Higgs Boson might have been found

[bfdd]

Exactly. We were so certain of this light speed barrier... but now look. I firmly believe we only understand a very very very small percentage of what is around us. The more we learn the more we will realize how little we know.

Limitation of our sensory organs I believe led to the belief that there is a light speed barrier. We're extremely reliant on our eyes.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Limitation of our sensory organs I believe led to the belief that there is a light speed barrier. We're extremely reliant on our eyes.

Well there's the philosophical question of whether we can experience objective reality at all since we are locked into what our senses can detect. That however has nothing to do with how fast anything which contains mass can go. That is governed by equations which have been experimentally verified. When accelerated a particle travels faster and some portion of the energy used increases it's mass. The closer it travels to the speed of light the greater proportion of energy goes towards increased mass while there is less gain of speed. Eventually you reach an Achilles and the Tortoise situation where you can get closer and closer to light speed, but never reach it. Nature doesn't like infinities.

 

[bfdd]

Well there's the philosophical question of whether we can experience objective reality at all since we are locked into what our senses can detect. That however has nothing to do with how fast anything which contains mass can go. That is governed by equations which have been experimentally verified. When accelerated a particle travels faster and some portion of the energy used increases it's mass. The closer it travels to the speed of light the greater proportion of energy goes towards increased mass while there is less gain of speed. Eventually you reach an Achilles and the Tortoise situation where you can get closer and closer to light speed, but never reach it. Nature doesn't like infinities.

We can't detect neutrinos with our own senses, but we've built sensors that can detect them and share the info with us in a way we can observe/perceive so I don't entirely agree with that. I think we just need to build and research better sensors(duh?) and use them to help shape our view of the universe. I mean it isn't easy or anything, but I think we let the glory of math and the limitations of our senses build a mold that we're struggling to get out of. That and the fear of death and time.

 

[Locut0s]

BBC article on the story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16074411

They will have some kind of announcement on Tuesday. However since this is not yet a "5 sigma event" it won't be an announcement of a discovery as they don't have enough evidence to comfortably say they have found it yet. IF it looks promising that's basically all they will say, we "may have something here". We won't know till some time next year when they have enough data to rule it in out out more clearly.

 

[Locut0s]

I won't hold my breath over this. This would be outside the expected energy range for the Higgs. Regarding the control of gravity the Higgs is not responsible for that. All the Higgs field does fix the characteristics of mass in matter. While gravity interacts with matter in a mass dependent way it doesn't determine mass itself. For now all the Higgs would tell us is that the Standard Model applies more or less as expected. It would be interesting to see what the state of physics will be in 10 and 20 years after either the discovery of the Higgs or the exclusion of it's existence, but I have no fear that the universe will ever become boring. People will be scratching their heads forever.

It would?

"
As of 2006, measurements of electroweak observables allowed the exclusion of a Standard Model Higgs boson having a mass greater than 285 GeV/c2 at 95% CL, and estimated its mass to be 129+74
−49 GeV/c2
"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

Which is right where they are looking now.

 

[cybrsage]

The statement was and is ridiculous. Your quoted post doesn't change that. You're a zealot.

While it may be true you parrot what others told you to believe with ease, parrots are actually quite intelligent...so the avatar does not become you.

 

[hal2kilo]

We can't detect neutrinos with our own senses, but we've built sensors that can detect them and share the info with us in a way we can observe/perceive so I don't entirely agree with that. I think we just need to build and research better sensors(duh?) and use them to help shape our view of the universe. I mean it isn't easy or anything, but I think we let the glory of math and the limitations of our senses build a mold that we're struggling to get out of. That and the fear of death and time.

Heck, we only understand the 4 dimensions. Time being one that alot of us think we understand until you really delve into it. String theory says there may be 11.

 

[Paul98]

Limitation of our sensory organs I believe led to the belief that there is a light speed barrier. We're extremely reliant on our eyes.

LOL the speed of light barrier has nothing to do with our eyes, it's based on the fact that the speed of light( or any massless particle) is constant and the same in every inertial frame of reference. It's kind of hard to move faster than the speed of light when you think about it this way. You are in a spaceship and you measure the speed of light. Then you accelerate for a long time at a constant rate as measured by an accelerometer on the ship. Then you stop accelerating and take another measurement you get the same result as if you didn't move at all, to you you are no closer to the speed of light as when you started.

