Higgs Boson Particle: Researchers' Data Closing In On New Particle

GENEVA -- Scientists at the world's largest atom smasher say they have reams of new data that will reveal with greater certainty whether they have already glimpsed a long-sought theoretical particle that could help explain the origins of the universe.

A spokesman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, told The Associated Press on Thursday that scientists will release the new data early next month at a physics conference in Australia.

James Gillies said the hunt for the presumed Higgs boson is advancing in great secrecy because as researchers pore over the data "it's not yet clear exactly what they're seeing in it."

The particle's existence is theorized under the main particle physics theory that explains the Big Bang, and finding it would be considered an enormous scientific breakthrough.

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Comments

[crankyCrackPot]

02:40 PM on 06/25/2012

I think I recall reading that if all the data to be studied were to be copied to DVD's, the number of DVD's needed to store all the information stacked flat would reach the moon.

[SwiftJonathan]

01:47 AM on 06/26/2012

That's just one reason why they are not storing it on DVDs stacked flat.

:-)

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:45 AM on 06/25/2012

Physicists Said Closing In On 'God Particle'....

Strange that scientist call this the GOD PARTICLE....when any name would be better since the laws of physic proves that no one in the universe can have powers that this fictional god person is suppose to have besides alluding to the fact that maybe it was god who created the universe which is pure fiction..... even beginning particle or first particle would be more appropriate as a name or description....

[SwiftJonathan]

11:56 AM on 06/25/2012

Strange that scientists never call it the god particle. Only non-scientists do.

:-)

[TYRANNASAURUS]

03:09 PM on 06/25/2012

While this is true repetition will eventual win out and it will be a god particle....like in Black hole?

[Genders]

10:43 PM on 06/28/2012

Much of the media coverage of the announcement included the term "God particle," which originated in the title of a 1994 book by Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman. The story goes that Lederman originally wanted to name the tome "The Goddamn Particle" because of how difficult it was to detect, but was persuaded by his publisher, Delta, to shorten it.

"It's a pity that Leon Lederman, otherwise a nice enough fellow, chose to go ahead with this moniker at the advice of his publishing agents to sell more books," Sharma said.

However, ever since the book came out, the Higgs boson hasn't been able to escape the nickname, at least in popular discourse.

http://www.livescience.com/17489-god-particle-higgs-boson.html

God is just a word.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

09:26 AM on 06/29/2012

Right on.... I still go with the......THE FIRST PARTICLE.

[edenooch]

03:32 PM on 06/24/2012

the use needs to build a bigger particle smasher

[Jarrod Putnam]

09:32 PM on 06/24/2012

We were gonna have a pretty big one awhile back, but it got turned down.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:48 AM on 06/25/2012

Right I think the republicans voted it down as a waste of time because they know that god created the universe and this was a waste of good money that could be used to build more weapons to protect themselves from whatever.

[mntnman69]

09:04 AM on 06/24/2012

Does it bother anyone else that all the scientific breakthroughs we read about are all happening overseas? Says much about what is being done to our educational system.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

10:49 AM on 06/25/2012

Says more about what's important to the republicans.

[Liberal2]

01:03 PM on 06/25/2012

They get elected.

[Genders]

10:44 PM on 06/28/2012

Nope, science has always been international.

Lot of American folks are working on this project.

[SwiftJonathan]

11:31 PM on 06/23/2012

You just have to love these headlines. Now the Higgs is a "new particle". Well, folks, do I have news for you!

If the Higgs exists, it has existed since the dawn of time. So that's hardly "new".
If the Higgs doesn't exist, it's nothing but an old theoretical hat. So that's not new, either.

But if the Higgs exists and has been found, it will be the experimental confirmation of an almost 40 year old theoretical result that describes a 13+ billion year old quantum field. Hardly "new", either.

What can I say... another ridiculously careless headline, followed by another basically devoid of relevant information article.

