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We’re THIS close to finding the elusive “God particle”

Caroline Hamilton

by Caroline Hamilton

14 Dec 11:55am

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Filed under: Higgs Boson, Physics, Science

104 comments

It’s the silly season; there is no doubt about it. But last night I went to an office party with a difference.


In the middle of the night, armed with diet cola and chocolate biscuits, I caught the lift to the seventh floor of the Physics building at the University of Melbourne, and suddenly found myself surrounded by physicists drinking beer and talking animatedly. Yes, there was a definite buzz about the room, and it was not from the beer.

When the clock struck midnight there was a hush as the data projector fired up and we all began to watch a live webcast from CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research, based on the France–Switzerland border near Geneva). Why?

Because we may have seen the first signs that the long search for the Standard Model Higgs boson is coming to a conclusion.

The Standard Model is the theory that physicists use to describe the behaviour of fundamental particles and the forces that act between them. One of the main goals of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) research programme is to go beyond the Standard Model, and the Higgs boson could be the key.

Last night, two separate experiments at the LHC, the ATLAS and CMS experiments, presented the status of their results for the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Both these experiments analysed several decay channels, found small excesses in the low mass channels, and multiple independent measurements pointing to the region of 124 to 126 GeV.

Er… what?

Basically, these two experiments, both looking for the same thing but in slightly different ways, may have found something. And that something is the holy grail of particle physics: the Higgs boson.

The Higgs boson is the last particle in the Standard Model that is yet to be observed. It is the missing piece that explains how the fundamental building blocks of nature acquire mass. And scientists all over the world are chasing it.

What the results showed last night is that we may, just may have just seen Mr (or Ms) H Boson run half-naked from the shower to the bedroom. We can’t quite be sure because it was out of the corner of our eyes, BUT now we know he (or she) could possibly be hiding, half-clad, in the bedroom.

Or not. We now need to find a way of eking him (or her) out.

Taken together, these results look like a lot more than ‘just a coincidence’. I mean, what are the chances of throwing a six, two times in arrow, then giving the dice to a friend and them doing exactly the same thing? It’s not impossible is it? But it could just be a coincidence all the same.

So, I downed glass after glass of caffeine-loaded beverage and tried to interpret the multitude of graphs and plots and references to something called Monte Carlo methods and exclusion zones and thought, what does this all mean? Have we found it or not?

Maybe. Strongish maybe? In fact Physicists are positive that by mid next year there will be a definitive answer to whether the Higgs boson exists or not. This will be just in time to see an influx of physicists from across the globe charge into Melbourne for the biennial International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP).

Now there’s a physics party not to miss.

For information on Australia’s role in the ATLAS experiment:

See coepp.org.au
Or facebook.com/coepp

More about ATLAS: www.atlas.ch/
More about ICHEP: www.ichep2012.com.au

Caroline Hamilton is an award-winning novelist and the Communications and Outreach Coordinator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale.
caroline.hamilton@coepp.org.au

Most commented

353"Gifting", "journey" and other words we hate
309Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
242They must pay for one's bitter disappointments
230Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...
226South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.
224Punch on: Open thread 17/05/2012
224The most laughable, err, spoof since Einfeld

104 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Mahhrat says:

      11:03am | 14/12/11

      1 in 2196.  So sorry that I know that.  I blame Monopoly.

      I hope they find the Higgs Boson.  I have no idea what it could mean, but damn me if it’s not the best nerd-label ever invented.

      Reply

    • TimB says:

      12:14pm | 14/12/11

      I assume you meant 1 in 1296 raspberry.

    • Tim P says:

      02:50pm | 14/12/11

      Having lost my spleen, my blood apparently contains “Howell-Jolly Bodies”, which I’ve always liked the sound of…

    • Dick J says:

      02:55pm | 14/12/11

      I disagree with your maths . Isn’t the answer 1 in 6 chance each time you throw a dice. They are the same odds each time you throw.

      Please prove me wrong.

    • AzA J says:

      03:07pm | 14/12/11

      Sorry dick j, but no, you are wrong.  If three sixes had already been thrown, then yes, the odds of a fourth 6 are 1in 6, but the odds of throwing four 6’s in a row is 1296, as previously stated. Close, but no cigar

    • Steve Perry says:

      03:20pm | 14/12/11

      @Dick J -

      Im happy to be wrong - and feel free to correct me here - but i think the odds of rolling four 6’s in a row are -

      1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/1296

      As i said - happy to be wrong…

    • Yeti says:

      04:45pm | 14/12/11

      I think that Dick J is alluding to the gambler’s fallacy. Each roll of a dice is statistically independent from the previous roll (as the dice has no memory) therefore each time you roll there is a 1 in 6 chance that any given outcome will occur regardless of what numbers have occurred previously.

