Race for 'God Particle' heats up

Race for 'God Particle' heats up

news.bbc.co.uk

Europe's particle physics lab, Cern, is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle", its US rival claims.

The particle, whose existence has been predicted by theoreticians, would help to explain why matter has mass.

Finding the Higgs is a major goal of Cern's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But the US Fermilab says the odds of its Tevatron accelerator detecting the famed particle first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best.

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'God particle' may have been seen

The Higgs Boson could help spell the end of "String Theory" and assist in finding the "Theory of Everything" or Unified Theory of the relationships between space, time, mass, matter and gravity.

Both machines hope to see evidence of the Higgs by colliding sub-atomic matter at very high speeds. If it exists, the Higgs should emerge from the debris.

The LHC has been out of action since last September when an accident damaged some of the magnets that make up its giant colliding ring.

Cern and Fermilab officials squared up at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Chicago.

Identifying the so-called God Particle has been a target for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) ever since the LHC was first conceived in the early 1980s.

At the launch of the LHC near Geneva in September, some scientists predicted the Higgs would be revealed as soon as summer 2009. But just one week later, an accident occurred which halted experiments at the accelerator for at least 12 months.

Fermilab has taken advantage, cranking up the intensity of research at their Tevatron accelerator in Illinois. Their probability of our discovering the Higgs is very good - 90% if it is in the high mass range, and are even higher - 96% - if its mass is around 170GeV (giga-electron volts).

The smaller the mass of the particle, the more difficult and time-consuming it will be for Fermilab to detect. The Tevatron is located at Fermilab near Chicago


news.bbc.co.uk
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reply to post by jdub297


Cool article jdub!

To me the Higgs Boson makes more logical sense than string theory so I'm really hoping that someone finds it sooner than later.

IRM

Thanks, IRM

Does this mean we get the "black hole" first?
I'm not too far from UIUC right now, but will be in Texas next month - -I hope that's far enough away!

I just finished a book that trashes string theory and all its 10, 11, or 17 dimensions. It's not technical at all and really entertaining: "The Trouble With Physics" by Lee Smolin.

Its got a chapter called How Science Really Works, which ought to be required reading for some ATS members.

Thanks and enjoy 'scope hunting!

jw

reply to post by jdub297


Wow! I can't believe there aren't more people discussing this. My pet grieve of ATS is that the decent threads that are actually interesting and effect us all get overlooked due to the immeasurable imbalance of sensationalized hoax threads on the board.

Perhaps you should have said you had found the god particle yourself by using a coiled backyard hose, some tin foil, fridge magnets, a fart in a bottle and a Bunsen Burner.. or at least created some faux conspiracy about it. I'm sure you'd be on the 10th page by now.. and most people would believe you!

IRM

reply to post by InfaRedMan


I found it when Jupiter ignited.

Actually, it's "Proof of UFOs and Aliens."

now you know.

jw

At this point the Standard Model does make more sense than string theory.
In fact it makes more sense than all 5 of them.

Thanks for posting the article.

Starred and Flagged

All the news coverage over CERN and this was already underway right here in the USA? WTF? I cannot believe this is the first time I am finding out about this!

Never heard of the Tevatron before. I hope one of them detects it soon.

reply to post by space cadet
What's even stanger (I just found this out yesterday) is that CERN detected a possible Higgs in DECEMBER! Wasn't the LHC supposed to be "down" back then?



[edit on 19-2-2009 by jdub297]

reply to post by jdub297


Yep - spot on! It was down in December.

IRM

Good find star and flag

I just hope you havnt spawned some more 'we are all going to be sucked into a blackhole' threads

The God theory is really starting to hit alot of areas.
Even with all the biologist's science pointing to eveloution.
Their are things that defy the scientist.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Even if some say that this is all "bunk".
The chance that it is real is there.

I say look to the electron and the ether.

For all we know these particles are growing out of the ether.

Many non Relativistic effects haven't been explained and a
good foundation is needed for discovery.

Working with high voltage is an art and when Tesla said
the energetic electron was perhaps an opposite of accepted
theories there might be a reason.

Good post. I read about this 'race' the other day. In fairness, I'm European and will admit to hoping the LHC delivers the goods first. Nevertheless, it's just a BS jingoistic false pride in someone else's achievements and I recognize it as that. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter (beyond bragging rights and FUNDING) who does or doesn't discover or prove the Higgs-Boson.

It's like a big d*ck contest when all that really matters is which d*ck can father a new generation of science theory. It's all Snakes and Ladders. Some theories go up and others don't

Originally posted by Leto
Never heard of the Tevatron before. I hope one of them detects it soon.

I never did.

Wiki: Tevatron

It goes in circles again.

The ions then pass into the 150 meter long linear accelerator (linac) which uses oscillating electrical fields to accelerate the ions to 400 MeV. The ions then pass through a carbon foil, to remove the electrons, and the charged protons then move into the Booster.

The Booster is a small circular magnetic accelerator, around which the protons pass up to 20,000 times to attain an energy of around 8 GeV. From the Booster the particles pass into the Main Injector, which was completed in 1999 to perform a number of tasks. It can accelerate protons up to 150 GeV; it can produce 120 GeV protons for antiproton creation; it can increase antiproton energy to 120 GeV and it can inject protons or antiprotons into the Tevatron. The antiprotons are created by the Antiproton Source. 120 GeV protons are collided with a nickel target producing a range of particles including antiprotons which can be collected and stored in the accumulator ring. The ring can then pass the antiprotons to the Main Injector.

The Tevatron can accelerate the particles from the Main Injector up to 980 GeV. The protons and antiprotons are accelerated in opposite directions, crossing paths in the CDF and DØ detectors to collide at 1.96 TeV. To hold the particles on track the Tevatron uses superconducting dipole magnets cooled in liquid helium producing 4.2 teslas.

Moving the proton around instead of the electron must be proportionately
more difficult as their weights are a factor 2000 (abt 1836) so we
spend a lot more money on power and equipment.

Any way its not the Illuminati "God" particle thats important, its the
ether around us everywhere with all the answers and energy anyone
could ever want.

Originally posted by pazcat
Good find star and flag

I just hope you havnt spawned some more 'we are all going to be sucked into a blackhole' threads

Look at the bright side. If we do it , and it does, Chicago gets it first!

jw

reply to post by Kandinsky

I appreciate that, and was really hoping CERN would hurry up and get the LHD fired up. I just love fireworks and exploring and you don't often get both together!

jw

Originally posted by TeslaandLyne
I say look to the electron and the ether.

For all we know these particles are growing out of the ether.

I kind of agree with this... at some point, something must have come from the ether... even if the ether is just a part of normal space that we don't quite understand as opposed to a magical mixing pot.

If they do find the Higgs Boson... I'd be very interested in finding out the process by which they're made... you know... who made the maker! lol
Science and Philosophy are kinda merging.

IRM