GOD particle MAY NOT BE GOD particle: Scientists in shock claim A new scholarly paper has raised suspicions in boffinry circles as to whether last year's breakthrough discovery by CERN was indeed the fabled, applecart-busting Higgs boson. The report from the University of Southern Denmark suggests that while physicists working with data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) did discover a …
So CERN found a particle and it behaves as they expected a Higgs Boson should. Now a bunch of Danes are saying it's not the Higgs Boson, it's some mystery particle... that also happens to behave exactly like you'd expect the Higgs Boson to.
I realise scientists should always be trying to disprove current theory but surely if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck...
>if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck...
The problem is that you would have to know exactly what a duck was before a definitive decision could be made and even then there are many kinds of ducks...
Donald looked, swam and quacked lick a duck but was in reality only a 2 dimensionsal animated character.
"So CERN found a particle and it behaves as they expected a Higgs Boson should. Now a bunch of Danes are saying it's not the Higgs Boson, it's some mystery particle... that also happens to behave exactly like you'd expect the Higgs Boson to."
While I agree with your post, you have not paid sufficient attention to a particular (see what I did there?) statement in the article: "One way, they say, would be for CERN to build an even larger collider to better observe the particles and provide more evidence as to the existence of the theorized techni-quarks."
In a word: "funding-drive".
For the Extremely Large Hadron Collider that will encircle europe.
The LHC is just a small scale test of an force field like dome... it worked ok, now they want to build another one around the whole of europe - even bigger - the ELHC... tin-foil hats on everyone!
>>"The LHC is just a small scale test of an force field like dome... it worked ok, now they want to build another one around the whole of Europe"
Just tell UKIP's backers that it's an energy containment field for "Europeness" and they'll pay for the whole thing.
...Just tell UKIP's backers that it's an energy containment field for "Europeness" and they'll pay for the whole thing....
Actually, the same excuse would also guarantee large sums of funding from the European Commission. Their view of Europe is one where outside trade is rigorously excluded unless it follows their rules.
It could also be a method of stopping any dissatisfied country, like the UK, leaving....
>>"Their view of Europe is one where outside trade is rigorously excluded unless it follows their rules."
Well that's kind of the point of large trade blocs such as NAFTA, EU, Eurasian Economic Community and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. You band together and create double-standards that benefit you at the expense of smaller national entities that lack the economic or military might to trade with you as equals in your enlarged, multi-country state.
I.e. EU can negotiate as a powerful player against other large power blocks in a way that a small country on its own cannot. Also, I'm actually quite good with a lot of the EU rules on imported goods. We have better standards of drugs approval, food production standards, animal treatment, human rights in manufacturing, etc. These are all positives.
No, in a word (not hyphenated) "Science".
Just because someone has "discovered" something and it *seems* to fit the hypothesis doesn't mean that the results are now beyond question and should be accepted as gospel (see what I did there?)
Newton's Theory of Gravity worked fine for ages until Einstein came along and said "Hang on, what about this situation...?"
Science is about asking questions even when the answer is "known".
It's worth a punt for the glory.
If at some time in the future, analysis shows that the discovery isn't exactly as announced then these Danish physicists are first in with the "told you so" and forever known as the smart ones that actually knew what it was all about. Names made and remembered etc. Getting your name on something seems to be the real big prize in science after all. If the discovery turns out to be verified and correct beyond all possible doubt then these Danes have lost very little because they have carefully worded their critique.
By the way, the world may end on Friday, because there is no absolute guarantee that Saturday will happen. We could actually encounter a day that resembles a Saturday.
What I find odd about this whole news cycle (God Particle NOT!), is that I remember quiet clearly reading that the CERN scientist acknowledged this possibility at the start. Something along the lines of The God Particle or a collection of particles in the God-Particle-like shape.
I think Higgs still deserves his Nobel because the prediction and the results still indicate he had a fine grasp of the problem.
Atoms turned out not to be fundamental, and on the other end of the size spectrum the Universe may not actually be everything. Get used to never knowing how it all actually works. It doesn't mean the models are not useful.
