With big science news like this, it's always best to go to the source[0] to avoid sensationalism. Of note, is the following statement which isn't getting repeated much in the mainstream news sources:<p>"<i>It remains an open question, however, whether this is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, or possibly the lightest of several bosons predicted in some theories that go beyond the Standard Model. Finding the answer to this question will take time.</i>"<p>I find this to be a pretty important distinguishing factor. Not only will it take a while before they really do know, but it may not, in fact, be the Higgs so many have been searching for to fit into the Standard Model.<p>Many news sources are already claiming that the "god particle" has been found.<p>[0] - <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2013/03/new-results-indicate-particle-discovered-cern-higgs-boson" rel="nofollow">http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2013/03/new-results-...</a>
The physics involved is fascinating, although a true appreciation of what a Higgs Boson is would take years (i.e. most of a PhD).<p>The organisation of such a vast data-processing task has surely brought about many discoveries in "big-data" and parallel computing that are not directly related to the discoveries in physics. Much like the research into the magnets that power the accelerator has led to new MRI machines. To people who don't see the point in "science for science's sake", this is a massive spin-off of CERN that will hopefully greatly benefit the world.<p><a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/computing" rel="nofollow">http://home.web.cern.ch/about/computing</a>
Radio waves were described by their co-discoverer in 1888 as "an interesting laboratory experiment" with "no useful purpose" whatsoever. - Wikipedia entry for Higgs boson
A physicist friend of mine said, half jokingly, that with that much money poured into the project they had no other option but to find that damn boson.
There was a fascinating series of articles on New York times on the search for the Higgs Boson.[1]<p>There was also an attempt to explain what is the Higgs Boson , by means of some drawings and analogies in the second part of the series. Perhaps someone knowledgeable could comment how accurate the explanation is.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/science/chasing-the-higgs-boson-how-2-teams-of-rivals-at-CERN-searched-for-physics-most-elusive-particle.html?view=introduction" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/science/chasing-the-higgs-...</a>
If anyone wants some solid background on understanding the Higgs, I highly recommend this set of videos from minutephysics:<p>pt1: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg</a><p>pt2: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM</a><p>pt3: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8</a>
How do you give the discovery of the Higgs a Nobel prize? <i>Particularly</i> in experimental particle physics, the ability to give a nobel prize (even after discounting grad students :) seems impossible today. The number of people who have to be part of any "discovery" is huge. It seems like the prize would then become the prize for who had the most political (office and governmental) sway on the team.
> It [the LHC] has been creating high-energy collisions to smash protons and then study the collisions and determine how subatomic particles acquire mass — <i>without which the particles would fail to stick together</i>.<p>Too bad -- a science writer wouldn't have made this elementary error.
Question about the menagerie of particles:<p>At what point do we stop giving names to particles? Are we there yet?<p>In other fields I see a pattern of trying to categorize things into relatively short lists that a human can comprehend. E.g. phonemes for speech. It turns out that phonemes don't work, but by using a much finer-grained classification you get a system that does work.<p>So for particles, charm quark or top quark are not particularly descriptive. The names are really no better than "excitation 112" and "excitation 236b". Perhaps a bit more memorable, but not more descriptive of the physics.
As it happens, about a fortnight ago I was talking to a recently retired but still active professor at CERN (he is the father of a friend of mine). I asked him where things stood with the Higgs Boson, and his reply was that they are definitely seeing a pretty strong signal in the data they've gathered, but they're not sure what it is yet exactly. In particular, it could match any one of a number of different competing theories (Disclaimer: I am not a particle physicist so I might have misremembered the precise terminology he used).
From the article:
'The particle was named for Peter Higgs, one of the physicists who proposed its existence, but it later became popularly known as the "God particle."'
Calling it the "God particle" is an insult to science, and "Higgs Boson" is definitely the more popular term. Here's the adword keyword analysis for both: <a href="http://imgur.com/dsNVbum" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/dsNVbum</a>
"Higgs Boson" as a search term is 4.078 times more popular globally and 3.322 times in the US.
The question in my mind is: is there anything beyond the Higgs? Particle theorists hoped the LHC would find whole new families of particles supporting any number of exotic theories. If the LHC finds the Higgs and nothing else, there will be a huge exodus from the field: given the cost of the experiment, a bigger one will be a hard sell in this climate.<p>Could be a good time to pick up some physics PhDs for your data science team.
I wonder. If this adds one more trust factor to the standard model, does that mean it'll hold forever? Maybe? There must be some level on which we can baseline our understanding of the universe. Maybe this is it? maybe [1]?<p>[1] <a href="http://news.discovery.com/space/we-might-not-live-in-a-hologram-after-all-110701.htm" rel="nofollow">http://news.discovery.com/space/we-might-not-live-in-a-holog...</a>
Physicists just saying "we found it!" and re-re-re-checking existing data for hmmm... last year i suppose. And processing LHC (which already stopped) data will take a lot more time. They found "evidence" (five standard deviations) - but it's slightly more than detection threshold - and because of that they still unsure.
The Nobel Committee will only give out the Prize to three or less people at once ( <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/committee/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/commit...</a> , heading "From Nomination to Ceremony ). So will one be given out at all?
"The particle's existence helps confirm the theory that objects gain their size and shape when particles interact in an energy field with a key particle, the Higgs boson. The more they attract, so the theory goes, the bigger their mass will be."<p>So does this mean that an ether really does permeate space?
just for the record, in order to warn any non-western members:<p>"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]<p>source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report<p>ISBN: 9290831693 <a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264" rel="nofollow">http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264</a><p><a href="http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343?ln=en" rel="nofollow">http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343?ln=en</a>
don't ever read beyond mass media headlines for HEP; just go here instead: <a href="http://profmattstrassler.com" rel="nofollow">http://profmattstrassler.com</a>