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Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of 'God Particle'
Reuters / Yahoo ^ | December 5, 2001

Posted on 12/06/2001 4:46:03 AM PST by Darth Reagan

Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of 'God Particle'

LONDON (Reuters) - After years of searching and months of sifting through data, scientists have still not found the elusive sub-atomic particle that could help to unravel the secrets of the universe, a science magazine said on Wednesday.

The Higgs boson, the missing link which could explain why matter has mass and other fundamental laws of particle physics, is still missing -- and physicists fear it may not exist.

``It's more likely than not that there is no Higgs,'' John Swain, of Northeastern University in Boston, told New Scientist magazine.

Scientists have been searching for the Higgs particle ever since Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University first proposed in the 1960s that it could explain why matter has mass.

Using the world's largest particle accelerator at the CERN (news - web sites) nuclear physics lab near Geneva, scientists had hunted for the Higgs boson, which has been dubbed the ``God particle,'' until the accelerator was closed late last year.

Accelerators hurl particles at nearly the speed of light on a collision course to break them up so scientists can study the nature of matter.

Scientists of the Electroweak Working Group at CERN, who had searched for the Higgs, said they had found no evidence of it at the energies where they had expected to find it.

``We've eliminated most of the hunting area,'' Neil Calder, of CERN, told the magazine.

New Scientist said the problem for physicists is that, without the Higgs particle, they do not have a viable theory of matter.

CERN adjourned the search for the Higgs when it closed the LEP (Large Electron-Positron) accelerator, but it is building a Large Hadron Collider that will be able to smash particles at even higher energies in 2007.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: higgs; higgsboson; kludge; peterhiggs; thereisnohiggs
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To: Physicist
New Scientist said the problem for physicists is that, without the Higgs particle, they do not have a viable theory of matter.

You guys suck. At least we programmers and analysts can get stuff working! Ha! Ha! Ha!

41 posted on 12/06/2001 6:59:37 AM PST by Lazamataz
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To: Billthedrill
It's particle physics, f'Petessake, NOT THEOLOGY.

Creationism is the Commerce Clause of theology.

42 posted on 12/06/2001 7:01:27 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: tacticalogic
Curiousity is the damnation of man. If we knew everything, we wouldn't have anything to do.

That's funny; I use the same argument to demonstrate that curiosity is the blessing of man.

43 posted on 12/06/2001 7:03:32 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Lazamataz
You guys suck. At least we programmers and analysts can get stuff working! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Oh, is that so? Well, just you think what would happen if particle physics stopped working. The vacuum would become unstable and spacetime would go all non-differentiable, and then you'd be sorry!

Quantum wavefunctions make up the roof over your head and the bread you eat, and don't you fergit it, boy.

44 posted on 12/06/2001 7:08:50 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
Oh, is that so? Well, just you think what would happen if particle physics stopped working. The vacuum would become unstable and spacetime would go all non-differentiable, and then you'd be sorry!

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have just witnessed what happens when a classicly-trained PhD in Physics threatens to hold his breath until he turns blue.

(Besides, I'd just reprogram the Sun SPARC UniverseStation to accommodate these minor design changes. ;^D )

45 posted on 12/06/2001 7:14:07 AM PST by Lazamataz
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To: Barry Goldwater
The statistical and mystical nature of physics is thrown out the window in this one.

Thanks for the cite. There has been a need for something like this accessible to the general reader . . .

46 posted on 12/06/2001 7:17:18 AM PST by AMDG&BVMH
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To: Physicist
That's funny; I use the same argument to demonstrate that curiosity is the blessing of man.

Blessing or curse, it is who we are and what we are about.

47 posted on 12/06/2001 7:19:22 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Dimensio
I'm sorry, but what does the Book of Genesis have to do with particle physics or physical science in general?

If you believe in it, just about everything.

48 posted on 12/06/2001 7:30:39 AM PST by katana
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To: Darth Reagan
Poor Atheists, looking but not finding.

Prayers for GW and the Truth!

49 posted on 12/06/2001 7:33:07 AM PST by bray
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To: Darth Reagan
Looking for G-d in all the wrong places.
50 posted on 12/06/2001 7:37:40 AM PST by hsszionist
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To: OBAFGKM
I thought they subsequently admitted to being a little hasty in that claim?