 

[disappoint]

Why didn't FermiLab find it in 28 years of running the Tevatron if it's only 125 GeV? 1000 GeV isn't enough to find a 125 GeV particle?

Exactly. We were so certain of this light speed barrier... but now look. I firmly believe we only understand a very very very small percentage of what is around us. The more we learn the more we will realize how little we know.

Information still cannot be sent faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

 

[hal2kilo]

Why didn't FermiLab find it in 28 years of running the Tevatron if it's only 125 GeV? 1000 GeV isn't enough to find a 125 GeV particle?



Information still cannot be sent faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

Could be due to the higher beam density and controlled colunmation that they are getting way more data. Purely speculation on my part.

 

[DrPizza]

woot

 

[ichy]

Why didn't FermiLab find it in 28 years of running the Tevatron if it's only 125 GeV? 1000 GeV isn't enough to find a 125 GeV particle?

Well it's not like they have a little red light that suddenly lights up when they find the thing. I don't pretend to really understand this stuff, but at this point discoveries in particle physics are made rather gradually as enormous amounts of data are collected and analyzed. I know that the LHC produces a lot more numbers to crunch than Tevatron did, plus Tevatron's results helped narrow the range that the LHC was looking in.

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

This explains the Romulans hiding out by Mercury! They came back in time to wipe out humanity upon discovering the Higgs boson and are sitting by Mercury cloaked until we actually confirm we found the Higgs boson, then the warbird will decloak and wipe us off the face of the planet.

 

[cybrsage]

Isn't like a particle as well as a wave? Light has mass, doesn't it? I know they have been unable to determine the rest mass of light, but they have determined the mass of light in the Sun.

I think, from a rough calculation, that about one part in 108 of the Sun's gravitational mass comes from the light in it. That calculation could easily be off a factor of ten either way, since I used very approximate numbers.

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=14123

We also know that light has momentum (hence the interest in a solar sail). Momentum = Mass times Velocity. If mass is zero, momentum is zero. Since momentum is not zero, mass must also not be zero.

 

[Paul98]

Isn't like a particle as well as a wave? Light has mass, doesn't it? I know they have been unable to determine the rest mass of light, but they have determined the mass of light in the Sun.


http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=14123

We also know that light has momentum (hence the interest in a solar sail). Momentum = Mass times Velocity. If mass is zero, momentum is zero. Since momentum is not zero, mass must also not be zero.

Light, a photon does NOT have mass. You are using wrong equations. Yes light acts as a wave and a particle depending on what happens to it.

 

[hal2kilo]

Isn't like a particle as well as a wave? Light has mass, doesn't it? I know they have been unable to determine the rest mass of light, but they have determined the mass of light in the Sun.


http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=14123

We also know that light has momentum (hence the interest in a solar sail). Momentum = Mass times Velocity. If mass is zero, momentum is zero. Since momentum is not zero, mass must also not be zero.

Light has no mass. You may be thinking about neutrinos which were once thought to be massless but has since been found to have mass (an incredibly small amount).

 

[-Slacker-]

If light has no mass, then how can it gravitationally interact with super massive objects like black holes, which can easily change/bend it's trajectory when it's close enough? No, scratch that, if light has no mass, how can it interact with anything at all, including the sensors in our eyes? (Those aren't smartass rhetorical questions or anything, I'm genuinely mind=blown)

 

[DrPizza]

If light has no mass, then how can it gravitationally interact with super massive objects like black holes, which can easily change/bend it's trajectory when it's close enough? No, scratch that, if light has no mass, how can it interact with anything at all, including the sensors in our eyes? (Those aren't smartass rhetorical questions or anything, I'm genuinely mind=blown)

Part one: light interacting with massive objects - what's happening is that space is bent. This was a prediction of Einstein's, which was later confirmed by observations.

Part 2: You seriously think there needs to be mass for an interaction? If I hold two magnets, north toward north, I can clearly feel a force repelling them, without them being in contact with each other. What's causing that force?

 

[-Slacker-]

Part one: light interacting with massive objects - what's happening is that space is bent. This was a prediction of Einstein's, which was later confirmed by observations.

Part 2: You seriously think there needs to be mass for an interaction? If I hold two magnets, north toward north, I can clearly feel a force repelling them, without them being in contact with each other. What's causing that force?

^^^Now I'm even more confused, but I suppose a proper explanation, followed by what would probably be an avalanche of n00b questions from me would derail the thread too much ... anyway...