    • who's counting says:

      11:02am | 15/12/11

      The author mentioned dice, not die. If it was two dice, there’d be chance 625/1679616 of rolling 4 sixes in a row. It could have been up to 6 dice being thrown…

    • PW says:

      11:06am | 14/12/11

      So it seems that with the latest technology they’ve found something smaller than anything they’ve found before. All this means is that Man has found a way to detect smaller and smaller things, just like we can now see things further and further away.

      Just because these are the limits of what we can detect, doesn’t mean these are the limits. This is the fundamental flaw with science. If science cannot see it, it must not exist. I suspect there are about 1,000,000 levels smaller than this one they’ve just found. And each one is a universe in itself. It is infinite in both directions. Man will never find the absolute truth through science.

      Reply

    • cars says:

      11:27am | 14/12/11

      If man can’t find the absolute truth through science, they shure as hell aren’t going to find it any other way.

    • Chris L says:

      11:36am | 14/12/11

      Science doesn’t claim to know everything, it is always searching. What other way would you suggest there is to understand the universe in which we live?

    • SimpleSimon says:

      11:42am | 14/12/11

      And that’s the best thing about it! With every answer we get more questions, and the opportunity to explore them. The thirst for knowledge is what makes us human.

    • TS says:

      11:43am | 14/12/11

      You were doing well until you moved the goalposts at the end of your post.

      What if the ‘absolute truth’ is that it is indeed ‘infinite in both directions’? In that case, science needs to only prove that it is ‘infinite in both directions’, ipso facto to have found your goalposts, atleast until they move again. And move they will - that is the beauty of the curious, and indeed of science.

      Those goalposts can be (and must be) constantly shifted; it’s called progression.

      Exciting times indeed for science, and a wonderous find. I love me some LHC science!

    • cayal says:

      11:49am | 14/12/11

      Someone’s gonna say God…I just know it.

    • MarkS says:

      11:55am | 14/12/11

      The Higgs Boson is quite large, that is why it has been hard to find. The energy required was more then the colliders could generate.

    • P. Darvio says:

      12:46pm | 14/12/11

      Quote: Man will never find the absolute truth through science.

      I’m sure that we will not find any answers in those books written by Goat herders who lived in tents thousands of years ago which I suspect you are trying to refer to but can’t quite say it.

      And I didn’t use the word “GOD” once….oh bugger….damm IT !!! .......

    • gobsmack says:

      12:49pm | 14/12/11

      If complexity is infinite in both directions then there would be no such thing as “absolute truth”.

    • L. says:

      01:15pm | 14/12/11

      PW says: “This is the fundamental flaw with science. If science cannot see it, it must not exist.”

      Rubbish…

      Black holes fit this description, we know they exist by the way light bends in their proximity.

    • cayal says:

      02:02pm | 14/12/11

      “This is the fundamental flaw with science. If science cannot see it, it must not exist.”

      Better than if it doesn’t exist worship it.

    • PW says:

      03:18pm | 14/12/11

      L. says:02:15pm | 14/12/11

      “Black holes fit this description, we know they exist by the way light bends in their proximity.”

      So they can be seen, right. Detected or discovered that is. Otherwise you’d not have mentioned them.

      Science that is concerned with discovery strikes me as far too blinkered. A perfect example of this was some months back when it was breathlessly announced that a planet has been found that “may support life”. Some years ago the same thing was said of Jupiter’s moon Europa. These worlds apparently have enough in common with Earth that life is considered possible on them. Science does not, however consider the possibility that stars, planets, moons and the universe itself might be living things. Or that life may take forms and exist in conditions utterly unlike those here on Earth. Or take a form that is completely undetectable by our instruments.

    • Utopia Boy says:

      04:23pm | 14/12/11

      Exactly!
      What is the Higgs Boson particle made up of?
      That’s more interesting than knowing there may be a Higgs Boson particle.

      Given the fairly well spread scientific belief that “anti matter” exists simply because there’s nothing else viewable in a particular place within space, and hence blows our calculations to smithereens, doesn’t mean what we THINK should be there, actually will be.

