CERN Says It's Detected A New Particle, Likely The Higgs Boson

[joshcryer]

Source: NPR's News Blog

Teams of scientists using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, announced in Geneva this morning that they have detected evidence of a new subatomic particle that bears the hallmarks of the elusive and highly sought after Higgs boson. In layman's terms, the Higgs is referred to as the "God Particle" because the field it produces gives atoms its mass. Were it not for the Higgs, the world we know would be completely different — there would be no chemistry, no architecture, no us. It would be a massless mess of aimless particles running around at light speed.

CERN spokesman Joe Incandela said the scientists had observed a new particle, but he stopped short of saying it was indeed the Higgs boson. That is the likely conclusion.

"We have quite strong evidence that there's something there. Its properties are still going to take us a little bit of time," Incandela said in a video accidentally released on Tuesday by CERN. "This is the most massive such particle that exists, if we confirm all this, which I think we will ... It's something that may, in the end, be one of the biggest observations of any new phenomena in our field in the last 30 or 40 years, going way back to the discovery of quarks"

To make the observations, scientists at the LHC sent particles crashing at tremendous speeds to try to create Higgs. Then, because the particle only exists for a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, scientists looked for its signature decay. The scientists said they had detected what are likely Higgs trails — a bump in their data — with a great degree of certainty.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/07/04/156221787/cern-says-its-detected-a-new-particle-likely-the-higgs-boson

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This was one of the better sources for this that I found, a bunch of others weren't as official sounding, I hope as a "blog" it is allowed. There are quite a few other sources for this, mostly blogs as of this posting.

[dipsydoodle]

1. LHC claims new particle discovery

Cern scientists reporting at conferences in the UK and Geneva claim the discovery of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18702455

Be a while before they know if its Higgs or maybe his brother Norman.

[Surya Gayatri]

2. Wow, it was hiding there all along...Professor HIGGS

must be so chuffed looking on from the great accelerator in the sky.

[joshcryer]

3. Peter Higgs is still alive.

He can rest easy knowing that he was vindicated.

[Surya Gayatri]

4. Is he? Why wasn't he front row and center

at this historic announcement? Maybe his health didn't permit.

I just assumed that he must have left this earthly lab for the celestial one. He postulated Higgs' existence almost 50 years ago!

Just saw his photo on Wiki. Maybe he was in that group of venerable "elders" in the front rows in Geneva...

[dipsydoodle]

6. Yes - he's there in Geneva

British physicist Peter Higgs arrives Wednesday for the opening of the seminar near Geneva, Switzerland.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506093497519860.html

[Surya Gayatri]

7. So, it was him! The camera panned over to him

when the final correlation between the two projects was demonstrated and the audience broke into cheers.

He'd been weeping and was wiping the tears away. Very touching...

P.S. Hey, dd, how're things "outre manche"?

[joshcryer]

11. Yeah, he was there. CMS didn't have 5 sigma like Atlas.

But 5 sigma (Atlas) plus 4.9 sigma (CMS) is enough for the announcement, imo.

He seemed quite unenthused until the end, then he was all smiles.

[Surya Gayatri]

13. I think he was quite overwhelmed. When the camera

panned over to him as the audience was cheering the definitive announcement, you could see he'd been weeping. He was wiping away the tears behind his glasses.

Imagine being vindicated 50 years after the fact, and after much initial resistance.

[DCBob]

5. "massless mess of aimless particles running around at light speed"

Excellent way to explain the imporatance and significance of the Higgs Boson.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. An aimless mess, maybe...but, as one of the

researchers so aptly said: "Without them, you and I wouldn't be here!"

[Nihil]

17. Sounds rather like Administratium ...

"mess of aimless particles running around at speed"

[mindwalker_i]

25. Actually, I'm not sure particles would zip around at the speed of light

The upper limit on speed is based on the fact that particles gain mass as their velocity approaches light speed - to actually get to the speed of light, particles would have infinite mass. But without Higgs, they would never gain mass no matter how fast they went, so why not move infinitely fast? Kinetic energy is e = m * v^2, but if m is always zero, kinetic energy is always zero. Also with m=0, f-ma and any force would produce infinite acceleration.

[Odin2005]

27. Actually, massless particles MUST travel at light speed.

[mindwalker_i]

36. Why?

And if they are not photons, but say, massless quarks, do they obey the fundamental law of special relativity, namely that they move at lightspeed relative to all observers?

