Higgs boson may be a mirage, scientists hint

Higgs boson may be a mirage, scientists hint

www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Scientists chasing a particle they believe may have played a vital role in creation of the universe indicated on Monday they were coming to accept it might not exist after all.

But they stressed that if the so-called Higgs boson turns out to have been a mirage, the way would be open for advances into territory dubbed "new physics" to try to answer one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.

The CERN research center, whose giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been the focus of the search, said it had reported to a conference in Mumbai that possible signs of the Higgs noted la

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Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Hint of Elusive Higgs Boson: An Update from the Large Hadron Collider
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Large Hadron Collider they expect to discover the Higgs boson particle by the end of 2012!
SCI/TECH: Higgs Boson Particle Possibly Found

I'll have to do some more research on the Higgs Boson particle before I can speculate as to whether this new "hint" of it being a mirage, versus the previous "hint" of it's existence is of any substantial value. (the polar opposite of hinting done by the scientist "looking" for it). I do find it pretty interesting that it was marketed, and dubbed the "God" particle, and now scientists are suggesting this particle is just a mirage. I'm sure there are some layman experts on particle physics, or maybe some professional experts on this, and I'd like to hear what you think about this turn around in a number (number unknown) of scientists who believe they've been duped by what they've called a "mirage."

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It is true the Higgs boson may not exist at all. Unfortunately using the idea to bolster the theory that this particle is what gives matter 'mass' is questionable... since we can't find it.

Here's some more info for your research....

physicsworld.com...

www.newscientist.com...


Mind you... some of the comments below the article are classic!

So far the LHC has found:

no string/brane exotica,
no sparticles,
no WIMPs,
no supersymmetry exotica,
no extra-dimensions,
no mini-black holes,
no Randall-Sundrum gravitons,
no porker Higgsy,
and nothing beyond the considerably pre-LHC standard model, which has 26-30 adjustable parameters.
Then there is the 120 orders-of-magnitude vacuum energy density crisis.

The relevant question is: Do we keep adding epicycles to the faltering aged paradigm, or do we seek a revolutionary new paradigm?

and this...

I have been saying that there is no Higgs particle for a long time now in comments on articles that have appeared in the past on the Higgs. In fact I believe that most scientists suspected this because the range of likely masses for it had already been tested by the Tevatron and other detectors, long before the LHC was built. Thus the justification for the LHC itself is highly dubious. Was that the best way to spend such a colossal amount of resources? Also I do not think the Graviton will be found either. The Standard model is in error to assume the existence of either so called particle. Instead I think we should be looking at extending the Big Bang model to incorporate the survival, not annihilation of antimatter. Mass and Gravity may well be the result of the interaction between matter and dark matter(which I hold to be antimatter suspended in an alternate quantum phase)

Apart from any of this I find it highly paradoxical, that the Higgs which is supposed to give particles mass, also has mass.Where did it's mass come from? (and I don't accept the answer "from another type of Higgs")

The hunt continues....

so the whole thing was a waste of money?


serves them right.

looking for the "god particle" lol! fairly ironic, don't ya think?

2011, we unlocked the secrets of the universe!!! ooooooooooook.

maybe in a 1000yrs we can really get somewhere.


exceed the speed of light and then see what happens.

till then we are still in the stone age with these experiments.

just learned to fly 100yo.

Apart from any of this I find it highly paradoxical, that the Higgs which is supposed to give particles mass, also has mass.Where did it's mass come from? (and I don't accept the answer "from another type of Higgs")

One of the laws of thermodynamics which has always bothered me, and was reminded by your above quoted post, is that matter cannot be created, or destroyed; however, this seems contradictory to existence.

I think the big bang, and big crunch model of our universe is a pretty good one, it's simple in design and simple in it's answer to creation/destruction of our universe following suit to Occam's Razor, but the big question is "how" did this cycle process begin?

This cycle of creation/destruction of the universe IS a cycle, and although we can ascertain that the creation of matter came from the big bang, and the big bang was created by a previous big crunch of our previous universe, it still stands to reason, that there has to have been a singular creative event which came into existence, to enable the cycle of crunch-banging.

It's my personal opinion, that the further, and harder scientist dig, the more confused they will become. It's like comparing a viewer of a fractal so vast and large, believing it will lead them to a different picture, if they just keep going further, and deeper into the fractal, unaware they are viewing a looping process, until one day they say, "Hey, we're going in circles! Now we ask, not where this path leads, or how it began, but what created this?"

I too don't really think the CERN LHC is for what they say it is. This is going out on a limb, but what kind of really weird things were happening on the earth (weather events in particular) BEFORE they fired up the CERNLHC?