      Isn’t it much more exciting when scienctists discover things “on the fly” as opposed to building a HLC that takes many years to create, billions to operate, and discovers very little (things????)?
      Any Quarks been reliably observed as yet?

    • Tim the Toolman says:

      04:24pm | 14/12/11

      “Science does not, however consider the possibility that stars, planets, moons and the universe itself might be living things.”

      Tell you what, you work out how that might be possible, or present testable evidence to support your theory, and science will listen.  That’s all you have to do.  If you can’t do that, your idea that the universe is alive is just as possible as an invisible pink unicorn.

    • St. Michael says:

      04:48pm | 14/12/11

      “Or that life may take forms and exist in conditions utterly unlike those here on Earth. Or take a form that is completely undetectable by our instruments.”

      Far from it.  There’s this branch of science called xenobiology, you might want to look into it.

    • Paul M says:

      10:22pm | 14/12/11

      Perhaps not. But we will certainly come closer to “absolute truth” with science than by - for example - just making stuff up and believing it.

      “If science cannot see it, it must not exist.”

      How self-refuting can a statement be? The whole buzz at the moment is that up till now, science couldn’t “see” the higgs boson. But it was a viable possibility, and people went looking.

      You want to meet some genuinely closed-minded people? Go talk to some hippies. Nowhere in the world of science will you meet people quite so absolutely certain about everything as you will in the local crystals and incense shop.

    • MarkS says:

      08:05am | 15/12/11

      @PW
      Unless the life has transformed the atmosphere into a classic earth like N2 & O2 mix or began to engineer on a stellar scale (such as a Dyson Sphere) it would completely undetectable by our instruments. Of cause there remains a huge difference between being in theory detectable & being both detected & recognised.

      Yes, I get your point that the fact that something cannot be proven to exist does not prove it does not exist. But there are a far larger number of things that could exist then the numbers of things do exist. Therefore chance of anything not proven to exist in fact existing is very small.

      Huddling around the campfire against the dark inventing stories about what may be out there might be fun in a childish way, but it is no replacement for shining a torch. Trying to find out what is really there is not “blinkered” merely sensible.

      @Utopia Boy
      It is Dark Matter not Anti-Matter. There is no doubt Anti-Matter exists, we make it. Dark Matter is a fudge factor to account for the motion of stars on the large scale. Such as the fact that the Galaxy appears to rotate too fast.

    • Aphrodite says:

      09:34am | 15/12/11

      I saw a few of the slides released in theis seminar. They have a mass(energy) limit on Higgs Particle ( 1 of the 4 in the higgs field.. the other 3 cannot be detected.. as they have too short a lifespan) at between 115-127 GeV with 95% CL ( i.e confidence limit). This confidence limit is basically the standard deviation of the expected distribution divided by the sample size (number of events).. this stands at 2.5 sigma..

      What does this mean-
      If you take a sample of say 100.. with a median of 50 standard deviation of say.. 10.. then.. an interval of 50 +/- 1 Sigma ( standard deviation) represents a 95% confidence interval..( here ..that 1 sigma seems to be 2.5 sigma).. that is to say… 95% of the time the actual mean will be in this interval… and 5% of the time.. it may not be..
      They want to push this confidence interval to ‘mean +/- 7sigma’.. i.e a near 99.99% Confidence interval and this can only happen with more data.. hence the wait..

      Not sure if any of this makes sense… but there…

    • Erick says:

      11:27am | 14/12/11

      Somewhat off topic, but science-related: massive methane gas releases found off the Russian coast.

      This is part of one of the worst-case global warming scenarios. It has me a bit worried.

      Oh, and a carbon tax or a Durban Treaty won’t do anything to stop this. Nor would Kyoto or Copenhagen have had an effect.

      Reply

    • Chris L says:

      01:31pm | 14/12/11

      False alarm Erick. It’s just the new indian resaurant in Moscow.

    • MarkS says:

      01:33pm | 14/12/11

      Gulp!

      Is the butterfly flapping its wings & positive feedback having its say?  As you say, this could be really bad news, but carbon tax, bah humbug.

    • john says:

      02:31pm | 14/12/11

      Oh Erik sound the alarm then .

      Maybe they should tap the resource quick smart.

      Who knows whats under Antarctica given it has the worlds largest oil reserves bigger than all of the mid-east combined and the worlds largest coal reserves. All that yummy methane locked under there!