[Genders]

10:46 PM on 06/28/2012

wow, what pedestal did you fall off of?

If somehow you did not understand that new particle meant new to humans, well, you lack perspective.

[lcr999]

09:03 PM on 06/23/2012

Can we PLEASE stop calling it the God Particle. It has nothing to do with God or god. It is just the Higgs Boson. Any science thread draws enough crazies without getting the religious sector all in a knot. Repeat, Higgs Boson. Higgs Boson. Higgs Boson.

It is important only in that it is the last piece of the puzzle. All the other pieces fit, and we know the "shape" (almost all the characteristics) of the last piece, but we just haven't actually "seen" it yet.

[macmanchgo]

10:04 PM on 06/23/2012

It isn't news without a religious twist now that we've entered the dawn of the new Dark Ages. Religion reigns supreme, the science we see now is the vestige of work that was born at the peak of the scientific age, that age is being slowly laid to rest. Civilizations and enlightenments come and go.

[SwiftJonathan]

10:56 PM on 06/23/2012

I completely agree, except that it is not even the last piece of the puzzle. We are now looking for dark matter candidates which don't fit into the current standard model, at all. Neutrino masses and CP violation are almost completely absent in the limited predictive model.

If all we can learn at LHC is the Higgs, we won't be much smarter and particle physics may be looking at a rather serious show stopper on the machine building front.

[SamShah33]

08:43 AM on 06/26/2012

God Energy

[rdk70816]

08:00 PM on 06/23/2012

I have quite enough particles to be happy.

[itruth]

03:35 PM on 06/23/2012

In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai-Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry, meaning that the parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced. The parallel postulate in Euclidean geometry is equivalent to the statement that, in two dimensional space, for any given line R and point P not on R, there is exactly one line through P that does not intersect R; i.e., that is parallel to R. In hyperbolic geometry there are at least two distinct lines through P which do not intersect R, so the parallel postulate is false. Models have been constructed within Euclidean geometry that obey the axioms of hyperbolic geometry, thus proving that the parallel postulate is independent of the other postulates of Euclid

Long held postulates like the one above were the norm; today we know that errors are made all the time in our search for understanding.

M-Theory and String theory are in a class that is tantalizing; however like the Higgs field, and the Higgs boson, what we posit may not be what we find to be true in the end.

As for the answers to questions of this magnitude; we may find them and we may not. Gravity and the [graviton] are just one of the many mysteries. Particles that behave like waves; or are in two places at one time; sure seems to be a weirdness in our multiverse, perhaps God has a better sense of humor than we think.

[SwiftJonathan]

07:31 PM on 06/23/2012

There is no error in the Euclidean postulates. They are merely ONE of MANY possible axiom sets that define something that we would call geometry. It's as good as hyperbolic geometry or any other. You can find the same thing in set theory, mathematical logic, topology, calculus etc.. Some set of postulate lead to much richer constructs than others. Others only produce the empty set because one can show that there can be no objects, at all, that fulfill all the postulates at the same time.

And all of this is completely independent of physics, to begin with. In physics nature is the arbiter of which model fits and which model doesn't a certain physical scenario. None of the models we have developed so far, and not even any of the theories fit all of nature. That does not make all of them false, either. It just sets limits on how good one theory is for one restricted set of circumstances. To explore the limits of each and every theory and model in physics is part of what physicists do. There is no right or wrong here.

And I really fail to see where gods enter into all of this. Both math and physics are purely human
ways of expressing insight into structures, in one case abstract, in the other physical.

[itruth]

09:00 PM on 06/23/2012

Margaret Wertheim: The beautiful math of coral | Video on TED.comMargaret Wertheim leads a project to re-create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician -- celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into...http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/margaret_wertheim_crochets_the_coral_reef.html

[itruth]

09:01 PM on 06/23/2012

I suggest you watch this video from TED and have an enlightening time.