I was waiting for that punch line ( build an even larger collider)
It will give the answer 42
Then they will want an even bigger one. I don't mind. Though I suspect the Overlords are guinea pigs, not mice. Not smelly and not widdling over everything.
"Then they will want an even bigger one."
So we gave them (at current construction prices) a €10bn tool, and they've still not got the answer, nor even, it seems, an undisputed partial answer?
Fag packet maths says that the muttered-of Future Circular Collider would have a cost of the order of €50bn, which seems quite an investment to make in results that have the certainty usually associated with the dismal sciences of economics, weather forecasting, or climate modelling.
This is a head-scratcher. Who is one to believe? It's times like this that I wish I was just that wee bit smarter and better informed. Unfortunately, I am not that up on this stuff to be able to form a reasonable opinion one way or the other. It seemed to me that the announcement of the Higgs boson was pretty sure. They did say there was a chance it was a false-positive but that the chance was very small. Sigh. How big a team do we need and how much money do we need to spend to get closure here? From the sounds of it, these guys are suggesting 'a lot'.
The announcement itself is 'messy', but if their argument has merit, I guess it is sort of good news. That is, if it is not the Higgs then something at least a little novel has been discovered. It was really looking like we were on the verge and then we sort of stubbed our 'TOE'.
Well, they found a particle and it's either a Higgs boson or something that behaves like what they expected a Higgs boson would. For most purposes, it's a Higgs boson. We may find out later that it doesn't fit the theory precisely though. We can't exactly use the existence or inexistence of a Higgs to engineer new and fancy things (flying cars, perhaps) immediately or we'd use that for a test of the Higgs boson.
When a heliocentric theory of the solar system was introduced, it didn't immediately displace the geocentric theory; not just because it was less accurate, but because it didn't offer anything new over the geocentric theory. We still knew where the (known) planets, stars and comets were and could predict their paths very precisely. Heliocentric theory didn't really take off until there was something to differentiate it from geocentric theory. Once it could make predictions that the old theory couldn't, then it was superior. Being able to explain the heliocentric theory from gravitational theory also helped. If we have two theories that make the same predictions, then you can take whichever one you prefer. That's pretty much the current state here. It might as well be a Higgs boson if we can't tell the difference between the Higgs and some theoretical not Higgs.
As for when it will end, probably never. Relativity is well accepted at this point. We use relativistic theory in engineering and have for several decades now. It's well established in other physics theory, but we keep testing it. A satellite was used a year or two ago for a more precise test of relativity. We'll keep testing it because it might turn out that Einstein was slightly wrong... Newton was after all.
"If we have two theories that make the same predictions, then you can take whichever one you prefer. "
Shouldn't you in this case take the simpler theory, the one with less "epicycles"? (Which in this case would be the original one, with no techni-quarks).
Who is one to believe? No-one! Science isn't about belief. We make observations, formulate a theory that explains those observations (and predicts the outcome of future experiments) then perform experiments to see if the theory holds up.
If the theory holds up to repeated testing, it becomes "accepted knowledge", though this still isn't the "closure" you were hoping for. Even accepted knowledge is up for debate, if new observations are made that challenge the expectations of the theory.
Science doesn't offer any closure, and doesn't tolerate belief! Many of the theories are extremely useful both in everyday life and in the constant advancement of Mankind, but while Science's accepted knowledge is the closest thing we have to the Truth - no true scientist will ever tell you that it's above scrutiny, and nothing will ever be known for certain!
The announcement from these Danish physicists is not a setback for Science - it's all just part of the process!
I guess that unless the particle has a logo on it or an appropriate particle bumper sticker, some people won't ever believe. Then again, there are those who believe the moon is made of green cheese and the Apollo missions never happened.
On the rational side, will the coming increase in power at the LHC nail it down? Or are they going for smaller and better things? Or, do the Danes want a bigger and better LHC but in their own backyard?
<Flamebait warning>
[Do not read ahead withough having read the first line in this comment. you have been warned]
Since the CERN announced that they found the Higgs Boson I always had the "uneducated" feeling that their annoncement was far too media orientated. Almost as if they were in a position whereby they had to make a discovery in order to justify the expense.