      Those poor emperor penguins guarding all that methane. Hard work.

      Looks like those polar bears tried to guard the methane up north all in vain.

    • Erick says:

      03:05pm | 14/12/11

      Well, it’s pretty speculative at the moment. And I’ve worried about doomsday scenarios that never eventuated before.

      But if it’s real, this could be big. Still a lot of “ifs” out there, though.

      Some of the people commenting at the link I gave seem to be better informed than I am.

    • john says:

      03:39pm | 14/12/11

      @Erick,

      The real danger is the Antarctic melt and the Ross shelf breaking up combined with the de-stabilisation of the pacific rim of fire that extends down the middle of Antarctica, and the recent volcanic activity that has ignited over the last decade all this could destabilise the Antarctic along with mass isostatic adjustment earthquakes in this zone could trigger dangerous tsunamis that could devastate much of the low lying eastern sea boards of Australia and New Zealand. What lays under the ice is the world largest oil/coal reserves and no doubt the largest methane reserves.  Thats why those cute little emperor penguins do a marvellous job guarding Antarctica.  smile

      The problem is some people want to let that genie out of the bottle.

      Its well known a mass extinction event has been well under way for many decades, its just accelerating now due to increased human activity. Siberian permafrost has been melting for decades, on land its gone the next stage where fires have ignited in peat bogs and cannot be put out. permafrost melting under the continental shelf and the big melt in & around the North Pole is nothing new.

    • Erick says:

      04:29pm | 14/12/11

      @john - Yeah, there are all sorts of disaster scenarios that we face.

      However, deep in my cynical heart there resides a spark of optimism. If we can develop sufficiently advanced technology, and sufficient supplies of energy, we can cope with any of these scenarios.

      If.

      The “if” is the big question. That’s why I back science research and technological development to the hild. Higgs bosons, superconductivity, thorium reactors, space travel, fusion power. Any and all of these.

      Our survival may depend on research that has no immediately obvious benefots.

    • john says:

      05:23pm | 14/12/11

      @Erick “deep in my cynical heart there resides a spark of optimism”

      That spark could be the Higgs Boson particle you woke from its long slumber.

    • Chris L says:

      11:37am | 14/12/11

      I expect Sheldon’s excitement will be uncontainable!

      Reply

    • Spanky says:

      12:17pm | 14/12/11

      Here here smile

    • Dan Webster says:

      11:45am | 14/12/11

      Woohoo….now what….

      (But what created the Higgs Boson ?)

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      12:14pm | 14/12/11

      My favourite theological theory:

      God created the universe and everything in it.  For quite some time thew initial 6 days were enough, and he rested for quite some years (until about 5,000 years ago).  Its big mistake was endowing humans with curiosity and imagination and they kept exploring and discovering stuff.  God is a supreme egotist and he refuses to accept that humans could discover everything that there is to discover, so, as humans got closer to discovering everything, God created another level of complexity.  Over the last couple of centuries God has been flat out creating more and more complex stuff to stay ahead of us.

    • Tubesteak says:

      12:42pm | 14/12/11

      Who created the creator of the Higgs-Boson?

      Who created the creator of the creator of the Higgs-Boson?

      Who created the creator of the creator of the creator of the Higgs-Boson?

      All these questions will be answered in due time.

    • Coop says:

      09:51pm | 14/12/11

      and is the absence of evidence evidence of non existence?

    • JulesG says:

      10:59am | 15/12/11

      Coop: Absence of evidence is never evidence of absence

    • Wayne says:

      11:48am | 14/12/11

      What I wanna know is…..why do we have to wait until next year to fire it up again??  Do we need to raise more $$$s to burn in the furnace to make it work?? (ha ha).

      Seriously though, why wait??

      Reply

    • Dan Webster says:

      12:00pm | 14/12/11

      It takes time to go and close all of the black holes it creates when they are using it.

    • Dr DBW says:

      12:00pm | 14/12/11

      Because research takes time and accumulating the number of observations to say that they have “observed” this particle will take that long. If they could day so now, they would.

    • Dan says:

      12:29pm | 14/12/11

      @Dan Webster - how do you close a black hole? You would have to reduce its mass without getting drawn into it, which is impossible (if light can’t escape then neither can matter)

    • Chris L says:

      12:42pm | 14/12/11

      @Dan - with a sphincter muscle…

    • Kika says:

      12:53pm | 14/12/11

      Coz Scientists enjoy Christmas holidays too? Maybe?