I don't know a lot about particle physics, or by any means an expert on the CERN LHC, but I do remember some scientist speculating it was a bad idea to fire it up, implying microsingularities would shoot out, orbit the earth's core, and congregate eventually into spaces where they would cluster, and get bigger in time, but other scientists said that although this event would happen (creation of micro-singularities), the ones created would evaporate so quickly, they'd be of no consequence.

I hope they found what they were looking for at CERN, and not at any great cost. Thanks for the info..

The entire universe is an illusion, not just the Higgs. The electric universe is looking sexier and sexier as I get older and wiser.

Originally posted by BIGPoJo
The entire universe is an illusion, not just the Higgs. The electric universe is looking sexier and sexier as I get older and wiser.

Hindus have been saying the same thing for a long time, referring to this perception of our universe existing as "Maya"

Maya (Sanskrit माया māyāa[›]), in Indian religions, has multiple meanings, usually quoted as "illusion", centered on the fact that we do not experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by us. Maya is the principal deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics, this manifestation is real.[1] Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity, is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body (refer bodymind), is the result of an unenlightened perspective.

I am in agreement, my question is why?

en.wikipedia.org...

This theory is also supported in great detail in a book, The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, one of my favorite books.

Talbot's book The Holographic Universe, which has become his most popular,[4] explores the metaphysical implications that underline quantum mechanics and suggests that the universe is a hologram (metaphorically speaking). After examining the work of physicist David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, both of whom independently arrived at holographic theories or models of the universe, the book argues that a holographic model could possibly explain supersymmetry and also various paranormal and anomalous phenomena and is the basis for mystical experience.

reply to post by Maxmars


haha the commets are spot on.

If the Higgs gives mass to everything, then what gives mass to the Higgs or how the hell can something out of nothing give mass to everything?

And no, I don't want some fancy mathematical proof which says the Higgs Boson is JUST IS AS IT IS, because thats entirely avoiding the fundamental question we constantly debate with Religion-ists.

reply to post by fooks


If we don't do the experiments then we will never know. It was not a waste of time or money, if it turns out to be the case as stated in the article then it was a huge find as it will result in a lot more research and eventually it will deepen our understanding of the universe.

reply to post by N34Li3Z


To transmute elements on the side? Your guess is as good as mine... Another question: What Universal System is in place to generate the type of interference patterns we experience within the energy field.

Btw, they haven't found mini-black holes because they're searching for a mass.

What amuses me the most about CERN is the vast amount of dry professors trying to unlock such secrets. perhaps we are only allowed to unravel information at an alloted pace?

I agree.

But I think many are using this occasion to trumpet their pseudo-science and BS theories onto everyone else. I happen to believe that whatever comes out of this, eventually, is going to be a lot more mundane and boring than people are hoping for. We don't progress through a couple hundred years of science and then just abandon it. There's a method and reasoning to what's going on underneath. Maybe there's something somewhere that's just bigger than we realized or maybe smaller. Either way, it won't fundamentally change our theories.

I know my opinion isn't FUN or exciting, but science isn't always either.

Good article This is what science is all about, a paradigm shift in physics would sure be interesting. We are not there yet but these are interesting times to be alive in for sure.

reply to post by N34Li3Z


Explanation: S&F!

CERN's statement said new results, which updated findings that caused excitement at another scientific gathering in Grenoble last month, "show that the elusive Higgs particle, if it exists, is running out of places to hide."

IT's The OBSERVER, who does what...? Oh yes... COLLAPSES the wave function [ie giving it gravita in more ways than one] that is the Higgs Boson and no wonder they can't find it as they ARE it!

Personal Disclosure: If they are ignoring the basic premise of QM theory then no wonder they are wasting their time and our $$$. :shk:

This is how science is supposed to work. You have a hypothesis and you look for evidence to support or disprove it. In this case it looks like there is lacking evidence for the Higgs boson, so it doesn't become a theory.

But there are already a half-dozen or so alternatives to the Higgs Boson. I can just see physicists frantically scribbling arcane equations on blackboards (or Ipads).

Alternatives to the Higgs boson

I like Stephen Hawking's "virtual black holes' hypothesis and the tecnicolor hypothesis put forward by the soon to be decommissioned Fermilab Tevatron collider team in Illinois. It gets curiouser and curiouser

The good news is that we didn't blow half the planet up with the LHC. The bad news is that it hasn't found not one exotic anything yet.

The Higgs may still exists. They just ruled out certain energy regions, which makes it less likely that it does, but the jury is still out.

