Once produced, the Higgs boson would decay very quickly
Posted on 03/11/2004 4:45:23 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics - the Higgs boson - may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak.
Peter Renton, of the University of Oxford, says the particle may have been detected by researchers at an atom-smashing facility in Switzerland.
The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter.
Dr Renton's assessment of the Higgs hunt is published in Nature magazine.
"There's certainly evidence for something, whether it's the Higgs boson is questionable," Dr Renton, a particle physicist at Oxford, told BBC News Online.
"It's compatible with the Higgs boson certainly, but only a direct observation would show that."
If correct, Dr Renton's assessment would place the elusive particle's mass at about 115 gigaelectronvolts.
Once produced, the Higgs boson would decay very quickly
Unstable particle
This comes from a signal obtained at the large electron positron collider (LEP) in Geneva, Switzerland, which has now been dismantled to make way for its replacement - the large hadron collider (LHC).
However, there is a 9% probability that the signal could be background "noise".
Before the LEP accelerator was decommissioned, physicists used it to send particles called electrons and positrons careering in opposite directions around its circular pipe, which had a circumference of about 27km.
When these particles collided, they created bursts of high energy. Such collisions themselves are too small to study but new, heavier particles can appear amongst the debris.
The Higgs boson is thought to be highly unstable and, once produced, should quickly decay.
Dr Renton cites indirect evidence taken from observations of the behaviour of other particles in colliders that agrees with the figure of 115 gigaelectronvolts for the mass of the Higgs boson.
"It's controversial. The data is possibly indicative, but it needs confirmation," said Bryan Webber, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge.
"Its mass is right at the maximum energy they could run the [LEP] at. But the indirect indications are that the Higgs boson should be close to that value."
The LEP's huge ring was used to study the particles in our universe
Mass giver
Physicists have observed 16 particles that make up all matter under the Standard Model of fundamental particles and interactions.
But the sums do not quite add up for the Standard Model to be true if these particles are considered alone. If only 16 particles existed, they would have no mass - contradicting what we know to be true in nature.
Another particle has to give them this mass. Enter the Higgs boson, first proposed by University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs and colleagues in the late 1960s.
Their theory was that all particles acquire their mass through interactions with an all-pervading field, called the Higgs field, which is carried by the Higgs boson.
The Higgs' importance to the Standard Model has led some to dub it the "God particle".
Dr Renton said he hoped that once the large hadron collider was up and running in 2007, the Higgs boson would be detected within a year or two.
The LHC is a more energetic accelerator which will allow a much higher mass range to be explored. It will also be capable of producing much more intense particle beams which means that data can be aggregated much faster.
Why is it libertarians are so willing to use technology developed up to this point and forego the rest? Honestly, what would an island (or Rand's hidden valley) full of libertarians consist of, if they had to start from scratch?
You Libertarian haters conveniently ignore the fact that the most expensive and the lowest quality way to get anything done is to do it through government. If the untold billions of dollars wasted by the government fed hogs at the scientific research trough had been available to private industry we'd have a whole lot more to show for it.*
Or are you one of these people who believe that without the NEA there is no art and without NIH, NASA, etc. there is no science.
Read Bastiat
*Look at the difference in government schools and private schools, the post office and UPS etc.
I'm pretty sure (just a guess, mind you, but an educated one) that the first spear point was developed without a government grant, and was actually the product of private industry.
It was a case of using private technological innovation to bring supply to a pent-up market.
When it's energy... but then massless isn't a particularly helpful concept since energy has relativistic mass... but then trying to completely separate the concepts of mass and energy is sort of... misleading ...nevermind.
*Now before you go on a rant concerning technologies that were invented and realized 50+ years ago, I'll advise you to stick to modern times - we don't live 50 years ago.
Cool. Is it jewish, christian, muslim or buddhist?
Just not true. Real scientific leaps don't require government funding. The transistor was NOT government funded but developed at Bell labs. The training of scientists does not require government funding. Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
Do you think Intel isn't doing any research? Government funding distorts the research marketplace just like it distorts everything else. Money is spent on useless, but communist "politically correct" things, like electric vehicles.
Do you hate all science?
After the end of World War II, Kelly put together a team of scientists to develop a solid-state semiconductor switch to replace the problematic vacuum tube.The team would use some of the advances in semiconductor research during the war that had made radar possible.
Hrm. Odd, they specifically cite government funded vacuum-tube computing devices as the basis for their improvement, as well as preliminary semiconductor research. They basically improved upon a design already developed by (gasp) our government! But let's read on:
In the 1950s and 1960s, most U.S. companies chose to focus their attentions on the military market in producing transistor products.
It appears that the companies that developed the transistor needed government resources to maintain profitability. Interesting, no?
But, before you quote mine me AGAIN, I didn't say individual scientists didn't make leaps, I said the vast majority of leaps made REQUIRE government resources to develop AND realize. They are two very distinct and difficult things to achieve.The vast majority of private companies cannot maintain profitability while researching cutting edge techonolgies. The companies you site spend the majority of their budgets improving on established designs.
Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
You're right, however, let's take a look at where the funding comes from for all those schools. Is it tuition? Don't be daft. Is it corporate funding? A little bit. The majority? You guessed it: government grants. Are you for pulling state/federal funding to universities?
No
Do you hate everyone who is not a reciever of looted wealth?
You're lucky. I caught a bad case of Greens once, and it took a visit to the doctor's office, a delousing bath, and three weeks of a nasty blue-colored ointment to get rid of them.
Oh, the drama. Shall we eliminate ALL taxes then?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.