    • MarkS says:

      01:06pm | 14/12/11

      Unless certain theories about extra dimensions are correct, the energy requirement for a quantum black hole is far too large for one to be formed by the LHC. 

      Anyway if such quantum black holes where formed they would instantly evaporate due to Hawking radiation.

    • iansand says:

      01:11pm | 14/12/11

      Dan - Hawking radiation.  They eventually evaporate.  Any black holes created by the LHC evaporate quite quickly, as they are tiny.

    • Drafnel says:

      11:03pm | 14/12/11

      I think Kika has it. European organisation - they’d all be on minimum 6 weeks’ annual leave per year in addition to 10+ public holidays. That’s right, CERN takes a day off every year to commemmorate Jesus’ ascent to heaven! Oh, and probably 35 hour weeks too, not to mention being paid 13.5 months per year and full private health cover included. Standard conditions for tech/science/engineering in central Europe.

      I’d be very surprised if they don’t shut down operations over Chrissie like most non-retail companies in the area.

    • neo says:

      11:49am | 14/12/11

      I just hope this results in a new source of energy for human kind, otherwise the whole thing has been a colossal waste of resources.

      Reply

    • Yip says:

      12:41pm | 14/12/11

      So just like religion, eh neo? All that wasted real estate….

    • neo says:

      12:56pm | 14/12/11

      Nope, very much unlike. Religion has great benefits for man kind, this experiment may not.

    • sproket says:

      02:10pm | 14/12/11

      may, or does?
      ion could , and does, not
      and name me one thing that religion provides that a secular organisat

    • neo says:

      02:50pm | 14/12/11

      No idea what in the world you just said.

      I don’t know what’s the point of naming one thing, as there are hundreds that even the firmest atheist can’t deny. Collecting money for the poor, rehabilitating criminals, encouraging people to help others, list goes on.

    • cayal says:

      11:49am | 14/12/11

      I can’t wait to use the force…I am so gonna be a Jedi.

      Reply

    • neo says:

      11:59am | 14/12/11

      Jedis can’t use lightning though, weak.

    • neo says:

      12:30pm | 14/12/11

      Bastard Jedis stealing Sith powers. What’s next, death grip!?

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      12:38pm | 14/12/11

      Didn’t Kyle Katarn also use force lightning? Plus I’m pretty sure Yoda could fart out lightning bolts at people if he wanted to, he just doesn’t wanna right now.

    • Chris L says:

      12:44pm | 14/12/11

      @Neo - Luke already did that to some Gammoreans, although some say he just used a Jedi Mind Trick to make them think they were choking.

    • neo says:

      01:00pm | 14/12/11

      I’m still rolling Sith in SWTOR.

    • cayal says:

      01:12pm | 14/12/11

      Wasn’t Kyle Katarn a Sith first?

    • cayal says:

      01:12pm | 14/12/11

      Anakin Skywalker used the death grip in the Clone Wars TV show…

    • Chris L says:

      01:34pm | 14/12/11

      SWTOR early release started for us prepayers last night. Sooooo tired!!!

    • neo says:

      02:53pm | 14/12/11

      Any good Chris? Reckon it can become better than WoW in a few patches?

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      03:18pm | 14/12/11

      I thought Katarn was on the side of the Empire prior to discovering he was force sensitive, I dunno.

      Chris L - I assume you got an imported copy? I was checking all day yesterday when the Australian release would be, or even if there will be one. I just wanted to pre-order it, but it wouldn’t let me due to my location.

    • Chris L says:

      04:39pm | 14/12/11

      @Neo - I never played WOW so I can’t compare. It doesn’t look as long term engaging as Galaxies, but burning enemies with force lightning then cutting them down with a lightsabre has never been more satisfying grin

      @Wynston - Yeah, ordered online. There’s concern that when the early access is over I won’t be able to pay the monthly fees with an Aussie credit card, but that’s just a rumour.

    • Wynston Cruso says:

      05:01pm | 14/12/11

      Oh I see, massive bummer for Aussies to say the least. Was very much looking forward to that, seeing as WoW has just become stupid. I completely forgot about galaxies.

    • neo says:

      05:14pm | 14/12/11

      Did you get it through VPN then? Do you have to login through VPN every time or just make the purchase? Origin is fail…

      Yeah, I just hope it has solid enough game mechanics and talent system.