Peter Woit is a good guy to follow for a critical analysis of the latest results:

•No Higgs above 145 GeV
•In the region 135-145 GeV, both experiments are seeing somewhat more events than expected from background, but less than expected if there really was a Higgs there.
•Not enough data to say anything about 115-135 GeV, the Higgs could still be hiding there. If so, a malicious deity has carefully chosen the Higgs mass to make it as hard as possible for physicists to study it.

So, the Higgs may still lie in between 115-135 GeV region, but that is the hardest region to be able to pick up the Higgs signal out of the background noise. Still, we should know by the end of next year if the Higgs lies on that range. If not, kiss the Higgs goodbye.

As to why the prior Higgs results have weakened in the 135-145 GeV reigion with this latest release of data analysis, earlier they were seeing somewhat more events than expected from background in the data, but the data set was smaller. More data would either statistically strengthen the signal, making it stand out from the background even more, or diminish the signal to statistical insignificance. More of the latter is what actually happened with the latest data set, making it unlikely it's the Higgs.

Peter Woit's Not Even Wrong Blog

Originally posted by OmegaLogos
reply to post by N34Li3Z

 

Explanation: S&F!

CERN's statement said new results, which updated findings that caused excitement at another scientific gathering in Grenoble last month, "show that the elusive Higgs particle, if it exists, is running out of places to hide."

IT's The OBSERVER, who does what...? Oh yes... COLLAPSES the wave function [ie giving it gravita in more ways than one] that is the Higgs Boson and no wonder they can't find it as they ARE it!

Personal Disclosure: If they are ignoring the basic premise of QM theory then no wonder they are wasting their time and our $$$.

:shk:

edit on 23-8-2011 by OmegaLogos because: Edited to fix spelling.

Who collapsed wave functions before humanity was around to do so? What if no one is here to perceive a wave function? When will it collapse? See the problem with the current quantum model?

The more 'exotic' science claims the universe to be, the more contrived and unbelievable it becomes. What we have is ad-hock, band-aid science for a flawed model (see dark matter, dark energy, dark flow, higher dimensions, branes etc). These things are just metaphors for what are essentially massive gaps in our knowledge/understanding of how the universe works.

I personally believe the riddle of the universes existence is more than likely a simple and elegant answer. That just won't do though. Too many jobs depend on it being otherwise.

IRM

Originally posted by BIGPoJo
Who collapsed wave functions before humanity was around to do so? What if no one is here to perceive a wave function? When will it collapse? See the problem with the current quantum model?

There is actually one interpretation to quantum mechanics that specifically address this question. The idea is that the universe did not have a solid history before consciousness existed. It existed in a type of flux of quantum superpositions, similar to how any single quantum particle exists in a superposition of states.

At the point at which consciousness was born, that very act of nascent initial awareness (or observation), collapsed the entire Universe on one particular history, in a similar fashion of how measuring (observing) the spin of the electron, which is initially in a superposition of spin up and spin down, collapses it's wavefunction on one or the other. Before the measurement though, there is no solid history on what spin the electron had at different points in time. It only existed as a set of potentialities.

Of course, another (even more) extreme view is that the entire Universe is conscious and therefore there has always been an observer, right rom the beginning. Call it God if you will ....

reply to post by BIGPoJo


Explanation: I have discussed this before on ATS often and its this simple...

ALL sets [a set = a single state of reality] including a null set [which is a rare state] ... must self assess its own self so as to retain integrity of its state or its state is uncertain and uncertainty allows for dynamic movement.

Therefor even a nothing i.e a null set ... must self assess and as soon as it does that it REALIZES that it can not be [nature abhores a vacuum aka boring] and as no other laws yet exist [because this is pre big bang and the law of thermodynamics doesnt exist..yet] it can do anything to fill that void ... because from an observers point of view ..nothing is VERY VERY BORING and so it confabulates and hey presto suddenly EVERTHING was and it then unfolded that reality like opening a book and began reading it in depth and detail.

Personal Disclosure: Einstein wanted to know the answer to TWO questions...

Did God have any choice in making creation?

AND ...

Does God play dice with the universe?

And if he had the answers to those two questions he would then KNOW the mind of God!

The ANSWERS are as follows....

1] No! Due to autoself creation which happens automatically God had no choice ... but only there and only then and the reverse is true post big bang.

2] Yes! They are Loaded! because God knows everything and so biases the outcome when collapsing the wave function by observing themselves.

Personal Disclosure: There were very few laws governing the pre-big bang state and the main one was the logical NOT function.