It's a bit like the Big Data thing that is going on, we have loads of data, we can see things happening, we just don't know how to explain them, yet. So let's give it a name....
Very few people truly understand what the Higgs Boson actually is, could be, I certainely don't and I presume that the very large majority of the planet don't either. So how can we truly be sure of what has or has not been found. Are they just giving the name to something new and as of yet unexplained or have they indeed found what they are looking for.. Who is truly in a position to be the judge ?
These Danish scientists are challenging the finding which is a good thing. Science does not always come up with the correct answer the first time....
Uneducated : Other than having read ICE-9 I have no further education physics, quantum mechanics etc knowledge whatsoever, just a passing interest in what is going on in the region in which I live. If things went wrong in the Cern I always imagine that it could be kinda nasty...for humanity....it's the ICE-9 effect....
While I love throretical physics and cosmology (but I don't understand 1% of how it all hangs together), I do question the need for another even larger Hadron collider. What are they atucally trying to prove?
If the Higgs bosun does not exist, then they need something else - JUST LIKE A HIGGS BOSUN - to explain how we all have mass. OK - so assume it does exist and move on. Or am I being too simplistic?
[And you should hear my simple explanation for gravity :)]
My research indicates that this latest Danish research is not actual research at all, but is actually 'techni-research' composed of 'techni-data' that, (collectively), mimic the behaviour of real research in every way such that it is indistinguishable from real research.
I therefore submit that I should be paid umpteen quintillion dollars in order to refine my own research so that I can fully identify the nature of this 'techni-research' in order to be able to distinguish between 'techni-' and 'real' research...
That's not how science works.
Following measurements of 4 (+/- 1) legs, a 90% confidence detection of a head and a mass estimate of quite-big we announce the discovery of the horse.
It could be a cow.
Then with a bigger collider we could investigate the presence of udders.
The big bang,in the process of inflating, split what there was into bits of compressed space surround by stretched space the latter pulling between any two of the former...attraction? Elementary mass and elementary field. Equal in strength and opposite in nature boson & field? They wouldn't "give" mass, they are mass. Accumulations and configurations would be near infinite, or maybe strike the "near".
Or not.
So either they've discovered a particle which resolves unanswered questions, or they've discovered a particle which raises yet more questions, including the requirement of the existence of heretofore unobserved fields.
Absent specific evidence that this is not the Higgs Boson, the former theory remains the simpler, and hence more useful.
But that's the point, isn't it?
The Higgs announcement was done very carefully. After all, much Egg-in-Face would be involved if they got it wrong... So the basic theory stands, and until they fire up the LHC again to get better measurements, we won't know.
The CERN team was very clear that they found a Higgs particle. They couldn't be sure if it was the only one, or, like some theories stated, there could be a set, until after the refurbishement so they could make bigger bangs.
To me, this danish announcement sounds premature and...pet-theory-peevish... and there's not a single solid thing where the team involved points at the data and says: "hey, that's funny..."
So until they do I'd classify it as fund-fishing.
@Grikath
It does seem very, as you say, "pet-theory-peevish".
Essentially what they seem to be saying is that while this data doesn't lend credence to their theory*, it's doesn't disprove it either . . . so CERN should go test that theory instead!
From what I understand, the theory of the Higgs Mechanism predicts that the Higgs particle will appear at this mass. So, they find a particle at this mass, as predicted. They continue studying and confirm that this mystery particle fits the profile of the proposed Higgs boson as regards its interactions and decay. (And likely other properties I just don't understand.) There are still more tests to be run, after the LHC re-starts following its upgrade but every thing they have observed so far is consistent with the proposed Higg boson.
Which is cool because this has shown science in its very best light. Exacting requirements, two isolated teams, multiple reviews and a host of continued experiments. And still, after all that, they are saying no more than the data reveals, which is that they have definitely observed a particle at this narrow range of masses and that all subsequent tests and experiments, themselves conducted with the utmost rigour, have produced results that are in accordance with the predictions of the Higgs field theory.
Hopefully there is some line of experiements that can be done - some property that can be observed - that will rule one of these two theories out as the explanation for this particular particle.
