I thought they subsequently admitted to being a little hasty in that claim? Anyway the above article seems to be their final assessment of the data, and the Higgs was nowhere to be found. 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. (Sounds a little like religion, doesn't it?)
Personally, I hope they don't find it in the hadron collider either. It would be a lot more entertaining!!
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.