    • John Smythe says:

      05:17pm | 14/12/11

      EQ2 has had a nice rebuff and looks more enjoyable than I last remember when it first came out.

      Can even play as a sarnak! wowow

    • Chris L says:

      06:17pm | 14/12/11

      @Wynston - I simply ordered via Amazon and downloaded the game. I’m fairly confident that the rumour about Aussie credit not working will turn out to be false, but there’s that nagging seed of doubt.

      Galaxies, before Sony Online Entertainment ruined it with the NGO, was the best MMO I ever played!

    • Micky G says:

      12:18pm | 14/12/11

      Did you know that Chuck Norris’ eyesight is so powerful that if he concentrates really, really hard he can look right around the world and see the back of his own head…true story.
      Why isnt Chuck involved in the search for the HB particle?

      Reply

    • dancan says:

      12:39pm | 14/12/11

      because chuck is a religious nut job who is probably preying for the destruction of the LHC

    • dancan says:

      01:02pm | 14/12/11

      whoops I just noticed I wrote preying instead of praying.

      Chuck preyed on me :(

    • Phubotic says:

      12:33pm | 14/12/11

      The God Particle? Pffft…

      I was more disturbed about the “physicists drinking beer and talking animatedly” bit of the story.

      Phreaks….

      Reply

    • The Very Reverend Lance Boil says:

      12:34pm | 14/12/11

      Repent all ye sinners. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Repent or burn in the fires of hell and damnation. Seeketh not the Higgs bosun as that beloneth alone to the Lord.

      Reply

    • Steve Perry says:

      03:27pm | 14/12/11

      Sweet! Hell is where all the fun people go anyway…

    • Soupcooker says:

      12:58pm | 14/12/11

      sweating the small stuff… smile

      Reply

    • cayal says:

      01:13pm | 14/12/11

      Is there a greater name in this world than Large Hadron Collider?

      Reply

    • Tchom says:

      01:50pm | 14/12/11

      Do they make fun-sized hadron colliders?

    • john says:

      02:34pm | 14/12/11

      Yep its called sex, and something pops out 9mths later.

    • subotic Hadron Collider says:

      02:39pm | 14/12/11

      Bite Size Hadron Collider
      Family Value Pack Hadron Collider
      Vertically Challenged Hadron Collider
      6 Wings and Nuggets Hadron Collider

    • Tator says:

      05:56pm | 14/12/11

      Large McHadron McCollider???

    • Dan Webster again says:

      01:31pm | 14/12/11

      The “God Particle”,  have they found a particle created by God ? 
      (I thought they all were)

      I wonder what else will be found if we keep looking.

      Reply

    • Chris L says:

      01:48pm | 14/12/11

      Maybe the long lost first page of the bible with the author’s dedication and the disclaimer that any resemblance between the characters and real people & gods is coincidental.

    • Dan Webster again, again says:

      02:21pm | 14/12/11

      Okay, I’ll pay that one Chris L (lol)
      well played Sir.

    • AzA J says:

      03:13pm | 14/12/11

      Nice one chris.  Beautiful red dwarf reference!

    • Chris L says:

      04:43pm | 14/12/11

      Indeed AzA J, I am sad that I didn’t invent that joke.

    • thatmosis says:

      02:27pm | 14/12/11

      I can see by the comments that the “finding” of the God particle is way up there with flared trousers and safari suits and just about as interesting. Here’s a question that has me stumped, why are scientists spending billions of dollars/euros on finding this thing when it will do nothing but give them a talking point into the next decade or two. Will it heal the sick, produce more food for the starving, stop natural disasters or just go around in circles so that scientists can gawk and say look at that arent we smart? Will it give the question to the answer 42, I think not.

      Reply

    • cayal says:

      02:35pm | 14/12/11

      You do realise that spending billions doesn’t heal the sick, feed the starving etc.

      It’s been done and people are still sick and people are still starving.

      As for stopping natural disasters…that’s just dumb.

    • stevem says:

      02:43pm | 14/12/11

      They are spending billions to learn something. Will it be useful, heal the sick, produce more food for the starving, stop natural disasters? Who knows. Without gaining an understanding about how things work those things can’t be utilised.
      Without inquiry for the sake of it mankind would never have descended from the trees.

    • St. Michael says:

      03:02pm | 14/12/11

      Pfft.  That silly fellow Einstein and all his silly equations.  “e=mc squared”? What possible real world application could that have?

