Posted on 07/06/2012 5:29:33 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Professor Peter Higgs admits he has "no idea" what the discovery of the Higgs boson will mean in practical terms.
The British physicist whose theories led to the discovery of the Higgs boson has admitted he has “no idea” what practical applications it could have.
Prof Peter Higgs said the so-called ‘God particle’, which is the building block of the universe, only has a lifespan of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second.
He refused to be drawn on whether the discovery proved there was no God, stating the name ‘God particle’ was a joke by another academic who originally called it the ‘goddamn particle’ because it was so hard to find.
The 83-year-old was giving his first detailed press interview since the discovery earlier this week of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
The Higgs boson helps to explain how fundamental particles gain their mass - a property which allows them to bind together and form stars and planets rather than whizzing around the universe at the speed of light.
Speaking at Edinburgh University, where he published his theory about the boson’s existence in 1964, he said: “It’s around for a very short time.
"It’s probably about a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. I don’t know how you apply that to anything useful.
“It’s hard enough with particles which have longer life times for decay to make them useful. Some of the ones which have life times of only maybe a millionth of a second or so are used in medical applications.
“How you could have an application of this thing which is very short lived, I have no idea.”
But Alan Walker, a colleague from
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
... but the Higgs boson itself probably won’t be anything that modern technology ever uses. It pops back out of existence so quickly that there could not be things like beams of Higgs bosons.
I like your brand of physics, brother. It's basic truth, as far as I'm concerned.
"Soulon". I like that.
Get hold of one Higgs Boson and repeat the mantra, "LET THERE BE LIGHT"
yitbos
He may have, although probably after that story was written. Remember Azimov was a PhD scientist, Chemistry IIRC. The standard model was formalized in the mid '70s, and Higgs first paper on the particle that bears his name was written in '64. Azimov didn't pass on until April of 1992. (AIDS, he got HIV from a blood transfusion in '83 after heart surgery) So he had quite a while to become familiar with the Standard Model, which includes the Higgs. He probably wrote articles about it. I have his "Understanding Physics" in 3 separate hardcover volumes. He wrote an article "What's the Universe Made Of", for science digest published in 1980. It was about fields and particles, and he likely (I haven't read it that I recall) talked about the Higgs Boson, and/or Higgs field in that article.
Was that a backyard pina collider?
Your wave theory sounds very much like String Theory.
Yes there could be, if they are traveling fast enough, relativistic time dilation would let their lifetimes appear quite long to non moving observers, like us.
Something that heavy moving that fast is going pack quite a wallop, nuclear effects aside.
I mean as of the story’s writing of course.
Due to decay, a beam of Higgs bosons would eventually turn into something else, even if it was in their own time frame. I wonder if the Higgs mass impartation mechanism applies to Higgs bosons too? That these bosons also drag on the Higgs field?
Ha! :-)
...or there might not be any substance at all, just bundles of properties...
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