Jose628: Science can find a particle of God, but only religion can find Him whole. Suck it atheists!

Ok. Where is he?

Very cool stuff. Add me to the list of peole who are utterly fascinated by this but have little to no education on the subject (HS physics and one or two college courses).

The Bad Astronomer: apachevoyeur: The Bad Astronomer is a spotlight seeking asshole. Met him at SXSW. Total douchebag.

Oh hey, I remember meeting you! How did your lawsuit against The Oatmeal go?

Wrong guy, but while I have you: Celestron c8-sgt or Meade lx90?

/while a douche, I admit you are a smart douche.

foo monkey: So? We're all just as farked as we were yesterday. Let me know when they figure out how to fix climate change and global economic collapse.

Time to call that Suicide Prevention Hotline....

DO NOT WANT Poster Girl: DO NOT WANT Poster Girl:
The mass/energy of a particle scales by the inverse of the range of its fundamental force.

For example, W and Z particles, which mediate the electroweak force inside the atom, are also very massive, at about 80 and 90 Gev, and their fundamental force's interaction distance is around 10^-17 to 10^−16 m. So you have some very massive particles you can find 'inside' an atom, though they're not really there, they just mediate forces inside the atom.

Maybe that's what I'm getting hung up on... what does it mean for a particle to mediate forces within an atom? Act as a medium for the force to function, in the same way that electric force and magnetic force act as media for each other inside a photon packet? Or something else entirely?

// And thanks for helping me understand this!

DO NOT WANT Poster Girl: I think the Higgs couples to the W and Z particles and its interaction distance is very small. I can't find a reference for it.

Actually as W and Z bosons get their mass owing to something called symmetry breaking in a field, the idea of interaction distance is kind of out the window.

stonicus: It doesn't "weigh in" at 125GeV, it has 125GeV/c^2 worth of energy...

per e=mc² describing the energy of something is as good as stating its mass.

Quince: This is cool and all, but there's something here that doesn't make sense... at least not to me. Can someone explain this?

The mass of the Higgs Boson, described as responsible for mediating mass in the universe, weighs in at ~125GeV. A hydrogen atom (one proton, one electron) has a mass of ~1GeV, a considerably smaller size. How can the "elementary" particle responsible for mass have more mass than the smallest atom?

To add to what DO NOT WANT Poster Girl said, give this a read.

Basically, virtual particles are popping into and out of existence constantly. As long as the product of their mass/energy and the time they exist (ΔEΔt) is less than the Uncertainty Principle's h/2π (aka h-bar or ħ), they can't be detected and thus don't violate any conservation laws.

h is about 6.6x10^-16 eV/s, so h/2π would be close to 10^-16eV/s. ΔE is the mass of the Higgs Boson or about 1.25x10^11 eV. To solve for Δt just move the ΔE over and divide by it (which you can already is going to be a very tiny number.) It's 8x10^-28 seconds. This is how long the Higgs Boson could exist without being detectable.

If it was travelling near the speed of light (3x10^8 m/s) it could only travel about 2.4x10^-19m in this time.

IANAP. Hope I'm not too far off. ;^)

Quince: what does it mean for a particle to mediate forces within an atom?

It's an abstraction, the particles that are talked about are just quantum manifestations of the field in question. A photon can be said to mediate the electromagnetic force, and you can observe it so that it appears as a particle, but as you read this message the photons going into your eyes are behaving as waves. The particular properties of a carrier particle both come from and explain the properties of the particular field it mediates. In the case of the W and Z bosons, their very high mass indicates the weak nuclear force operates over very small distances and that it's field is very limited in scope. It's the field that's actually keeping things going inside of protons and neutrons. As far as theory goes, sometimes it's easier to work with particles than fields, and since quantum mechanics says waves and particles exist in a duality, what might appear to just be a convenient mathematical abstraction, also happens to be physical reality.

Grable's Future Son-in-Law: So they built this big, gigantic 17 mile thing to find this particle. Which "doesn't live long' and decays into energy and other particles....

Now the're going to have to study those smaller, "other" particles....

Why didn't they scale it down and make the LHC a lot smaller and start looking for these smaller particles right from the start? Could've skipped a step and saved a bunch in construction costs.

