I fear we will all be long dead before anything like a unified field theory is anything but a delusional fantasy. I think we are much more ignorant and much further away than we can even conceive. (the toys are nice)

Dale

[addy]

At best, in that science, we can profess to a lot of things that "we think we know". It may well prove to be the discovery of the century (maybe not), but we don't have the knowledge or the tools to translate these kinds of discoveries to anything concrete yet. Highly interesting stuff though. Science at its most mindblowing

[tectak]

What it does most of all is confirms the validity of the Standard Model -- which puts us one massive step closer to a grand unifying theory (though I kind of hope we never figure it all out, that would spoil a lot of fun -- besides, dark matter and gravity don't want to play nice).

If we can figure out exactly how mass is conferred on particles to slow them from light speed, we can theoretically figure out how to do the reverse, but I suspect the transport industry is safe from an invasion of boson-driven close-to-light-speed vehicles for at least long enough to fully exploit fossil fuels.

Full credit to Messrs Higgs (UK), Kibble (UK), Brout (Belgium), Englert (Belgium), Guralnik (US) and Hagen (US) -- plus massive props to Satyendra Nath Bose, whose contribution deserves a capital B for Boson, and his partner-in-crime, some bloke called Albert.

---

PS. Tectak, Readers Digest is nothing but disappointment... sea monkeys aren't real monkeys either.

Oh NOOOOO! Another myth shattered!
Best,
tectak

[billy]

so the general consensus is that we're throwing rocks at the moon, better yet; the sun?
do they (the scientists) know more than what they're telling us, or is just that know know more than we do.
as conjecture, if dark matter which makes up the ,aim part of the universe has mass, wouldn't the higgs have imparted that mass also? or is there a dark matter higgs particle (the devil particle )?