Scientists to unveil proof of 'God particle'

[Claire Diviner]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/scientists-unveil-proof-god-particle-165431909.html

This is as big as the, well, big bang theory: Scientists working at the world's largest atom smasher say they have enough evidence of the long-sought-after Higgs boson.

To the layman, the Higgs boson is the "God particle" and a key puzzle piece in the scientific explanation of the origin of the universe. Physicists around the globe—and perhaps elsewhere, given the size of the universe—have invested billions of dollars in research and have been hunting for the Higgs boson for decades.

Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) are expected to announce Wednesday that they have proof of its existence, reports The Associated Press.

The Higgs boson appeared 13.7 billion years ago in the chaos of the Big Bang and turned the flying debris into galaxies, stars and planets.

Its formal discovery, according to a broad scientific consensus, would be the greatest advance in knowledge of the universe in decades and a key to confirming the standard model of physics that explains what gives mass to matter and, by extension, how the universe was formed, according to the AP.

Rutgers University physicist Matt Strassler told Reuters that without the particle, "nothing like human beings, or the earth we live on, could exist."

Physicist Joseph Lykken of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago explained in an interview with National Public Radio the difficulty for physicists in tracking down Higgs boson.

"We think the Higgs boson is a manifestation of the fact that the universe is filled with a force that we haven't been able to detect yet that gives other particles mass," Lykken told NPR. "It exists for a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second, or something like that, and then falls apart into other particles."

Thus, scientists are in a bit of a quagmire, according to the AP. While they appear to have enough evidence to report the existence of the "God particle," they still hedge on whether to report "a discovery." It's a fine line, indeed, but one that scientists will likely continue to debate.

"I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, 'It looks like a discovery,'" British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King's College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s, told The Associated Press. "We've discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs."

Oh, those wacky scientists.

And here we go. Please, no flaming.

 

[Jim Morrison]

Aw snap, I've got something to look forward to wednesday!

 

[rinisan]

But where do those Higgs origin from? This is a never ending quest.

 

[UltiMario]

Does the media really think America is so stupid that they can't make an announcement on the Higgs particle with its own damn name, and have to inflate it with "God Particle?"

Makes me sick.

But yeah. Saw this earlier. **** yeah science.

 

[Claire Diviner]

Does the media really think America is so stupid that they can't make an announcement on the Higgs particle with its own damn name, and have to inflate it with "God Particle?"

Makes me sick.

I can understand the argument, though it wouldn't surprise me if there are more people who know not what the Higgs boson is than those who do, so "God particle" is what I'd like to think as a simplistic term for those who aren't scientific term-savvy.

I wonder if their unveiling could have the potential to rewrite history, and change how people understand how we came to be.

 

[Mr. Johan]

Scientists didn't even want the "God Particle" name to stick. They dubbed it the "Goddamn Particle" because it was so damn hard to locate.

Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team, told Reuters:

“I hate that ‘God particle’ term…. The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. It is ridiculous to call it that.”

Oliver Buchmueller, another Higgs hunter, said:

“Calling it the ‘God particle’ is completely inappropriate… It’s not doing justice to the Higgs and what we think its role in the universe is. It has nothing to do with God.”

According to the Economist, the Higgs Boson was dubbed the “Goddamn Particle” by Leon Lederman since it was seemingly impossible to isolate. Lederman, a leading researcher in the field, wanted to title his book “The Goddamn Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?” But his editor decided that the title was too controversial and convinced Lederman to change the title to “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?”

And since the Higgs Boson deals with how matter was formed at the time of the big bang, and since newspapers loved the term, the myth of “God” particle was born.

Pippa Wells, another CERN scientist, said:

“Without (the Higgs Boson), or something like it, particles would just have remained whizzing around the universe at the speed of light… Hearing it called the ‘God particle’ makes me angry. It confuses people about what we are trying to do here at CERN.”

James Gillies, spokesman for CERN, said that most scientists don’t like the term “god particle” but admitted that the term does make a bit of sense when referring to the Higgs Boson.

Gillies said:

“Of course it has nothing to do with God whatsoever… But I can understand why people go that way because the Higgs is so important to our understanding of nature.”

http://www.inquisitr.com/267872/the...icle-and-the-higgs-boson/#qR021ZXYegx1lGkI.99


Anyway, can't wait for Wednesday.

 

[Luigitoilet]

But where do those Higgs origin from? This is a never ending quest.

A turtle.

|

 

[OverLord]

inb4

 

[Claire Diviner]

http://news.yahoo.com/god-particle-discovered-european-researchers-claim-discovery-higgs-101720774--abc-news-tech.html

The head of the European Center for Nuclear Research says its teams have discovered a new particle that is consistent with the Higgs boson -- a subatomic particle considered so significant to the understanding of the universe that it has been called the God particle.

"We have a discovery [that is] consistent with a Higgs boson," Rolf Heuer, director of CERN, the European research center, said Wednesday.

Two independent teams at CERN, the physics lab in the Alps on the French-Swiss border, have now said that they have "observed" the new boson, or subatomic particle. The CERN teams did not outright say that they have discovered the Higgs boson itself, which has been the focus of a 40-plus year pursuit.

The Higgs boson, which was first proposed in the 1960s by the English physicist Peter Higgs, is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.

The international effort to find it has used tremendous amounts of energy to crash subatomic particles into one another in giant underground tracks, where they are steered by magnetic fields. Several different experiments have been done by independent teams to ensure accuracy.

Physicists say the Higgs boson would help explain how we, and the rest of the universe, exist. It would explain why the matter created in the Big Bang has mass, and can coalesce. Without it, as CERN explained in a background paper, "the universe would be a very different place ... no ordinary matter as we know it, no chemistry, no biology, and no people."

"The Higgs particle, if it's real, will show itself in different ways. We need for all of them to be consistent before we can say for sure we've seen it," Rob Roser, a physicist at the Department of Energy's Fermilab near Chicago, told said earlier this week. "This is one of the cornerstones of how we understand the universe, and if it's not there, we have to go back and check our assumptions about how the universe exists."

It is believed that Fermilab's atom smasher, called the Tevatron, must have produced thousands of Higgs particles over its life before it was shut down last year after it was overshadowed by CERN's more powerful Large Hadron Collider.

"It's up to us to try to find them in the data we have collected," Luciano Ristori, a physicist at Fermilab and the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, said in a statement earlier this week.

"We have developed sophisticated simulation and analysis programs to identify Higgs-like patterns. Still, it is easier to look for a friend's face in a sports stadium filled with 100,000 people than to search for a Higgs-like event among trillions of collisions."

 

[OverLord]

 

[rinisan]

A turtle.

|

Why turtle??