When?

Snarfangel: I don't know why everyone is so excited about a Higgs boson. That's just one step above a Higgs Able Seaman.

Nice.

Snarfangel: I don't know why everyone is so excited about a Higgs boson. That's just one step above a Higgs Able Seaman.

There's a Star Trek slashfic joke in here somewhere, if only I can find it...

I love me a pair of bosons.

If the HB gets to be called the "god particle," does a second one mean we're only one short of a trinity? Or if there are just the two, is that Quantum Gnosticism? Or are we heading toward a full polytheistic pantheon?

Kit Fister: [25.media.tumblr.com image 500x671]

What the higgs Bosoms might look like.

Your guess is a whole lot better than the others I have heard/seen.
/definately probably possibly maybe theoretically

Citrate1007: Unlike many internet armchair physicists.....I don't even pretend to be able fathom why the fark the particle is so important, let alone what it is. I just like it because ignorant Christian "scientists" get their panties in a bunch over it.

The best way I've had it explained to me-
(NOTE: I AM NOT A HIGH ENERGY OR PARTICLE OR THEORETICAL PHYSICIST. I'm a Nano-physicist. THIS IS NOT MY FIELD. I also don't *quite* have my PhD yet.)

According to some theory whose name I don't remember, The Higgs Boson gives rise to the Higgs Field, which is, in turn, what causes *EVERYTHING* to have mass.

Like... picture a big, vast field of wet snow, with various objects being pushed/moving through it. Some objects will slide through the snow 'faster' than others (due to how they're shaped, or what they're made of, etc; The inherent properties of the object.). As in our world, some particles have more or less mass based on how they interact with the Higgs field.

But pretend that the snow is EVERYWHERE. You've never seen anywhere that's *not* snow, and since it's wet it all sticks together and it's hard to see what the snow is *made* of.

So you throw dynamite in it to try and blow up chunks into the air, so you can watch how they fall/etc. That's (SORT OF) what the LHC is doing. We've 'seen' a snowflake, in a sense: The particle that gives rise to the whole field which makes things have mass.

Does this have practical applications now? Probably not. But Electricity and Magnetism used to just be scientific curiosities, as well. So who knows how this will be used in the future? Maybe we'll find ways to 'insulate' things from the field.

(If I am wrong, someone PLEASE call me out and correct me! This was just my best understanding of it.)

JackieRabbit: We need Higgs boson deniers NOW!

We already have plenty built in.
You see, the way real science works, every scientist is a denier until you produce repeatable, demonstrable, RESULTS.
Something that holds up to scientific scrutiny and skepticism.
Predictions? Not at all part of real science no matter what lipstick you put on it.

...and then this particle bumped into that particle and had a baby!

When do we get to see Higg's bosom? During the feeding?

ltdanman44: I have no idea what I am seeing here. Can someone translate please?

I'm not a particle physicist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night...

The Higgs Boson was predicted by the standard model to exist between 125 and 127 Giga Electron Volts (GeV). Unexpectedly, there appear to be two particles that fit the range, and that's what you're seeing in the graph. One (blue in the graph) centers around 123.5 GeV, and the other (red) at 126.5 GeV.

What they don't explain very well is that this is fairly preliminary data, and we'll most likely discover an anomaly that explains why we're seeing multiple particles that are so close in mass; the math allows for multiple Higgs particles, but the closeness in mass is unexpected and not as easy to explain.

Then again, we may find that these results are reproducible and consistent, and that there's something wrong with the standard model of particle physics. If this turns out to be the case, it has the potential for removing some of the restrictions of our current understanding of physics (faster than light travel, anyone?) and a massive rewrite of theoretical physics.

wjllope: [[Lots of sciency stuff with sigma explanations]]

Well put, sir.

Also.

What Bosun Higgs may look like.

It's time to atom for our sins. We've seen what happens when you take God out of physics.