[rtgmath]

02:57 PM on 06/23/2012

Sigh. I notice that at the mention of physics the L00nies start to come out.

Why is it that people think they have such knowledge and insight into these things when they aren't even willing to take a good science or math course? It is reminiscent of alchemists trying to create the Philosopher's stone with pots of boiling mud, no idea of the real world and no methodology to be able to understand it.

And of course, these people also think that these ideas can be adequately discussed in a few simple sentences. Grief, in some of these posts there are so many errors in a single sentence it would take a semester's coursework to correct it all.

They are entitled to their fantasies. Thank goodness they aren't entitled to substitute their fantasies for the facts.

[itruth]

03:03 PM on 06/23/2012

"what a fool believes, a wise man can never reason away" Rutgers mathematics?

[Silken17]

03:25 PM on 06/23/2012

If our public educational system took science as seriously as it takes the PE and the social sciences, it might be a little different. In many high schools it is possible to graduate without taking a single class in the physical sciences. Simple arithmetic or "Business Math" is often acceptable for graduation as well.

Some of the theoretical meanderings in these comments resemble the "word salad" associated with the speech of a schizophrenic more than science.

[palindrom]

10:34 PM on 06/23/2012

I suspect that some of them probably ARE the speech of schizophrenics.

I'm always amazed at how widespread the crank delusion is -- you know, the self-styled theoreticians of whatever, the relativity deniers, the spinners of elaborate, wacko theories of everything -- my department seems to get another screed from these folks about once a week. I'm not a psychologist, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of these folks go well beyond the limits of harmless eccentricity.

I wonder what the psychiatric literature is like on this? Anybody know?

[chopas]

12:34 PM on 06/23/2012

Post continued...

Black holes are actually gravity generating machines. In this model, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. The problem with mathematics is that it is a tool of approximation. Not one physical “thing” is ever equal to another physical “thing”. An apple or a piece of gold is different from one Fundamental Moment to the next. All numbers can only represent transitional states. Given the law of absolute change, 1 = .9999999..... because 1 has decayed by the time you can say “equals”. If 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1, shouldn’t .333333… + .333333… + .333333… also = 1? There is no such thing as the concept of absolute equalities. The universe can be understood intuitively using the tools of mechanistic logic. The universe has gotten more complex as it aged. At the "beginning", it must have been at its simplest state, and it can't get much simpler than as described above. I am currently writing a book on this subject and would appreciate any feedback or arguments.

[David Dem]

12:45 PM on 06/23/2012

I think Hawking said that as a black hole increased in entropy there would have to be evidence of heat emission

[chopas]

02:35 PM on 06/23/2012

Thank you for your comment, but I'm not quite sure how that applies to my statements. There may be evidence of heat in the area of the event horizon, but certainly not in the black hole itself. At the singularity, matter and energy cease to exist and is converted back to pure gravitational force. In my theory, the universe at t=0 had no energy (heat), only a "frozen" or crystallized absolute gravity. The Big Bang was a result of the collapse of the center of this crystallized state, which twisted linear gravitational lines of force into 3D energy and matter and giving meaning to time.

[rtgmath]

02:32 PM on 06/23/2012

You are making a classic error here. There is no "decay" of 1. Your difficulty is in a misunderstanding of the decimal system and what "repeating decimals" are. The decimal system actually does allow numbers to be written in more than one way. The difficulties you see were resolved by mathematicians in the 1800s as they provided the rigorous foundation for the calculus.

You really need to take some good math and physics courses. You would find many of your current difficulties taken care of. Once you get past calculus, I would suggest you take a good numerical analysis course.

I realize you mean well. But you cannot talk about these things this way without becoming a laughingstock to people who actually know the subject. I would not want you to be in that position.

