LHC Already Beginning to Rule Out Higgs Bosun?

[RJM Corbet]

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1030987

Nice link, hey?

[Metryq]

Tell officer Higgs that his job is secure; the LHC has no authority to fire him. But advise him that any sub-atomic particles should be turned in before leaving port.

[RJM Corbet]

They're doing their best to take it well, but ... it's pretty devastating

[Nik]

IMHO, a lot of very technical bets have just been lost.

Still, they've apparently excluded the least Higgs' from the mid-range. It's either a bit higher or lower on the energy scale.

Nature's version of 'Hunt the Thimble'...

What happens when the elusive Higgs' runs out of hiding places within reach is going to be expensive...

[alchemist]

A Higgs boson walks into a church.

"You can't come in here," the priest says. "You're only a sub-atomic particle."

"You have to let me in," the particle says. "Without me, you have no Mass."

[Vertigo]

Originally Posted by Nik

IMHO, a lot of very technical bets have just been lost.

Still, they've apparently excluded the least Higgs' from the mid-range. It's either a bit higher or lower on the energy scale.

Nature's version of 'Hunt the Thimble'...

What happens when the elusive Higgs' runs out of hiding places within reach is going to be expensive...

Not necessarily; a year or so back when they were just about getting to turn the LHC on, a number of scientists said that not finding the Higgs could be the most interesting result, requiring a lot of re-thinking and, in their terms, a lot of exciting new thinking to be done.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

Not necessarily; a year or so back when they were just about getting to turn the LHC on, a number of scientists said that not finding the Higgs could be the most interesting result, requiring a lot of re-thinking and, in their terms, a lot of exciting new thinking to be done.

I don't think they're going to find it

[Vertigo]

For anyone interested in the on-going search for the Higgs Boson particle there was an Interview by Jim al-Kahlili with Tejinder Virdee this morning on BBC Radio 4. You can download the podcast here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/tls

Although the interview series mainly focuses on the 'scientific life' of its guests, there was inevitably some discussion of their current work.

Tejinder Virdee is the lead scientist on the CMS particle detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. He stated (as I have seen elsewhere) that they should have a definitive answer on the Higgs Boson by December this year. He still seems moderately confident that they will find it.

One interesting bit was his description of the CMS detector as essentially a 100 megapixel 3D camera that takes 40 million images every second. How's that for high speed photography!

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

essentially a 100 megapixel 3D camera that takes 40 million images every second. How's that for high speed photography!

You sound like a salesman in Dixons.

I wonder if the LHC comes with an Extended Warranty?

[Vertigo]

Only if you pay extra... a lot extra!

[RJM Corbet]

Here's a good link to the LHC:

http://www.interactions.org/cms/?pid=1030987

You open on the page and then go to the bottom and select the link you want: ATLAS, CMS etc, then click 'status'.

Or click back to the 'interactions' homepage.

All the details on a daily basis. Very scientific, but some is slightly understandable.

It shows the LHC's offline till 6th April.

[Vertigo]

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

They're not saying it is the Higgs boson (yet) but just something very very like it. It will take more time to be certain. On the radio this morning they said that scientists at the LHC are 99.9997% (I may have missed or added a 9 in there but it is about as good as you get with these things) certain that they have found a new particle.

Although this needs to be studied further it does seem to display all the characteristics expected of the Higgs Boson in the Standard Model. The problem is that some other theories also predict a particle with very similar characteristics to the Higgs boson which this could conceivably be. However the buzz (and celebrations) at the LHC is that they are pretty sure they have got the Higgs boson.

Finally...maybe...

[Metryq]

If Higgs is responsible for mass, isn't it a little odd that it's so hard to find? Y'know, like "dark matter" making up most of the universe, yet it has never been found. Of course, the spooky theories that require these things couldn't be wrong...

[Venusian Broon]

Well I haven't been following all the ins- and outs- but,

1) I'm glad they've finally found something of note that resembles a Higgs boson (justifies that 10 Bn Euro we spent on the the LHC )
2) Fingers crossed they find something about it that all the standard models say isn't right - 'cause then we will get pressure to change the models we've been using the past 40 years, which could be an extremely exciting time.

[Vertigo]

Well from what they have been saying they seem pretty confident that it does match the standard models. They also went on to say they expect a whole raft of new particles to be found now on the back of the knowledge gained from this. So I think it will still be pretty exciting either way!