Scientists Abuzz Over Controversial Rumor that God Particle Has Been Detected

A rumor is floating around the physics community that the world's largest atom smasher may have detected a long-sought subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle." The controversial rumor is based on what appears to be a leaked internal note from physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 17-mile-long particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland. It's not entirely clear at this point if the memo is authentic, or what the data it refers to might mean — but the note already has researchers talking. The buzz started when an anonymous commenter recently posted an abstract of the note on Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit's blog, Not Even Wrong.

Physics, in its entirety has always fascinated me. I have yet to really dive deep into it's complexities however.

I just came across this article at Live Science and I find it rather intriguing. After all, if it's referred to as the "God Particle" then it must be a big deal!

I would like to learn more about this subject and I know that there are some people here that can shed light as to what this is, and what it might mean for the future of physics.

Also, I ran a search for this topic using the headline and found nothing, so here it is







I also thought this guy had a pretty good explanation David Miller


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reply to post by forall2see


I thought the LHC project was an international one.. cant see why they should hold somehing like this a secret, it would be a day to celebrate

reply to post by Vandalour


The article states that they are in the process of verifying the claims from a leaked document. They also state

Its production rate is much higher than that expected for the Higgs boson in the Standard Model," Stone told SPACE.com in an email interview. So the signal may be evidence of some other particle, Stone added, "which in some sense would be even more interesting, or it could be the result of new physics beyond the Standard Model."

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Originally posted by Vandalour
reply to post by forall2see

 

I thought the LHC project was an international one.. cant see why they should hold somehing like this a secret, it would be a day to celebrate

Some physicists say the note may be a hoax, while others believe the "detection" is likely a statistical anomaly that will disappear upon further study. But the find would be a huge particle-physics breakthrough, if it holds up.

There were quotes before about how long the data would take to process from LHC, it was a long time. So whether there is truth or not to this, we will have to wait and see. I don't think they would make an official statement until it was fully explained, and could hold up to scrutiny.

en.wikipedia.org...
www.jupiterscientific.org...
Just a couple of sources. found them on Google. Now lets see what thye do with such a particle. happy reading.

reply to post by CaDreamer


Thank you for the links. I had wiki'd it already.

Your right about happy reading I may have to wait until the sun goes down to really dive into it! It's like the glue that holds everything together from what I can see.

reply to post by forall2see


I read about this in 2008, 2009, 2010. Its somewhat scary and frightening at the same time.

reply to post by MamaJ



That's the risk of science. In the wrong hands anything can be used to create harm. I would hope that the true essence of a find such as this would be carefully considered and used for the greater good.

Imagine the instawave.... you hit the big-juicy cheeseburger button... a flash of light... DING! Grade A, quality, squishy messy burgers loaded up with all the trimmins.
Now I'm getting hungry!

It's exciting that they may have discovered the Higgs Boson particle. If confirmed, then they will need to learn how to harness it and determine what the practical applications are. If they can't do that then this is about as useful as having knowledge of a galaxy billions of light years away...it's there, but changes nothing in our world.

reply to post by Aggie Man


From the sounds of it. They may be trying to figure out the basics of how matter is formed. That being said, it would make perfect sense to say the opposite could be achieved as well. Scary thought. But risks are worth taking if it indeed leads to a better standard of life.

recently from a smaller colider in the usa
they announced a ww wz interaction that caused a small jump in energy
in a narrow band in the emition from the interaction,
has cern repeated these experiments and is this the same narrow band being effected?
does anyone remember the italian woman from the usa and her presentation?
if they have confermed the first finding then we may be looking at a new particle,
this may not be the higgs
this may be a new force creating an effect on the ww or wz
is the findings in the same narrow band of emition?

xploder

reply to post by XPLodER

This doesn’t sound like the possible detection reported from Tevatron a few days ago, and which I brought to ATS in this thread. In that instance, the data didn’t fit the Higgs profile at all; this new detection seems to be a much closer, though not perfect, fit with theory.

reply to post by forall2see


As for "what is it?", the Higgs Boson is a, still theoretical, subatomic particle that is thought to give other particles their mass. The implications of verifying it's existance could be as wild as eventually learning to manipulate the mass of objects.. Ones brain could run wild for a lifetime trying imagine the uses something so profound could have.

Please forgive the way this is going to sound but I've never really followed science very well (all a bit confusing for me unfortunately which is a shame beacuse I absolutely love it)
By the way they call this particle (God particle) are they implying that it's discovery would allow them to prove/disprove the existence of a God/creator? Stupid question I know....

Since I have little knowledge of this field of science could anyone inform me of possiblities of use one may have for a sub-atomic particle that makes up other particles that you could not do with the larger particle itself?

I am just failing to see how this would have implications larger than just the discovery of another building block of science.

reply to post by lifeissacred

No. The Higgs boson is theorized to be the carrier of the property of mass (just like the photon is the carrier of electromagnetic energy). In other words, the Higgs boson is what gives matter its fundamental property – mass. If it does really exist, it is what makes the world solid and real to us. That’s why it’s called the God particle.

*

reply to post by kro32

To quote Michael Faraday: ‘of what use, sir, is a newborn baby?’

Have a little patience.

reply to post by Astyanax


Thank you for the explanation.

2nd line..

According to a physicist who works at CERN and is on another board I visit there's probably nothing to this. Apparently a couple of scientists circumvented the normal review process to get this extremely preliminary data out. His best guess is it's a known detector effect the authors didn't take into consideration when they analyzed the data.

reply to post by Fiberx


So if we could manipulate the mass of say a really heavy space craft,and make it really close to mass-less,imagine the acceleration.
Mars and beyond,here we come!

But what if they do not find the higgs,or anything which does what the higgs is supposed to do(give mass to matter)?
What then?
Would there be another explanation that could be found using the LHC,or would they have to tear it down and make a completley different machine,to test a different theory?

Good rumor find!

I like the Wired article on it... gives a few alternative explanations of the find.

Wired article on Higgs Rumor

The purported signal could be a signature of supersymmetry, an extension of the standard model in which every particle has a “superpartner” that differs only in a quantum mechanical property called spin. Or it could be a particle that goes beyond the standard model altogether. One candidate is a hypothetical particle called the radion, which is associated with extra dimensions.