Stupid scientists.

Uh, no we know all about those other particles. The whole point of this is that we found the last missing fundamental particle.

Fano: stonicus: Jose628: Science can find a particle of God, but only religion can find Him whole. Suck it atheists!

Ok. Where is he?

I've got him locked in a closet barred with a cane. Just keep watch until I can go to the monastery and get Brother Jerome.

Snort.

My first thought was to post a picture of a stigmata and caption it "find Him holed?".

Bravo.

Quince: DO NOT WANT Poster Girl: DO NOT WANT Poster Girl:
The mass/energy of a particle scales by the inverse of the range of its fundamental force.

For example, W and Z particles, which mediate the electroweak force inside the atom, are also very massive, at about 80 and 90 Gev, and their fundamental force's interaction distance is around 10^-17 to 10^−16 m. So you have some very massive particles you can find 'inside' an atom, though they're not really there, they just mediate forces inside the atom.

Maybe that's what I'm getting hung up on... what does it mean for a particle to mediate forces within an atom? Act as a medium for the force to function, in the same way that electric force and magnetic force act as media for each other inside a photon packet? Or something else entirely?

// And thanks for helping me understand this!

You're on the right track. The easiest way to think of it is by analogy with photons, which mediate electromagnetic forces. Everything you learn in a classical E&M class about electric and magnetic fields can also be described quantum mechanically with photons. So you can either look at two charged particles repelling each other as particle A creating an electric field that pushes on particle B and vice versa, or as particle A and B exchanging virtual photons. Because of this, we say that photons mediate EM force, or that they are the EM force carrier.

It's exactly the same with W and Z bosons and the weak force, or gluons and the strong force. Except that they have mass.

rico567: foo monkey: So? We're all just as farked as we were yesterday. Let me know when they figure out how to fix climate change and global economic collapse.

Time to call that Suicide Prevention Hotline....

what you mean CNN-HD

Dear Mr. Plait,

When can we sprinkle them on our sundaes and mashed potatoes? Also, what will said sprinkles taste like?

Thank you,
Moi

saintwrathchild: Dear Mr. Plait,

When can we sprinkle them on our sundaes and mashed potatoes? Also, what will said sprinkles taste like?

Thank you,
Moi

Chicken. Everything tastes like chicken.

From TFA's comments:

21. Bigfoot Says:
July 4th, 2012 at 4:42 am

Well, calling it the "god particle" is not entirely inappropriate. It is, after all, why Catholics have mass!

t3knomanser: wildcardjack: What can we do with this information?

We don't know yet. Keep in mind, when Relativity was new, we didn't even know about the existence of the atomic nucleus, so the very idea of things like nuclear reactions weren't even able to be contemplated. But the products of Relativity defined the 20th century more than any other discovery.

Pure research leads practical applications by decades, sometimes longer (Newtonian gravity/mechanics predicted orbital rockets centuries before anybody actually tried).

I agree with your point, but not the specifics. IMHO, the scientific discovery that defined the 20th Century (and, to a lesser extent, the 19th) more than any other would be Michael Faraday's discovery that moving a magnet inside a coil of wire produces an electrical charge.

When Faraday demonstrated this on one occasion, one member of the audience asked, "Mr. Faraday, the behavior of the magnet and the coil of wire was interesting, but of what possible use can it be?" Faraday replied, "Sir, of what use is a newborn baby?"

Faraday himself could not have imagined what his "newborn baby" would grow up to become. Think about it. Think of just how much of what we call modern technology stems from that one discovery. Look around you in whatever room you're in right now, and count the devices made possible by that. Electrical generators and motors, and electromagnets, and everything that came from them and/or is made from and/or powered by them. Very much including the CERN LHC, I might add.

Skirl Hutsenreiter: Grable's Future Son-in-Law: So they built this big, gigantic 17 mile thing to find this particle. Which "doesn't live long' and decays into energy and other particles....

Now the're going to have to study those smaller, "other" particles....

Why didn't they scale it down and make the LHC a lot smaller and start looking for these smaller particles right from the start? Could've skipped a step and saved a bunch in construction costs.

Stupid scientists.

