Not The Higgs After All?

[Adrift]

As for the Higgs, yes, this is why we need to build the International Linear Colider to determine whether or not the particle has any spin (to be the Higgs particle its spin must be equal to zero), and do a more fine-grained investigation of its properties.

What are your thoughts about the problem of building larger colliders from this interview with physicist George Ellis this last July in Scientific American?

Source: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2014/07/22/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy-free-will/

Horgan: At the conference where we met, Howthelightsgetsin, you were in a session called “The end of experiment.” What was that about?

Ellis: Well this was just echoing what you have already said: many of the possible high-energy physics experiments and astronomy observations relevant to cosmology are now in essence nearly complete. Physics experiments are approaching the highest energies it will ever be possible to test by any collider experiment, both for financial and technical reasons. We can’t build a collider bigger than the surface of the Earth. Thus our ability to test high energy physics – and hence structures on the smallest physical scales – is approaching its limits. Astronomical observations at all wavelengths are now probing the most distant cosmological events that will ever be “seeable” by any kinds of radiation whatever, because of visual horizons for each form of radiation.

It’s rather like the situation as regards exploring the Earth: once upon a time we had only fragmentary knowledge of what is there. Then we obtained a global picture of the Earth’s surface, including detailed satellite images of the entire land mass. Once you have seen it all, you have seen it all; apart from finer and finer details, there is nothing more to find. You might respond, But we can’t see to the bottom of the oceans. However, we do indeed now have quite good maps of the ocean floor too, through various sounding techniques. This is similar to the way we have seen right back to the last scattering surface in the early universe at a redshift of 1200 (the analogue of seeing the entire surface of the Earth from space) with satellites such as COBE, WMAP, and Planck, and also (indirectly) to the time of emission of gravitational waves by Bicep2 (the analogue of seeing to the bottom of the ocean). We’ll sort out that controversy in the next couple of years.

So what we can see at the largest and smallest scales is approaching what will ever be possible, except for refining the details.

© Copyright Original Source

[firstfloor]

Think there's enough data from the LHC to determine this or will it first be when we have the International Linear Collider that we'll get a better estimation of the case?

No idea. I think the LHC is to be working at higher energies in 2015 and with any luck they will eventually accumulate enough data to give the theoreticians something definite to work on. At Higgs discovery time there were some theorists who were looking for signs of super-symmetry that were surprised at where the Higgs seemed to be, at about 125GeV.

[Leonhard]

Think there's enough data from the LHC to determine this or will it first be when we have the International Linear Collider that we'll get a better estimation of the case?

[Leonhard]

No, you said 'atheists here'.

I also never said all atheists here.

If I wanted to imply that (if we're to be pedantic about it) I'd have said 'the atheists here' rather than 'atheists here'. The former implies that all atheists here participated in it, which evidently is false, the other simple said that atheists on this forum did it. Which is true, neh?

[Duragizer]

According to some, if you cannot name your god, you are atheist.

Sounds more like a form of agnostic theism to me.

[firstfloor]

Back to the OP. Do we really need to let this thread go?

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/...ish-from-sightthe atoms momentarily vanish

[firstfloor]

And Shuny is not an atheist.

According to some, if you cannot name your god, you are atheist.

[firstfloor]

[The Pixie]

It seems that there's a natural law that states that whenever someone opens a thread in the NatSci forum about any science topic, atheists here will eventually make it about evolution vs creationism.

This is a theology web site, not a science web site. The clue is in the name. Why would you imagine people would not bring theology into a thread?

Shuny has made the assumption that Seer started this thread for theological reasons, specifically to undermine science (haha, look the stupid scientists got it wrong again), and by implication evolution, and thus promote creationism.

Hopefully Seer will tell us if he sees this as evidence of science doing what science does best; that is, being open to alternative ideas, being tentative, being self-correcting. Of course if Shuny is right, then Seer sees it as evidence of science failing, and Seer will not want to say this is a good example of science doing well. We can wait and see.

[Jedidiah]

Back to the OP. Do we really need to let this thread go?

[Jedidiah]

Sorry. Your use of the term 'pet theories' led me to infer this. My apologies.

A fairly reasonable jump, which may not have been on the mark.

[Jedidiah]

Wait, not atheists, let's not generalise. Two guys.

And Shuny is not an atheist.

[phank]

Now, my understanding (I'm not a physicist) has been that there is a standard model of subatomic particles that has been developed which has over time been ratified with enough consistency to make it highly likely that the standard model is a pretty close approximation of what's going on, or anyway what the baryonic universe looks like. To be internally consistent and for all the equations to balance properly, certain particles had to exist (lest the model be wrong), although they had not been observed. One by one, they were sufficiently well documented to be regarded as observed, except for the Higgs. The Higgs was important, because it "explained" the nature of mass. The Higgs particle created a "Higgs field" (in theory), which some particles didn't notice and others had to push through against resistance. We call that resistance "mass", and particles immune to the Higgs field therefore have no mass.

Anyway, (off the top of my head), the model constrained the description of the Higgs particle to some extent - it had to have a certain mass within lower and upper limits, which were unfortunately fairly wide. Gradually, those limits closed in as exhaustive research eliminated some of the range as not containing the Higgs. It also (according to the model) needed some other attributes such as zero spin. Eventually, CERN detected a particle meeting all of the requirements for the Higgs, near as could be measured. So was that the "real" Higgs (which, remember, isn't a particle so much as it's an implication of a model). The particle detected filled that hole, more or less.

So this becomes a question of what "is" is. It's not like the Higgs is an actual particle, so much as the Higgs is an implication of a model. It's possible (for example) that more than one actual particle might fit the "Higgs-hole" in the model, and it's possible that the Higgs exists, but isn't exactly as the model describes. I suppose we could CALL the particle found the Higgs, and if we should subsequently find one that fits even better, call it the super-Higgs or some such.

(Incidentally, I'm with Shuny in one respect - seer does have a reputation for casting about for ways to undermine science, and he seems to think that ambiguities at the state of the art, or minor corrections in the face of better data, somehow undermine rather than illustrate the strength of science. He is always grinding an axe, and never presents interesting scientific developments simply because of their scientific interest.)

[pancreasman]

I never said all atheists.

No, you said 'atheists here'.

[Leonhard]

Wait, not atheists, let's not generalise. Two guys.

I never said all atheists.