[chopas]

05:34 PM on 06/23/2012

Math is a descriptive tool like other languages. It is not adequate to describe the true nature of the universe...only approximate it. The world is full of physicists who think they have the answer...inflation theory, membrane, string theory, parallel universes, even the Big Bang theory itself, and they all use math to "prove" their theories. I don't claim to be a mathematician. I will definitely defer to you on that point, Darwin was a laughingstock amongst the people who "knew" biology of the time. You are right that 1 does not decay mathematically, but maybe it should, because everything 1 can describe decays or changes. I don't expect to convince any mathematicians in regards to a philosophical construct. Math is infallible, and in a sense, God to them and is not to be questioned. Could it be that the true nature of the universe is beyond math as is currently understood?

[palindrom]

10:36 PM on 06/23/2012

I'm afraid I got of the math train when we spent an entire semester proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the integral of an appropriately defined function over a closed interval of the real line .... exists.

I know it's a crown jewel of analysis, but I would've taken their word for it.

[chopas]

12:33 PM on 06/23/2012

They will never find this "God Particle" or Higgs boson. The most fundamental law of the universe is change and change is absolute. Everything that exists changes in definition from one Fundamental Moment to the next. The force associated with change is gravity, which is the true unified field Einstein was searching for. At the “beginning”, time, matter, energy, space and dimensions did not exist. There was literally nothing...nothing except absolute gravity that crystallized the three spatial dimensions. Take an uncooked piece of spaghetti and apply pressure to each end. What will happen? If there is no bias to any specific dimension, the spaghetti will bend in the middle but not to the left, right, up or down. It will coil the same way as the wire on your old land line telephone. Imagine this spaghetti is a gravitational line of force and virtually infinite in number and all focused on a single point in 3D space. This crystallization of absolute gravity results in the Big Bang. The only way "nothing" can change is to create "something" by the collapse of that single point. The Big Bang is the tensor product of this absolutely dense crystallized gravity. The universe "begins" in a “nothing” state, creates “something” (physical universe) and eventually decays back to the “nothing” state again. Matter is actually twisted gravitational lines of force and space is its domain. The decay product of matter is gravity. The result of the decay of all matter is absolute gravity.

[SwiftJonathan]

07:35 PM on 06/23/2012

Can you please have three pounds of nothing delivered to me? I would like to start some physical experiments on it. Sadly, I couldn't find anybody who can supply me with nothing. Since you seem to know so much about it, you also must know where I can get some.

:-)

[chopas]

08:53 PM on 06/23/2012

I thought that I made it perfectly clear that nothing does not "weigh". There is no mass (weight). Gravity, however, affects mass AND energy. If you know anything about physics, do you know what a vector is? If you take two forces of equal magnitude in two dimensions with a vector of 90 degrees, what is the resultant? Sure I might be using the wrong terminology in the mind of a mathematician, but you can get my drift. Now try imagining these forces manifested in an absolutely "dense" 3 dimensional "space", what is the resultant now? I'll give you a clue...it rhymes with Big Bang. Have you got any better ideas?

[Celebrindan]

11:26 AM on 06/23/2012

I had a dream one night.
One of the few dreams I've ever had.

M=1∞/R=dM>1

Matter or Base Unit Particle (BUP), equals 1 to the power of infinity, 'divided' by Resistance equal to the decay of Matter back to BUP.
Because there is nothing here that is not part of existence, everything is, it is therefor a 1.
Because we know no end to that which exists, it is 1 to the infinite power, in a three dimensional sense, we don't ever 'run out' of ones, but we never have none, and we never have two.
'Two' become something else, a higher form of matter.
All of these BUP suspend in a sub-sub-sector of existence that even the void of space is made of.
A '3d grid' of BUP that spans all we know.
The 'vibration' of string theory is actually the resonant wash of 'higher matter' splashing through this grid over time.
Matter acceding and descending the ladder of 'fruition', as echoes 'strum' the grid, and that energy caused by the proximity of 'undulating and infinite' positive, the movement of all other BUP is what creates 'higher matter'.
The Big Bang was more of a tiny bump, that started a ripple, that became a thousand trillion echoes across a beautiful eternity.
1 is always greater than 0, that's why we exist.
It's where 'we' came from, and where 'we' return to.
Continued-

[Silken17]

03:00 PM on 06/23/2012

Please read rtgmath's reply to chopas above. You are making the same mistake of reasoning from ignorance. As rtgmath says, take some math and physics classes before embarking on this kind of grand theory of everything. You's be surprised how much has been learned by the many thousands of smart people who have preceded you!

