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Posted on 07/13/2010 5:25:48 AM PDT by lbryce
Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua, has said in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, that the Higgs has been discovered.
The Tevatron, the huge particle accelerator at Fermi - the most powerful in the world after the LHC - is expected to be retired when the CERN accelerator becomes fully operational, but may have struck a final blow before it becomes obsolete.
If one form of the rumour is to be believed - and Prof Dorigo is extremely circumspect about it - then it is a "three-sigma" signature, meaning that there is a statistical likelihood of 99.7 per cent that it is correct. But, of course, that is only if the rumour is to be believed.
In the post, titled "Rumors about a light Higgs", Prof Dorigo said: "It reached my ear, from two different, possibly independent sources, that an experiment at the Tevatron is about to release some evidence of a light Higgs boson signal.
"Some say a three-sigma effect, others do not make explicit claims but talk of a unexpected result."
While media attention has been focusing on the LHC, the Tevatron has been quietly plugging away in the search for Higgs. In the 27 years since it was first completed (it has been regularly upgraded since then) it has discovered a quark and observed four different baryons. While it has not been able to pinpoint the elusive Higgs, it has narrowed the search, reducing the window of possible masses where it might be found.
Last year, Fermi physicists said they expected to have enough data to find or rule out the Higgs by early next year, and gave themselves a fifty-fifty chance of finding it before the end of 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Clinton wanted it killed because Texas didn't go for him in the '92 election and he essentially admitted as much in a later interview. As for it being over budget, that story was put to rest much later after an exhaustive GAO audit showed that it was well UNDER budget when Clinton pulled the plug. As a matter of fact, Clinton spent MORE to PLUG the hole (which was ~2/3rds complete) than had been spent to dig it and develop the technology that was to be used with it.
Additionally, Clinton REFUSED to allow the state to purchase the SCSC and operate it independent of the government or any government funding. It doesn't make any sense that "big oil" would be behind the move to kill it in a state where "big oil" is "BIG OIL". In theory, the SCSC would have no products or services that would alter or change anything that big oil does.
I have a friend that will disagree with you on that point. He claims (he's the PHD in physics, not me) that the answer to fusion will be found in one of these devices, and that the one being built in Texas was the only one large enough to possibly unlock the mystery. (His contention is that the ones in Europe are not large enough).
As far as the killing of it goes, sadly there WERE many other hands on the dagger. That moron leatherface governor we had in Texas at the time deserves part of the blame.
One of my friends had a machining company that did a lot of work on that project, and he told me it was dead in 1992. In fact, and I almost fainted because this guy is more of a right wing gun nut than I am, he actually wondered if Clinton winning (the election had not be held yet) might save the thing because the Bush administration had been so lukewarm towards it.
According to another scientific article, the Proton is 4% smaller than we thought it was.
Which is why it’s so hard to find the Higgs Boson particle.
When a plane throws 'chaff' out into the air as a decoy the radar waves bounces back off it giving the impression of a solid object.
Same thing.
Shhhhhhh....... don't confuse the scientists. They want to spend billions on a goose chase, let them. It's better than letting them work on the global warming thing.
Call me stupid, but I still don't get the connection between oil and fusion. I'm not disputing either you or your friend, but oil is NOT an atomic science and fusion IS. So, I'm still confused on that point. If you can get more info, I'd LOVE to see it, because this is (obviously) interesting to me.
That moron leatherface governor we had in Texas at the time deserves part of the blame.
You mean Queen Ann? I have no real love for her, but I recall the efforts she made to try to get Clinton to let the state buy it, finish it and run it. I know that she made a couple of trips to DC to discuss it with him and he wasn't going to change his mind. I also wrote him a nasty-gram about it, not that I had any influence.
Very simple. Controlled fusion could be extremely cheap and clean - leading to almost free electricity - leading to electric cars actually making sense - leading to electric heating of homes actually making sense - leading to a lot less need for oil.
And if we had a government worth spit at the time, they would support the domestic oil business and slap a tariff on imported oil that would put the maniacs in the Middle East out of business. Unfortunately, less oil means less money for big oil.
All of the oil companies are multinationals. Even if their domestic operations were protected, they wouldn't like seeing their overseas operations decimated.
Thanks, that starts to make more sense. Given the time in history, I find the fear by the oil companies to be a little far-fetched, but that’s just me.
Thanks for the info.
That's a great analogy!
“In our time we have discovered that energy and matter a easily interchangable.” J.L. Picard, Captain, Star Fleet, United Federation of Planets, circa 2368AD.
It doesn't. It's the repressionist space around it that keeps it in it's place.
and why does it exert a gravitational pull?
Loneliness. No one likes to face the Universe alone.
Nobody remembers the loser in a fight.
Well, the more basic question there is "what do you mean when you say 'particle?'"
Consider that the word "particle" may be only a poor analogy made in an attempt to make something that is far more complex and subtle at least somewhat understandable.
There are no contradictions, it's true. Therefore an photon is neither a "particle" nor a "wave," but rather is, quite simply, a photon which behaves precisely as a photon behaves.
May be. However it seems to me that even the term “photon” as a descriptor of some third item is itself just a poor attempt to describe something that cannot be described. I think science has at bottom the futile attempt to solve the scientifically unsolveable problem of eternity — in space, size, mass and time. Despite all the collected observations throughout history science has moved not an inch closer to figuring out eternity in any of its dimensions. It has, however, helped society immensely in the material/technological realm.
That is just about the dumbest comment I’ve read in a long time.
Thank you very much.
I don’t understand why the Fermi is closing down? Is this some type of political and financial thing due to the cost of the CERN collider? Or they just don’t want the competition? Is seems so counterproductive to shut down smaller units due to this big one. There are articles stating the CERN will be closed for the entire year 2012. Sad our exploring and discoveries might be based on politics. Yuck. Thought we’d grown. Thanks for any info you might be able to add.
Thanks for your reply. Clarifies so much. Why is the Fermi’s Tevatron closing?
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