Uh, no we know all about those other particles. The whole point of this is that we found the last missing fundamental particle.

How could you possibly know what makes up the Higgs if they've only just discovered it?

That's my point. Make a smaller version of the LHC to research the smaller bits of this new "God" particle. Hell, make it small enough to fit on a table. Build like 50 of them, hand them out to the most deserving scientists in the bunch, and let's get to work on it.

Geez, have a vision for the future.

/off to watch the hot dog eating contest.
//for science

Grable's Future Son-in-Law: Skirl Hutsenreiter: Grable's Future Son-in-Law: So they built this big, gigantic 17 mile thing to find this particle. Which "doesn't live long' and decays into energy and other particles....

Now the're going to have to study those smaller, "other" particles....

Why didn't they scale it down and make the LHC a lot smaller and start looking for these smaller particles right from the start? Could've skipped a step and saved a bunch in construction costs.

Stupid scientists.

Uh, no we know all about those other particles. The whole point of this is that we found the last missing fundamental particle.

How could you possibly know what makes up the Higgs if they've only just discovered it?

That's my point. Make a smaller version of the LHC to research the smaller bits of this new "God" particle. Hell, make it small enough to fit on a table. Build like 50 of them, hand them out to the most deserving scientists in the bunch, and let's get to work on it.

Geez, have a vision for the future.

/off to watch the hot dog eating contest.
//for science

Fundamental particles aren't made of anything but themselves. If it's made of something else, then it's not a fundamental particle and not the Higgs boson.

\FYI, particle accelerators started out as table-top and worked their way up.

lohphat: Whie in Amerka we're still debating evolution, treating women like chattel, homeschooling kids to think Jeebus lived with the dinosaurs, think healthcare for all is socialzims, the financial sector can police itself, taxes are too high (they're the lowest in 60 years), and our crumbling infrastructure is Obama's fault.

We couldn't have built the LHC (let alone HSR) because we can't do anything requiring long term planning. The rest of the world is passing us by while the forces of conservative thought rally in their triumphs of willful ignorance.

This.

/not a bookmark

Skirl Hutsenreiter Fundamental particles aren't made of anything but themselves. If it's made of something else, then it's not a fundamental particle and not the Higgs boson.

That's what they said about atoms.

Schroedinger's Glory Hole: As much as the stealth Canadian's vitriol is unnecessary, it still would have been pretty cool to announce this on American soil today.

/Finding it hard not to blame conservatives for that giant hole in Texas that could have been the darling of physics right now.

Tax cuts for the 1% are of more importance.

lohphat: Whie in Amerka we're still debating evolution, treating women like chattel, homeschooling kids to think Jeebus lived with the dinosaurs, think healthcare for all is socialzims, the financial sector can police itself, taxes are too high (they're the lowest in 60 years), and our crumbling infrastructure is Obama's fault.

We couldn't have built the LHC (let alone HSR) because we can't do anything requiring long term planning. The rest of the world is passing us by while the forces of conservative thought rally in their triumphs of willful ignorance.

You know what I hate about conservatives more than anything? They try to turn every event good or bad into a political talking point. It's really really really really really really really really REALLY really annoying. You know?

Never forget this either: we humans did this. The discovery of this new particle, and the vast potential it has, was all because we're curious. This huge machine, the LHC, was built solely because we wanted to find things out, and some people had the vision to fund it and build it. When we wish to explore, when we wish to see what's over the next hill, wonders unfold before us.

All we have to do is want it enough.

I like the sentiment here, and the excitement. Unfortunately, I might also add that it's not just about exploring, it's also about weaponizing and commercializing... so, it's not solely because "we're curious" but also because someone, somewhere, thinks they can use this to their advantage against others...

You know, if this was so important, why did they present the slides in farkin' COMIC SANS?!

Bauer: for those of you with an open mind...

"summer...1996.
late august to be more specific.
the actual day doesn't even matter to me anymore.
my wife an i are lying in bed together...and we are still in love.

Stopped reading right there. I'm open-minded, but I'm not gullible.

apachevoyeur: The Bad Astronomer is a spotlight seeking asshole. Met him at SXSW. Total douchebag.

wjmorris3: You know, if this was so important, why did they present the slides in farkin' COMIC SANS?!

