Announcement from CERN on 7/4 about Higgs Boson

[nick c]

"Today CERN announced there will be an announcement regarding the progress in verifying the existence of The Higgs Boson on July 4, 2012. "Born on the 4th of July" is how one scientist describes it."


Hi to all. I have read here, many times, over the last couple of years that there was scant evidence that the "god particle" would be found. I'm certainly not trolling for reactions but I would honestly like to know from members of the EU community, who are vastly more informed than I am (a humble electronics engineer) what is going on at CERN?

Do they really think that they have found the Higgs Boson? Does this, if correct, conflict with the EU theory? I have not heard this mentioned at the thunderbolts forum, so I am just asking the question.

Thank You
Tom Cipollone

[Lloyd]

* The EU experts seem to call the Higgs boson a mythical creature. Here are articles and threads where it's been discussed on this website: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&biw=939&bih=419&sclient=psy-ab&q=Higgs+Boson+site:http%3A%2F%2Fthunderbolts.info.

[neilwilkes]

Tom, I think they key phrase in that announcement is

there will be an announcement regarding the progress in verifying the existence of The Higgs Boson

.
If you read carefully it is a very guarded statement that promises much but prepares for delivering very little. An announcement regarding "the progress" to me implies an excuse or two will soon be forthcoming followed by a lot of new assumptions & wild guesses and requests for more research with bigger, faster colliders.

[Aardwolf]

They just need more money.

[303vegas]

i think there needs to be an enquiry into cern and its cost-effectivness. in these financially tight times it seems profoundly wasteful to be spending vast ammounts of cash looking for atomic fragments with no visible benefit to mankind. what are they gonna do with it if they ever find it? i can't think of any genuine use.

[sjw40364]

Yes, very difficult to make ends meet on only 20 billion or so. They will let the public know they have discovered tantalizing evidence of its existence, but further research will be needed to confirm this. Of course further research means more grants and public funding. Notice its not that they haven't found something, but whether or not it's the Higgs or some other exotic particle is in question. If it ends up something else, the Higgs will be downplayed and we will be informed about how important this new discovery is. CERN must be validated as a viable project.

[Marnee]

Just keep moving the goal posts, aye?

[tayga]

They just need more money.

You, Sir, have hit the nail on the head. I expect "No joy yet. We need more power."

Can we just say no?

[tayga]

... no visible benefit to mankind. what are they gonna do with it if they ever find it? i can't think of any genuine use.

And that pretty much sums up 20th and 21st Century Physics right there.

[sjw40364]

The problem is the engineers engineer and the theorists theorize, and never the two meet. It's when the engineers start doing astronomy and cosmology that things start getting puzzled out. The one thing the EU has going for it. Most astronomers have very little practical background in say for example, plasma science: 99.99% of the Universe.

I'm not a rocket scientist, just a 3D modeler and designer, but even I know if something is 99.99% of one thing it might be best to study up on it

[303vegas]

Thanks Tayga.

Y'know what? If a builder tried it on in the same way that cern do you'd tell them to get stuffed. Just 'cos they're supposedly good at maths they think they can take the piss.

[orrery]

No doubt, they have put their biased researcher in charge as the director of the institute and he'll announce a HB discovery even if no such discovery has been made. Naturally, no facility will be able to reproduce the finding but will all be trained on how to "interpret" certain points of data.

[saul]

... no visible benefit to mankind. what are they gonna do with it if they ever find it? i can't think of any genuine use.

And that pretty much sums up 20th and 21st Century Physics right there.

Seems like you all are missing the real point of supporting physics research. Your claims that CERN is not useful are particularly non-resonant when they are relayed with httpd. Hint: Where did the world wide web come from? (Answer: CERN) Ever hear of Beowulf clusters? (Thanks CERN) Sure, an obscure indirect confirmation that the Higgs Boson exists isn't going to change your life. But the "Lemon" monitoring software they developed to keep track of all the sensors is already used in other applications. Maybe you will find something else useful in their 11,000 websites.

If we are here to complain about government waste, there are a few better places to start. I for one say: give them the money.

[tayga]

... no visible benefit to mankind. what are they gonna do with it if they ever find it? i can't think of any genuine use.

And that pretty much sums up 20th and 21st Century Physics right there.

Seems like you all are missing the real point of supporting physics research. Your claims that CERN is not useful are particularly non-resonant when they are relayed with httpd. Hint: Where did the world wide web come from? (Answer: CERN) Ever hear of Beowulf clusters? (Thanks CERN) Sure, an obscure indirect confirmation that the Higgs Boson exists isn't going to change your life. But the "Lemon" monitoring software they developed to keep track of all the sensors is already used in other applications. Maybe you will find something else useful in their 11,000 websites.

If we are here to complain about government waste, there are a few better places to start. I for one say: give them the money.

Saul, like many apologists you are confusing 20th/21st Century technology, based on 19th Century physics, with the so-called physics of the same period.

I think that Tim Berners-Lee's contribution to the evolution of human society is epoch-making and it came out of CERN. However, it has nothing to do with modern physics per se.

[Solar]

If we are here to complain about government waste, there are a few better places to start. I for one say: give them the money.

It would be a nice option; were in fact “give” an actual voluntary option. Unfortunately; it isn’t.