    • Imagination says:

      03:08pm | 14/12/11

      @thatmosis
      Hows this for just a start.
      If they can find the HB they might be able to figure out how to turn it off and on making things massless for transportation.
      The energy conservation would probably save this planet and help us reach the stars.

    • John Smythe says:

      03:10pm | 14/12/11

      We need to discover warp speed potential before the vulcans come and help us out of our infantile ways.

    • neo says:

      03:28pm | 14/12/11

      St. Michael,

      The atomic bomb was a good application.

    • iansand says:

      03:29pm | 14/12/11

      Thatmosis - Nuclear power is all about converting mass to energy (remember E=MC^2).  The Higgs boson, being the particle that is theorised to mediate mass (the M in the equation), almost inevitably has some involvement in that process.  Understanding the Higgs boson is probably a way of increasing the efficiency of fission and fusion reactions, or perhaps even finding other ways to extract nuclear energy.

    • Cynicised says:

      04:45pm | 14/12/11

      @ Imagination. Oow! What a clever (large) particle!  Liking that idea very much. Intriguing,

    • Rebecca says:

      07:53pm | 14/12/11

      Well, given that there are both political and social problems with ‘healing the sick’ and ‘producing more food for the starving’ - not to mention monetary and technological issues…  Its not even really about ‘healing the sick’ and ‘feeding the starving’ - because we do that, and we’re still going to have to do it again with the next lot of sick and starving people.  We need to harness everything we’ve got to deal with problems like those - we don’t just need to feed the starving - we need to be able to create the capacity for them to feed themselves.  As far as the sick go - we need to be able to find the causes to even have a chance to cure - and certainly need herd immunity (IF YOU CAN BE IMMUNISED, YOU SHOULD) to ensure we don’t get more of it.  But most people who get sick are only so concerned with being ill - they’re concerned about death.  Unfortunately - I doubt we’ll be able to eradicate that - and even if we could, its not necessarily desirable.  Shelley Kagan does a good open access uni course on that - Yale Uni.

      Maybe the catholic church could help out - with all their money…  And then how about supporting GM crops designed to cope with harsh climates, or those that can produce more food per hectare?  How about limiting restrictions on abortion and euthanasia for those that want access to those?  These things would help - but they are certainly things blocked by political and social forces. 

      The Higgs-Boson particle, if it can be found WILL have practical implications - though we may not yet be at a technological stage where we can get full grasp of that power.  Unfortunately, like nuclear weapons - and if you thought the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were massive - they are small compared to a similar size bomb of today - because of the advances in our understanding of physics and chemistry.

    • The subotic Particle says:

      02:41pm | 14/12/11

      I’m THIS close to not giving a tinker’s cuss about the elusive “God particle”

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      03:08pm | 14/12/11

      This was a comment from another site which I thought helpful:

      “Sort of simply, this would be the missing piece to prove that E=mc2 works in both directions. The Higgs field and particle would be the “special” piece that allows energy to mold into mass. That’s how I understand it, and if this can be constructed, it would allow humankind to have a much better understanding of…well…how everything came to be and how it works.
      It is pretty big stuff actually.”

      Reply

    • DriveByHeckler says:

      03:31pm | 14/12/11

      Great to see history being made but why was there no celebrity chef involved?

      Reply

    • Cynicised says:

      03:57pm | 14/12/11

      Expanding the frontiers of our knowledge of the Universe (s?) and the nature of matter is sadly, nerdily, exciting to me too! I’m just idealistic enough see the accumulation of human knowledge for it’s own as a worthwhile pursuit, even if that knowledge never has practical application. However, how do we know what this discovery may someday mean? Right now it’s a tantalizing glimpse of another piece of the puzzle. Hopefully the jigsaw will never be complete and we keep finding more to intrigue and perplex us as our story unfolds.

      As a result of today’s discussions, I have a sudden urge to read “A Canticle
      For Leibowitz” by Walter M Miller, a Hugo - winning tale about the unquenchable need for humanity to know how and why.

      Reply

    • Stinky Pete says:

      04:15pm | 14/12/11

      Wow! imagine if we could manipulate energy and convert it to mass to create whatever we want. Maybe even turn somthing with mass into energy say, light, and then turn it back into mass at another location. Crazy fantasy right? This is the stuff that deams are made from! Do dreams have mass? I think I’m going lost it! Don’t anyone try to correct my physics i don’t think I could handle the disapointment!

      Reply
 
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