[Celebrindan]

10:06 PM on 06/23/2012

What part of -

"I had a dream one night."

-escapes you?

'Educate' yourself.

Thanks for being sanctimonious and self centered enough to spit the two posts with your 'enlightenment'.

[Parker95]

12:05 PM on 06/24/2012

Did you take a lot of acid in the 60's?

[Celebrindan]

11:26 AM on 06/23/2012

Pt 2, Cont.
The energy at that level is all matter reacting to the same polarity in close proximity and all direction.
There is 'no escape' from the push of neighbors in the grid, only vibration in it.
It could explain why music is part of so many of us in profound ways.
The vibrations of BUP 'flow' might work best in a universal harmony.
It might be said that music is the 'highest form of existence' that we know of.
The energy at BUP level is the 'white light' of pre-death experience.
The common theme of all the people you know and love, being there to greet you, is because we are all the same.
We already know every 1.
The god particle.

[Silken17]

05:22 PM on 06/23/2012

So, are you a Beatles man or a Rolling Stones man?

[Avalanche3600]

11:19 AM on 06/23/2012

I love how science continues to demonstrate the nonexistee of a god by incrasing our understanding of how the universe actually works but the chrisitian fundamentailists just retort with silly little questions like "well, who created the this, or who created that, or who sparked the big bang".
We take our understanding to the next level and they repsond with rheorical nonsense, as to be expected because religion is lazy, doesnt take any real evidence to accept.

[pezdrake]

11:53 AM on 06/23/2012

But somehow when you ask them "well who created God?" it's perfectly logical to them to respond that he always existed. Best for them to keep out of any scientific discussions.

[Aioja Aokjoaja]

12:29 PM on 06/24/2012

And what about atheism?

"Nothing created something. 0+0=1."

None of the evidences for atheism have been observed. Where's the proof of nothing creating something? The God Particle? So you're getting a bunch of already existent elements and banging them together and then saying "nothing created" something? Don't make me laugh. Atheism is unscientific and maths argues against the atheist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEl87kY7SnE

[lcr999]

08:26 PM on 06/23/2012

The Higgs boson has nothing to do with God, or a god.

[secondcoming]

07:33 AM on 06/23/2012

I don't know I can't help but think they are looking in the wrong place... it would seem that the atom was not created during or even after the big bang, in fact as atoms are self contained it makes me wonder if there was a big bang at all? we know there are black holes, areas in space that suck, or draw in all particles including light but are these voids really bottom less pits or charging stations that re energize atoms and disperse them somewhere on the other side, into an opposing dimension? being that just to create an atom takes extreme pressure and a calculated mix of selected electrons and mass, it makes more sense that an atom, , is either produced or pre-made, or recycled, recharged in a black hole than randomly put together in a bang or in infinity. in other words that "god particle" is God himself. or at least a machine he's made and the product delivered as is.

[SwiftJonathan]

09:18 AM on 06/23/2012

I can't help it but you sound utterly confused. At some point the light went out and now you are in the dark. I am so sorry.

[bahramthered]

10:41 AM on 06/23/2012

Not one part of that shows any knowledge of real science.

Here's an idea why not go read up on lithium and the big bang? Perhaps read up universe expansion?

All the real evidence shows the big bang happened. The Hibson particle (if it exists) is a suppose thing to help explain how energy became matter. And just like not understanding lightning a couple centuries ago this mystery does not automatically mean "god did it" or support which ever flavor of one you picked.