Anyways, some general thoughts to no one in particular:

I guess I’m still wondering what the big deal is. It is a monumental and unnecessary expense for my taste because it simply posits, like so many other theories, a “universal field concept”. This time we have a ‘mass field’ of ‘field of mass’. It seems to me that hurtling particles at one another at various energies is bound to show some fleeting temporary form of what one is looking for at some point as those energies are adjusted accordingly. Some discussion from last year:

This is a challenging experiment as the detectors can’t see the Higgs particle directly—it is a short-lived particle that quickly falls apart (decays)—but, rather, they infer its presence by seeing its decay products. (Watch here, as physicist and ATLAS researcher Monica Dunford explains this process of inferring new possible particle – Brian Green

This supposed “particle” is not directly observable; its inferred based on decays. Here are Brian Green and L. Krauss briefly discussing some of the implications of potentially ‘verifying’ or ‘finding’ (careful of the wording there) via inference the inferred existence of this “Higgs particle “which is not really a particle but more so a ‘ripple’ in the “Higgs field”:

Brian Greene and Lawrence Krauss on CERN’s Higgs Announcement

The most important implication is mentioned right off the bat with the very first reply to a viewer’s question regarding several other theories that utilize the concept of a ‘universal field’ and to me it’s very significant:

We have no other example of a field like this; a fundamental scalar field that is uniform throughout space as far as we can tell. It’s a remarkable postulate; truly remarkable and uh… in some sense this now indeed does give, certainly me, more confidence that such a thing is a possibility. Until then there have been lots of examples of composite phenomena that look like this but nothing fundamental like this. So I… It certainly bolsters my confidence. – Krauss

The “Higgs field” (‘scalar field’) is a postulate that is nothing more than a theoretical variation upon the Aether concept. As many know conceptions of the Aether likewise posits a ‘universal field’ or ‘universal essence’ by way of which particles acquire their substance and sustenance. So, how does one explain the origin of “mass”? One simply invents a ‘universal field’ consisting of quantum “particles” (or “ripples”) of much greater “mass” which smaller particles can supposedly ‘couple to’ as they interact with said “field”. The electromagnetic field has its quantum particle i.e. the “photon” so why not invent a likewise “field” for “mass”.

How is trying to explain the acquisition of “mass” as being the result of interactions with a hypothetical “field” of particles having greater “mass” supposed to be an explanation for how particles acquire their “mass”? That doesn’t seem explain the supposed ‘origin’ and/or acquisition of “mass”’. Yet, the Aether (“charge”) functions along similar lines in some respects but it is not by way of a ‘coupling’ dynamic.

L. Krauss goes on to assert that Life and Existence is all just a happy accident - “We’re only here because we have mass; and it’s because of the Higgs field”. This is like listening to an astrophysicist who asserts that ‘We’re only here because we are stardust’. Or, ‘We’re only here because there are neutrinos’ – or something. Then:

I’m amazed if it’s there because it’s really a theoretical edifice that’s been built over fifty years that requires something fantastical: this field throughout space and it seems almost too good to be true.

Those who espouse the existence of Aether have proposed this fundamental for centuries and little known, or understood as such, a variety of the most ancient mythologies across the globe utilize metaphor and allegory in relation to the activities of said Fundamental Substance predating even the origin of the conceptual term ‘Aether’ via Aristotle. Where hast thou been? And then:

When you’re a theoretical physicist like the two of us its weird when you’re sitting around at night and you invent something; to think that maybe Nature accepts that, or follows that rule.

… “Invent” something? The effort only reinvents the age’s old concept of the Aether whether termed as such; or not, similar in fashion to Einstein’s reinvention of same as a “space time fabric”. Ten or twenty billion dollars is being spent to postulate by way of inference the same basic fundamental principle?? Seriously? And then; the shameless plug from B. Green (I actually like B.Green):

Certainly from the perspective of convincing funding agencies to continue this line of research it’s better to have something that you can point to than something that is a null result; we’re excited about that.

Well of course, as long as funding is continued so that physicist can have a feel good moment about even the inference of a ‘universal field’ even though the same idea had been put forth long ago. Next up, Supersymmetry, which doubles the number of “particles” in the particle zoo again with “superpartners”, waiting in the wings to justify the continued funding and the further pursuit of more “mass”-ively expensive and fantastically short-lived ‘inference findings’. Can anyone spare a few moments to solve the supposed “energy crisis” with any of these inferred 'findings'?

So, consider this brief comparison:

A charged particle inevitably produces an electric potential around it, and it also feels the potential created by itself. This leads to an infinite "self-energy" of the electron.

(...)

Once there exists anti-matter, which can annihilate matter or be created with matter, what we consider to be an empty vacuum undergoes a fluctuation to produce a pair of electron and positron together with photon, annihilating back to vacuum within the time interval allowed by the uncertainty principle (a). In addition to the effect of the electric potential on itself (b), the electron can annihilate with a positron in the fluctuation, leaving the electon originally in the fluctuation to materialize as a real electron (c). It turns out, these two contributions to the energy of the electron almost nearly cancel with each other. The small size of the electron was made consistent with electromagnetism thanks to quantum mechanics and the existence of anti-matter. – Introduction to Supersymmetry

Key concepts underlined: Yet, for someone to put forth the Aether and posit that the One Primary Substance undergoes Motion (‘fluctuations” above) to such extent that from ‘self-induced’-‘self-differentiations’ (“self-energy” above) due to these Motions, “matter” (“real electrons” above as an example) may be ‘precipitated’ or ‘materialize’ (just as described above) - destined to return to That Source (“annihilating back to the vacuum” above) that the cycle continues - becomes somehow unusual?? How so when this is principally and conceptually what has been put forth in other terms?

Consider it again:

The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance." - Nikola Tesla

By the power of Philosophy, Experiment, and Reason the existence of a Fundamental Essence was derived long before latter-day “modern physics”. The principle of a fundamental “universal field”, as a principle, is not new and far greater work has been done with much less and NO public dollars (Nikola Tesla, Aetherometry & Eric Dollard etc). Goodness me Tesla had nothing but brass, copper, and wood but far greater noble aims having come to the same conclusion.

I don't mean to sound cynical but am I missing something (?) - because I’m seriously not impressed with any of this. Someone help me out here.

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child. - Shakespeare