"Higgs-like Boson" discovered at Cern

I'm really out of my depth here and I've only got a very elementary understanding of it all, but it seems that the Higgs Boson is a type of "missing particle" of sorts that, if it were actually real, would more or less be the key to explaining a lot of occurrences and scientific laws of the universe. The problem is that they've never found anything resembling the Higgs Boson until recently.
 
I understood the "5 standard deviations" part, but nothing else. Even so, I do realize that this is a huge accomplishment in physics and I'm excited to see more happen with the LHC in thhe next decade.

Anyone remember when the LHC was supposed to open up a black hole and destroy the world?
 
Jebus McAzn said:
I'm really out of my depth here and I've only got a very elementary understanding of it all, but it seems that the Higgs Boson is a type of "missing particle" of sorts that, if it were actually real, would more or less be the key to explaining a lot of occurrences and scientific laws of the universe. The problem is that they've never found anything resembling the Higgs Boson until recently.
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Pretty much. The existence of the Higgs Boson fills a major gap in the current theory of quantum mechanics, the Standard Model. As of now they are seeing a Sigma 5 level (I've heard 4.9 as well), which means that there is a 1 in 3.5 million chance that what they are seeing isn't the the Higgs Boson.

That being said, there still are lots of questions to answer. Does the Higgs Boson behave the same way Peter Higgs predicted it would, does it do something completely different, or is it something else giving the readings entirely.
 
Angels_and_demons.jpg


Oh God... It's happening...
 
Hawkstar said:
Anyone remember when the LHC was supposed to open up a black hole and destroy the world?
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god yes it was on 10.09.08 (September 10th) and someone told me that and i was like "are you fucking kidding me you son of a bitch"






apparently he did
 
Here's what my laymen's understanding of the conference told me.

The first guy was mostly explaining the tools that they were using to narrow their search for the higgs-boson. You know how you kept hearing that guy say "Monte Carlo" and you were incredibly confused as to what James Bond had to do with the Higgs Boson? Yeah, that's a technique which is explained well here. There's an article here that explains some of it.

Our task is to identify each tiny piece from the debris and reconstruct the initial object from the pieces that flew away in all directions.
The hope is to find new particles never seen before, like the Higgs boson that could explain how particles acquire their mass, or dark matter particles, the unidentified matter that makes up most of the universe.


The data come from millions of different parts of the detector, carrying information on where the debris flew or lost energy. That’s a huge amount of information and it takes the Grid, a network of thousands of computers, to be able to tackle this task.


Other people scrutinize these data every day, making sure they are of good quality with all information available.


In parallel, we simulate billions of events called Monte Carlo events that look just like the events recorded in the detector but that are based on current knowledge or hypothesized ideas (like the Higgs bosons or dark matter particles). By comparing the Monte Carlo with the real data, we can see if all is already known or if new particles are present.


Before using the simulated data, we must check they reproduce every single aspect of the data we collect. We must check every type of information we use for the physics analysis. If the simulation differs from the real data, we correct it until all is reliable.
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So he was basically explaining a bit about how the tools being used were becoming more refined and more accurate than ever before, and that the results regarding the Higgs Boson had "trapped" it within an even tinier range of possible sizes. Hence the 5 standard deviations thing.

Then the second lady came on and was talking about things that made me sleepy.

Beware: this is from the understanding of a political science major and very possibly could be wrong!

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qzqIHj4uGI

A sonnet about how we found a higgs-like particle
 
Eh, LHC will eventually create a mini black hole that'll kill us all anyways XD

So their whole wait for the reveal was that they found higgs-like particles? I thought they did that before. Call me when they're actually announcing a discovery instead of hype at what could be particles of it.

Also, having watched John Carter last night, is it odd I keep thinking Higgs-Barsoom instead of Higgs-Boson?
 
i'm genuinely surprised i had to find this out through smogon. i would've thought this would be all over the news and people would spread it through facebook :(. my faith is unfounded i guess
 
well technically it is spreading everywhere but i heard it isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be

something about the residue and not the actual thing

i don't know shit about chem though
 
I feel the same way as Poppy tbh, but at the same time I'm not surprised... it's not like this discovery will actually change how people lead their day-to-day lives.

But yeah, really cool stuff.
 
Blue_Tornado said:
i don't know shit about chem though
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lol

Aaaaaaaah this makes me v excited and happy, the LHC is just too damn awesome. Working there would be my dream job. This discovery is a big bonus for the standard model, cause people were looking for alternate theories for a bit like supersymmetry and stuff, so yeah this is pretty cool :)
 
ButteredToast said:
Oh God... It's happening...
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NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
DON'T DO THAT
I SWEAR TO GOD

Shinryu said:
So their whole wait for the reveal was that they found higgs-like particles? I thought they did that before. Call me when they're actually announcing a discovery instead of hype at what could be particles of it.
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You're confusing the meaning of "discovery" here. This essentially is a "discovery"; the rest consists of people looking at the experiment and repeating it for confirmation. But in a sense, you're right; in the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge deal. The media (I found out about this through a news anchor calling it *shivers* the "God Particle") and the silly anti-science people hyped it up so that it seemed like a bigger deal than it was. It would have been a bigger deal if there were no Higgs. That would have meant different physics, questioning the Standard Model (though it's already under scrutiny for being rather ugly in some respects), and all that fun stuff. Not saying that finding the Higgs is bad, though, just that, yes, it's more of a theory confirmation than anything else.

And to clarify a point, I do say the Higgs boson discovery isn't a big deal, but the fact that we are now able to conduct experiments like this is pretty awesome.
 
Shinryu said:
So their whole wait for the reveal was that they found higgs-like particles? I thought they did that before. Call me when they're actually announcing a discovery instead of hype at what could be particles of it.
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They have basically certainly (approx 1 in 3 million chance it's nothing special) discovered a particle, and it's a Boson, and according to the scientists, they're pretty damn sure it's a Higgs Boson since it's in the right range and has a few of the right properties. However, there are theoretically possibly several kinds of Higgs Bosons and whether it's THE Higgs Boson, that is, the one with all the properties predicted by the conventional Standard Model, still needs confirmation, but it looks very likely.
 
sonickid01 said:
They have basically certainly (approx 1 in 3 million chance it's nothing special) discovered a particle, and it's a Boson, and according to the scientists, they're pretty damn sure it's a Higgs Boson since it's in the right range and has a few of the right properties.
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What other properties besides 125 gev? I thought it only had the right mass?
 
Fatecrashers said:
higgs boson explained via cartoon

just watch it
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love this, incredibly useful in explaining what's going on, and informative, and inspiring. when i saw the higgs boson telling the other particle that it was fat i paused the video and went rooting around the web to find the rest of this guy's stuff because i was so besotted. I'm almost certain I've seen this animation style somewhere, can't think where though.

i thought it was very lovely and gratifying to see peter higgs standing up like a rock star, mollified, in the room of thousands of physicists applauding his discovery. apparently my grandparents actually knew the guy in edinburgh (was married to a family friend, i think). they said he was very laid-back and quiet, but could definitely tell there was an ocean of thought whirling and churning beneath the surface. pretty cool.
 
a_brief_history_of_time.jpg

Reading this will give you a good picture of the universe and how the Higgs Boson fits in, but I think the animation fate linked has you covered.

Also that Hipmonlee guy is pretty great.
 
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