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

^^^Now I'm even more confused, but I suppose a proper explanation, followed by what would probably be an avalanche of n00b questions from me would derail the thread too much ... anyway...

First, magnets are a mystery. I mean one can talk about how things line up so that there is a magnetic field, however just why that happens? It just is.

Light follows the shortest possible line which would be straight in a flat space, however introduce a mass and space becomes curved. The more massive the object the greater the curvature. Because the shortest possible line isn't straight anymore, light follows that path.

 

[bfdd]

LOL the speed of light barrier has nothing to do with our eyes, it's based on the fact that the speed of light( or any massless particle) is constant and the same in every inertial frame of reference. It's kind of hard to move faster than the speed of light when you think about it this way. You are in a spaceship and you measure the speed of light. Then you accelerate for a long time at a constant rate as measured by an accelerometer on the ship. Then you stop accelerating and take another measurement you get the same result as if you didn't move at all, to you you are no closer to the speed of light as when you started.

That doesn't mean there's a speed limit of set by the speed of light. So far no one has proven the detection of FTL neutrinos wrong yet, just questions raised against it. Would the speed of light exceed its ownself? You also know that the lead photon holds all of the information required to create the entire beam of light right? So all that tells me is that as long as I can visually recognize the lead photon, I should be able to see the entire stream of light relatively to my position or speed and has less to do with the actual speed of light.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

We can't detect neutrinos with our own senses, but we've built sensors that can detect them and share the info with us in a way we can observe/perceive so I don't entirely agree with that. I think we just need to build and research better sensors(duh?) and use them to help shape our view of the universe. I mean it isn't easy or anything, but I think we let the glory of math and the limitations of our senses build a mold that we're struggling to get out of. That and the fear of death and time.

The philosophical argument stands because your senses interpret whatever input they are given. There is no way around that argument. If a sensor detects a neutrino then your nervous system still sends that information to your brain to become part of your mind. We accept reality not objectively but axiomatically. We say "it is" and it is. No where in physics does it say that this is true but unless we agree to accept things as they appear then we can get no where. Remember that if the technology existed to stimulate your peripheral nervous system in a precise way you'd believe anything because you couldn't tell that illusion from "reality".

 

[bfdd]

The philosophical argument stands because your senses interpret whatever input they are given. There is no way around that argument. If a sensor detects a neutrino then your nervous system still sends that information to your brain to become part of your mind. We accept reality not objectively but axiomatically. We say "it is" and it is. No where in physics does it say that this is true but unless we agree to accept things as they appear then we can get no where. Remember that if the technology existed to stimulate your peripheral nervous system in a precise way you'd believe anything because you couldn't tell that illusion from "reality".

I don't disagree with you there, but I just believe perceived reality and actual reality differ and it shouldn't come to some crazy shock to us that we're unable to fully grasp our universe with these limited physical bodies. It's quite frustrating at times to have such marvelous brains trapped in such primitive bodies.

btw we know from studying the eyes of other animals that ours are extremely lacking, mostly an after thought.

 

[Paul98]

That doesn't mean there's a speed limit of set by the speed of light. So far no one has proven the detection of FTL neutrinos wrong yet, just questions raised against it. Would the speed of light exceed its ownself? You also know that the lead photon holds all of the information required to create the entire beam of light right? So all that tells me is that as long as I can visually recognize the lead photon, I should be able to see the entire stream of light relatively to my position or speed and has less to do with the actual speed of light.

Actually it means that nothing with mass can accelerate to faster than the speed of light. Do you agree with that?

Yeah there are lots of questions, I hope that it turns out to be moving faster than light or at least doing something strange to give us incorrect measurements. That would be a huge discovery! But it hasn't been verified by any other experiment yet. To take that single experiment over every other experiment done is not good till it's been verified.

I am not even sure what you are trying to say with this lead photon stuff?

 

[bfdd]

Paul98, but they have observed neutrinos going faster. They've even observed the light going faster than the speed of light. If you don't know what I'm referring to it was a study done in Australia in the early 2000s. They pulsed light through a tube filled with a certain type of gas(the name escapes me) and the pulse exited the chamber before entering. Quite significantly quicker in fact. That's how they came to the conclusion that the leading photon of a beam of light contains all of the information require to recreate the beam of light. So it does seem to me that the speed limit of set at the speed of light could be wrong.

Also, I'm not saying the neutrinos did go faster, I'm saying so far no one has proven their data wrong. Only brought it into question. I am eagerly awaiting more tests, especially those done by other entities.