Man, some of that links to a font blog, and I have to tell you, it was bad. I thought D&D nerds (like myself) were the nerdiest breed of nerd. Oh no. Font nerds just claimed the title.

apachevoyeur: The Bad Astronomer is a spotlight seeking asshole. Met him at SXSW. Total douchebag.

Hard to believe that about anyone who ends an article by pointing out that this is the ultimate emblem of human curiosity. :p

wjmorris3: You know, if this was so important, why did they present the slides in farkin' COMIC SANS?!

Coulda been worse -- at least they didn't use Mistral. God, I get stabby when I see that one...

douchebag/hater: lohphat: Whie in Amerka we're still debating evolution, treating women like chattel, homeschooling kids to think Jeebus lived with the dinosaurs, think healthcare for all is socialzims, the financial sector can police itself, taxes are too high (they're the lowest in 60 years), and our crumbling infrastructure is Obama's fault.

We couldn't have built the LHC (let alone HSR) because we can't do anything requiring long term planning. The rest of the world is passing us by while the forces of conservative thought rally in their triumphs of willful ignorance.

Gosh, you're an uninformed, small-minded person, full of prejudice and afraid of those who don't think like you.

And therefore you naturally think you are better than them.

That's strange because I thought liberals were tolerant of others' views.

If you want to see what a backward thinking, provencial hick looks like go find a mirror.

Maybe we could fault lohphat for bringing that up out of the blue in a science discussion, but was he inaccurate? Among those who align themselves with what passes for 'conservative thought' these days, does anyone see basic scientific research as something worthy of public funding?

I don't believe any of y'all do. Now prove me wrong, and in the case of elected legislators be sure to back lip service up with how they voted on relevant non-DoD bills and authorizations.

WhyteRaven74: Electrons, protons and neutrons are nice and stable, they hang around a long long long time.

The neutron is only stable if it is part of an atomic nucleus. Otherwise it has a half life just under 15 minutes which would seem like an eternity to a Higgs.

Fano: stonicus: Jose628: Science can find a particle of God, but only religion can find Him whole. Suck it atheists!

Ok. Where is he?

I've got him locked in a closet barred with a cane. Just keep watch until I can go to the monastery and get Brother Jerome.

Tasty obscurity on the Name of the Rose reference. Is there an Eco in here?

So if I understand this correctly, JC was not responsible for Mass, but Higg-Boson is. So where does that leave the Pope?

jimw: So if I understand this correctly, JC was not responsible for Mass, but Higg-Boson is. So where does that leave the Pope?

Shiatting in the woods?

IXI Jim IXI: So, are we past the "OMFG, this thing will destroy the universe" stage now?

I really liked the "there is a God, and He is anathema to the Higgs-Boson. We've probably succeeded in making one or two, but some ... FORCE... goes backwards against the flow of time and un-does our discovery!" phase. That was a fun phase.

StoneColdAtheist

apachevoyeur: The Bad Astronomer is a spotlight seeking asshole. Met him at SXSW. Total douchebag.

Sooo...what I'm reading here is that you told him about that UFO you saw on a lonely back road late one night in East Texas, and he ignored you.

My guess was "moon hoax theory".

All this fyzix stuff is way over my humble brain, but I think that it's really cool that Prof. Higgs lived long enough to see his idea/theory/postulate or whatever it is called validated.

Watching the guy at CERN for the announcement was very moving, even for a science idiot like me.

He is part of a long line of brilliant thinkers, but unlike so many before him he actually got to see his idea (kinda) confirmed. That's got to be an amazing feeling.

Bauer: for those of you with an open mind...