It is what it is. The result still stands, but it's not statistically strong enough to publish. Nothing can be said without more data. The usual standard in particle physics is 3 sigma to claim evidence for something, and 5 sigma to claim a discovery.

Anyway the above article seems to be their final assessment of the data, and the Higgs was nowhere to be found.

Well, that's just wrong. I don't see how anyone can make that claim. But, don't believe everything you read in the New Scientist.

If it doesn't turn up by 130Gev or so, there's going to be a lot of red-faced physicists -- claiming that it's really there because the theory says so but it must be invisible just isn't going to sit very well.

That's not the way it works, really. Most of the people who are working on this are experimentalists, and we experimentalists love a theory-killer. The holy grail of experimental physics is to discover the unexpected, or to overturn the conventional wisdom. Some theorists might be disappointed, but the results out of left field are what win the Nobel Prize.

Personally, I hope they don't find it in the hadron collider either. It would be a lot more entertaining!!

It's all one to me; I just want the truth. Nature is the way it is, and not how we would wish it to be. We don't invent it, we discover it.

51 posted on 12/06/2001 7:37:46 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Lazamataz
Besides, I'd just reprogram the Sun SPARC UniverseStation to accommodate these minor design changes.

Ha! Shows what you know. The deep, dark secret is that the universe is actually MS-DOS 3.0 under the hood.

52 posted on 12/06/2001 7:40:46 AM PST by Physicist
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To: bray
The wonderful complexity of physics is a testament to the wonder and glory of God, just as much as the outward beauty of nature is. To denigrate those who study that wonder, is to denigrate God's creation, be it a tree or a quark.
53 posted on 12/06/2001 7:43:50 AM PST by Darth Reagan
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To: Lazamataz
classicly-trained PhD in Physics threatens to hold his breath until he turns blue

Why, I'll take back my quarks and leptons and go singular!

54 posted on 12/06/2001 7:44:48 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
Ha! Shows what you know. The deep, dark secret is that the universe is actually MS-DOS 3.0 under the hood.

AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

You are cruel.

55 posted on 12/06/2001 7:49:28 AM PST by Lazamataz
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To: Alas
That is because they have not looked in the right place, all they need do is read Genesis one and two.

I looked in there, but it didn't explain the hierarchy of gauge coupling strengths. So unless God has some supplementary texts for us, we still need to do experiments if we want to be able to do useful calculations.

56 posted on 12/06/2001 7:51:20 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Darth Reagan
Scientists have been searching for the Higgs particle ever since Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University first proposed in the 1960s that it could explain why matter has mass.

Point of scientific accuracy: the Higgs mechanism may explain why quarks and leptons have mass. Most of the mass of ordinary matter, however, comes from protons and neutrons, and they don't get their mass via the Higgs mechanism, but through quantum chromodynamics. (You can't just add up quark masses to get the proton and neutron masses).

57 posted on 12/06/2001 7:58:52 AM PST by Physicist
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To: Physicist
"Well, that's just wrong. I don't see how anyone can make that claim. But, don't believe everything you read in the New Scientist."

Don't take my word for it, Bozo. Read the papers coming out of the EWWG. Their first take on having found an H was at about a 97% confidence level. After they went back and got the background noise right it was more like 80% minus. Given that they only had around a dozen events to look at, they backtracked posthaste.

If a Higgs doesn't show up by 130Gev, somebody's going to have to start rethinking the Standard Model.

58 posted on 12/06/2001 8:54:03 AM PST by OBAFGKM
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To: Darth Reagan
After years of searching and months of sifting through data, scientists have still not found the elusive sub-atomic particle that could help to unravel the secrets of the universe, a science magazine said on Wednesday.

Hah! Particle physicists (or those who write about them) have such delusions of grandeur. Most of the secrets of the universe would remain just as secretive if the "God Particle" were discovered.

For example, we still do not understand how to compute velocity fields in turbulent flows, how to create life from inanimate matter, or how to find socks lost in the drier.

59 posted on 12/06/2001 9:02:13 AM PST by Logophile
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To: OBAFGKM
Don't take my word for it, Bozo.

I didn't intend it personally. The New Scientist is notorious for pushing views that are, shall we say, outside of the consensus. There are always people with a different opinion; this is one case. Overall, however, very few physicists consider Higgs masses heavier than around 110 GeV to have been adequately explored. 130 GeV will take years to reach.

60 posted on 12/06/2001 9:13:06 AM PST by Physicist
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