Higgs boson found, perhaps

Link.

Sounds like this year is being pretty dense in terms of yet-to-be-verified groundbreaking results!

This is not quite as unexpected as the "FTL neutrinos" result, but — if verified — it's more than a little impressive nonetheless.

It's all fun and games until someone causes a Game-Breaking Bug! You'll know all about it when lorry's begin reversing at warp speed, wild animals turn into glitchy blocks and Golfers become manifestations of the devine!

edited 13th Dec '11 8:28:59 AM by TheBatPencil

Good to hear. I figured they'd come through eventually, but it's good to see progress.

So if the Higgs is confirming physics as we know it does that mean that the neutrino thing is less likely or are the two unrelated?

As I understand it, they're unrelated.

Higgs is about gravity, while the Neutrino thing is about relativity.

It's...complicated. It may be that nuetrinos, despite having mass, are somehow cloaking their mass from the effects of gravity and thus are not subject to relativity - possibly by having mass but its in another dimension. If anything, its a point in favor of string theory.

But frankly, I'm no expert on it myself, as I'm still doing Newtonian physics.

Higgs boson is not special in same way as FTL neutrino.

FTL neutrino: Wait what that's against the laws of physics? WTF is going on?

Higgs boson: TAKE THAT FUCKERS! We said it exist!

Tough I am not sure what we can do with it... Except it might prove/explain why particles have mass. Also it is only predicted particle that has not yet been observed, if we don't coun't this.

I'm just happy that the Large Hard-on Collider is finally giving some awesome results.

I remember reading about it when it wasn't even done being constructed and I was so excited about what kind of things we could learn through it.

What is this, exactly? Sounds familiar.

Also, where is the LHC? I honestly forgot...

holyhoylhoylholyholyshit

1. The particle responsible for gravity (or was it mass?)

2. Geneva, Switzerland.

Hm. Cool, I guess.

Nada, Higgs is for mass and inertia. But it will become about gravity if they keep researching it.

Now, applications?

I can't speak to the science bit, but I came in here to remark on how great it is that everything that has anything to do with science for the past 50 years has to end with some variation on "... maybe"

"The d shell won't contribute any valence electrons... usually."

"There's this crazy unobservable stuff that makes up like 90% of our universe... probably."

"Neon gasses don't react... sometimes."

Higgs is for mass and inertia.

I know, it's great isn't it? Maybe mass media is finally catching on to the idea that science involves falsifiable models built from mountains of evidence instead of rigid, absolute answers.

edited 14th Dec '11 1:23:25 PM by darksidevoid

It's going to take a while before they're sure they've found what they thing they've found. Still, they know they're close.

The FTL neutrinos have already been debunked. I'd link to a page, but a google search brings up enough hits that I couldn't choose between them. That should tell you something about the state of science reporting, that when a surprising and anomalous result is found, the whole public hears about it, but when it's comprehensively debunked by multiple independent teams, hardly anyone takes notice.

edited 6th Jul '12 7:28:30 AM by Desertopa

This thread is pretty old — it dates back to the time in which the neutrino thing was still open. But yes, that's been debunked now.