[brentspeak]

9. The excitement sounds rather forced

The announcement sounds more nebulous than definitive. Not like the discovery of a new particle isn't important (it is), but "likely" and "maybe" the new particle being the Higgs boson doesn't cut it (at least, not yet).

[joshcryer]

12. 5 sigma + 4.9 sigma is enough, imo, but they are scientists.

They wouldn't say it was Higgs until they determined that it followed the theoretical assumptions to 5+5 sigma on both experiments. Give them a few months and they'll say it, but right now they are taking the scientific approach.

99.999% in scientific terms is almost reality, for all intents. But they want to be sure. Can't blame them even though the odds of it being wrong are effectively nil.

[Surya Gayatri]

15. +1,000! No faith-based, airy-fairy extrapolations, just

methodic scientific enquiry.

[Hosnon]

23. I wish I could upvote this.

What we are witnessing regarding the Higgs illustrates the difference between science and religion; and it is beautiful seeing how fucking amazing science is.

[Selatius]

10. If you can manipulate Higgs bosons, then you could perhaps manipulate gravity itself.

If you can manipulate gravity, then you would be one step closer to conceiving and then building a gravity drive engine. Such an engine could allow you to move faster than the speed of light. It would make deep space travel far easier to achieve.

Of course, we're likely talking centuries of technological progress before we get to that point, but we gotta start somewhere.

[harun]

37. Theoretically it could be manipulated to reduce somethings mass.

Which would have implications for gravity and zero gravity.

They don't really know what is going on with gravity yet. So manipulating that I think would be farther off.

[annabanana]

14. I have only the vaguest notion of the implications, but I know enough

to know that this COULD be a

Big Fucking Deal!

(subject, of course, to all necessary scientific scrutiny)

[myrna minx]

16. K&R!

[hue]

18. Hi! Didn't mean to post dupe news but I thought I'd post official CERN statement above.

The implications of this 5 sigma find--a true discovery of a boson--means that there IS more (physics beyond the SM)! I think it is the stepping stone to Supersymmetry and dark matter! Some physicists have worked their entire professional lives searching for "more".

[4th law of robotics]

19. Cool, next step: warp drives

Make it so!

[longship]

20. Great!

The Standard Model still stands. Physicists still haven't been able to break it, so far.

I wonder how long until CERN discovers something new, unpredicted by the SM. that's when things get interesting.

A big R&K

[siligut]

21. I remember being so disappointed when the super collider project in Texas was scrapped

I knew people who worked on it. I am thankful that some people had the desire and means to keep looking.

[murielm99]

28. I remember that, too.

The unfinished project is just sitting out there, like a dragon's den in ruins.

My son works at Fermi Lab in Batavia, IL. We have talked about the Texas project. My daughter's fiance works for the National Science Foundation and is involved in some of the Fermi Lab experiments. When Fermi Lab shut down the tevatron, I could not believe it. We are so anti-science in this country. We have to outsource everything, including our brains. I have told my son to brush up his German and go to work at Cern. I think my daughter's fiance should leave, too. He will not, while his children are still minors. He wants to be near them.

This is a wonderful discovery. I am glad some people here are explaining it in terms that I can understand. I am around scientists all the time, so I am not as clueless as some lay people. But I can't pretend to know all that much!

[eggplant]

22. For a much more readable yet scientific source...

http://profmattstrassler.com/

[agent46]

24. They've been threatening to discover something

They've been threatening to discover something for months now. New reports coming out every week or so saying they're getting closer. From what I've read, "discovery" of the particle is a percentage game. At a certain statistical level, the Higgs Boson can be said to have been (probably) discovered.

I wonder what the PR hype is for.

[Posteritatis]

29. Could be, y'know, because they *were* getting closer for months.

That's kind of how science works in the real world.

Not everything is some kind of conspiracy.

The percentages they're talking about are in the 99.9999% range by now.

[Odin2005]

26. I've been giddy all morning since I've heard this!

They found it! After 48 years, they finally goddamn found it!!!

Dr. Higgs and the guys at CERN needs a Nobel Prize for this! THIS IS A BIG FUCKING DEAL, for this completes the Standard Model.

[dipsydoodle]

30. Higgs Bosun walks into a church.....

[yellowcanine]

31. Higgs Boson would be a great name for a rock band.

[dipsydoodle]

32. Yes - but they could create

mass hysteria.

[donco]

33. FINALLY

Scottie gets to beam me up.bout time too.

[Stinky The Clown]

34. I served in the Navy with a Bosun Higgs.

[Electric Monk]

35. k&r