* - As it can 'accommodate' a particle of that mass.
@ Grikath "The Higgs announcement was done very carefully. After all, much Egg-in-Face would be involved if they got it wrong... So the basic theory stands, and until they fire up the LHC again to get better measurements, we won't know."
I said essentially the same thing and got 4 down votes.
They never did claim it was definitive proof, IIRC, despite holding self-congratulatory press conferences. They only claimed high probability. Perhaps that it is all that is possible at this stage of theoretical comprehension?
Let's not forget that many properties of mass are well understood at the macro level, Newton still holds in most situations, but the relation between mass and the production of gravitation remains the least understood of fundamental force phenomena, particularly at the level of fundamental particles.
I strongly agree on fund-fishing re. this latest.
I'm surprised nobody else has commented yet that the LHC itself hasn't even been run at full strength yet.
With the 2015 reboot they'll finally cross the streams at maximum beam luminosity (or some time after appropriate testing to make sure the magnets don't melt again ;-)
If after that massive influx of inverted femtobarns they still aren't sure, the Danes can re-open their case for their new SSC under Copenhagen.
In a language sense, it is much more sensible and convenient to use it as plural. The only reason it was messed up in the first place was sloppy usage in merika.
For one example, we have silly constructs like 'data point', datum would do quite well.
There are several others.
Starting from Latin, 'data' is the nominative plural of 'datum' ('a given thing'), a past participle of 'dare' (to give).
As any fule know, it can be used interchangeably for singular or plural.
'Iacta alea est' (Julius Caesar, on crossing the Rubicon)
'The dice are cast'
OR
'The die is cast'
Both equally valid translations. This rule carries forward into English. So sorry to most pedants above, you are plain old wrong.
"If the researchers are right, their report would discredit the claims of discovery of the Higgs boson, which has been sought because its existence would fill vital holes in the Standard Model of physics."
Slight re-wording might be better:
. . . its existence would help confirm a mechanism that was proposed 50 years ago to fill a conspicuous hole in the Standard Model of physics.
"The current data is not precise enough to determine exactly what the particle is. It could be a number of other known particles."
It seems to me that they are proposing that these other 'known' particles would be the purely hypothetical 'techni' particles, which makes it an interesting (though not at all anomalous) use of the word 'known'.
MiHSC is where the likely explanation is.
Modified Inertia with a Hubble Scale Constant.
Predicts things like magnitude of force from EmDrive, gravitomagnetism and the Pioneer anomaly.
Also explains expansion without dark matter, and observations of varying isotope half life from solar/etc anomalies.
From a layman's perspective it often seems like they invent new particles to fit theories rather than new theories to fit existing particles.
"What the hell is that? A Higgs boson?"
"Beats me, er, call it a slightly-Higgs boson. That other one can be a Higgish boson."
Yes, that's how it works. The theories try to explain observation, the new particles are needed to deal with the book-keeping*. Thus the neutrino took years from proposal to experimental evidence, and the Higgs took over 50 years.
*The neutrino was necessary because when beta decay was investigated, the before and after states did not balance for energy and spin. Rather than decide that spin and energy were not conserved, which would have been a huge can of worms, it was easier to propose that something was taking them away. This proved correct.
The universe is infinite ... in all directions. That would include man's arrogance. To believe they have found the tiniest, is only a reflection of the limits of their present suppositions. Which they proudly announce with finality exposing the truth of their own intellect ... infinite ignorance.
Don_in_Odessa
All along, the plan has been either to
create a mini-black hole that is sustained and eats the earth
or
creating a sufficiently energetic event to attract the attention of their beloved many-angled ones and RESTORE CTHULHU & CO. TO THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACES AS OUR OVERLORDS!
Igor, it's ah-alive, I tell you it's ALIVE!!!
WTF is a tekni-quark (or techni) supposed to be? I did study quantum, sure only to a shallow level on sub-elementary particles, very non-descriptive term, suppose the tekni is supposed to have the meaning of 'artefact produced by a non-related quark'. Never heard of a type of quark called 'tekni'.
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