"summer...1996.
late august to be more specific.
the actual day doesn't even matter to me anymore.
my wife an i are lying in bed together...and we are still in love.
many times in the past, people have hit deer by our home.
it was on the very edge of town next to the "vfw" park, in defiance, ohio.
it's about 11:30 pm...and i notice a light coming from outside of our bedroom window. thinking that someone "hit a deer" again...i get up and go to the window, hiding my naked body. once i get to the window...i see that their is no car in our horseshoe shaped driveway. i'm thinking..."well, that cool...they just wanted to turn around." many people do that...but hardly at 11:30 at night. just as i start to turn around...i look down at this "glowing" coming from down low. it's a foot or two below the window...and it's round.
now...at first i thought..."look at that...a glowing beach ball"...because that's what it looked like. it was hovering about two feet above the ground.
it was not moving. i was not moving. i looked at this thing...and i could see inside of it. it was about two feet in diameter...with a "see through" sort of covering. it had, to the best of my recollection, thousands, if not millions of tiny, little "sperm cells with their tails cut off" whirling around inside of it in every direction. they were very quick.
i turned to my wife after ten or 15 seconds and told her..."XXX, come and look at this". she got out of bed and came over to the window.
she did not get there quick enough. while she was walking over...i turned and looked at this "orb"...or whatever it was.
it stayed tere for a second or two...then it zipped across the yard, and into the big field, across the road from our house. within another second...it stopped. another second later, it shot in the sky at a 45 degree angle.
she got to the window just in time to see it fly out of view.
this "thing" moved about 400 feet in less than 2 seconds.
she said..."was that a shooting star?" i said...i don't think so.
she had missed it.
-fast forward to 2009.
my brother and i are opening a new "arcade" in defiance, ohio.
we are both sick of corporate greed..and wanted to do something for the "kids" in the northwest ohio area.
defiance was having a "rib fest" street party and there were people everywhere.
in an odd twist...i met this woman who was reading palms. her booth was set up next to our place and when i went outside for a smoke. she asked me if she was in the way...and i said "it's not my sidewalk"...or something glib, like that.
she asked me if i wanted my palm read...and skeptically...i said..."why?".
she informed me that mt "aura" was wacked, to say the least. so...i walk over and say..."lay it on me".
before she touches my hand...she tells me "have you ever experienced anything abnormal" i respond..."define abnormal". lols.
she goes on "i get the feeling that you have". i respond..."well...i did have something odd happen to me back in 1996".
out of the blue...and having never met her before...she floored me with "did you see a ufo at the vfw park"
i couldn't believe it. i had never met her before and this is not the thing you tell people in this town, or anywhere, for that matter.
she tells me her story...well, her husbands and nephews story, that is.
they were fishing in the rather large pond next door to my home that night...and this is what she told me:
"they came home frightened and he grabbed his shotgun and sat in the rocking chair. he told me that some kind of "ufo" came down, straight out of the very dark sky and hovered over the pond, at about 50 feet. it slowly descended...and as it did...it "drifted" over to the house (my house)...and then they lost sight of it.
then the two of them saw it shoot across the field, which is part of the "boy scout camp"...and then they saw it shoot up into the sky and disappear.
she told me that they were scared for about 6 weeks and made sure their door and windows were locked up tight, every night.
eventually...they both sort of "got over it"...having no video or pictures...who is going to believe them?, she said.
-i waited 13 years to hear this story.
13 years of doubt, pain and fear.
-i finally had another version of that night, from people i had never met...or talked to.
what happens next...i have no idea.
since this event...i have been affected in ways that i am just beginning to understand.
i thought it was a curse...and maybe it still is...but i have a grip on things now.
i see things more clear than i have ever seen things, in my entire life.
i have accepted that it happened...and i'm telling you...it was not easy.
and i'm also asking you to not be afraid.
we are heading into the future, together.
all of us.
in any regard...there it is.
there is a little more...but it's late...and i'm tired.
-be as kind to each other, as that orb was to me.
it could have killed me if it wanted to.
it obviously didn't.
well...there it is."

i know...cool story, bro. : )
pardon the grammatical errors...i did not proofread this when i wrote this down.
have a great day, people.

How awesome to be vindicated.

NuttierThanEver: Thanks Phil
Now wheres our light sabres or warp engines holodecks?

ftfy priorities

wildcardjack: I have one question.

What can we do with this information?

If nothing else ever comes of it at all, it at least provides some pretty sure confirmation that the particle crowd is indeed on the right track as far as how things work. With all the weird and changing theories that random physicists come up with, that right there is worth it's weight in gold.

(and the odds that nothing else of interest comes out of it are pretty much slim to none so hey fun for everyone!)