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Subscribe to RSSThe Higgs boson is believed to give other particles their mass. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
A newfound particle discovered at the world's largest atom smasher last year is indeed a Higgs boson, which is thought to play a role in how other subatomic particles get their mass, scientists reported Thursday at the annual Rencontres de Moriond conference in Italy.
Physicists announced on July 4, 2012, that, with more than 99 percent certainty, they had found a new elementary particle weighing about 126 times the mass of the proton that could be the long-sought Higgs boson. The Higgs is sometimes referred to as the "God particle," to the chagrin of many scientists, who prefer its official name.
But the two experiments, CMS and ATLAS, hadn't collected enough data to say the particle was, for sure, the Higgs boson, the last undiscovered piece of the puzzle predicted by the Standard Model, the reigning theory of particle physics.
Now, after collecting two and a half times more data inside the Large Hadron Collider — where protons zip at near light-speed around the 17-mile-round (27-kilometer-round) underground ring beneath Switzerland and France — physicists say the particle is "a Higgs boson." But they can't yet rule out the possibility that other Higgs bosons exist as well. [In Photos: Searching for the Higgs Boson]
"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela said in a statement.
ATLAS spokesperson Dave Charlton agreed, saying that the new results "point to the new particle having the spin-parity of a Higgs boson as in the Standard Model." In particle physics, "spin" refers to a quantum property of elementary particles and not to actual physical rotation.
To confirm the particle as having the characteristics of a Higgs boson, physicists needed to collect tons of data that would reveal its quantum properties as well as how it interacted with other particles. For instance, a Higgs particle should have no spin, and its parity, or the measure of how its mirror image behaves, should be positive, both of which were supported by data from the ATLAS and CMS experiments.
The scientists are not sure whether this Higgs boson is the single particle predicted by the Standard Model or perhaps the lightest of several bosons predicted to exist by other theories.
Seeing how this particle decays into other particles could let physicists know whether this Higgs is the "plain vanilla" Standard Model Higgs. Detecting a Higgs boson is rare, with just one observed for every 1 trillion proton-proton collisions. As such, the LHC physicists say they need much more data to understand all of the ways in which the Higgs decays.
From what is known about the particle now, physicists have said the Higgs boson may spell the universe's doom in the very far future. That's because the mass of the Higgs boson is a critical part of a calculation that portends the future of space and time. Its mass of 126 times the mass of the proton is just about what would be needed to create a marginally stable universe that could blink out of existence in a cataclysm billions of years from now.
"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there'll be a catastrophe," Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., said last month at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"It may be the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point billions of years from now it's all going to get wiped out," added Lykken, a collaborator on the CMS experiment.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
- Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson
- Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature
- Photos: The World's Largest Atom Smasher (LHC)
This report was updated by NBC News.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Stephen Hawking said he lost 100 dollars betting the Higgs wouldn't be found. If he paid, he may have lost the money, but he hasn't lost the bet yet. We have to wait until 2015. According to CERN Research Director, Sergio Bertolucci, "Only when we know that it has spin-zero will we be able to call it a Higgs." Also, scientist, Raymond "Volkas says that physicists and Higgs-watchers may have to prepare themselves for the possibility that the LHC data never establishes … the Higgs predicted by the standard model," New Scientist reports. 2015 will be 48 years from when a paper was published, and three physicists received the Nobel prize for the first "Standard Model" with the "Higgs mechanism." But they had all given up and gone to other pursuits after the 1967 paper that eventually sparked the award. Why? Something has been holding back the hunt for the Higgs.
>Why? Something has been holding back the hunt for the Higgs.
Not a big enough collider until now, I suspect.
True - but much progress has already been made in that area of research, Reid.
By observing how this new particle decays, CMS puts the unlikihood of a spin 2 particle at the 98.5-99.9% confidence level.
ATLAS agrees - 95%-99% confidence level.
Furthermore, there's no reason for a spin-2 particle (especially with negative parity) to have the decay probabilities that are observed in the data. So the fact that all these probabilities are similar to those of a simple Higgs particle favors a spin of 0.
Finally, we have no theory of a spin-2 particle that doesn’t include other observable particles that are relatively close in mass to the new particle - and we haven't seen those particle anywhere.
None of these arguments are conclusive on their own, but when we put the all together, they're pretty convincing. Hence today's announcement.
Definately an interesting body of thought concerning the Higgs.
Oh no.....the Progressives are really going to like the name of the particle.
Maybe they will submit legislation to change the name to "Obama particle" since it happened on his watch and he wants credit for it.
I agree with skb- the technology needed to actually have a chance of detecting the particle didn't exist until recently, so the search pretty much had to wait until technology caught up with predictions.
Oh no... Ido can't resist the urge to come take a little partisan dump on a discussion of science. Poor little guy.
While this may be an important discovery as to how mass clings and establishes size and shape, it is far from being the "God particle". When scientist discover what accounts for consciousness, emotions and contrasting feelings, then they will have discovered the "God particle".
ldo - really? You're bringing your BS political ideological rants to a science article? You REALLY must be soooooo upset about last year's election to be that desperate. Go outside. Take a breath of fresh air. We're all really sick of your negativity.
Ellis - Lederman dubbed it the God Particle because A) it was so elusive, and B) because his publisher wouldn't let him call it the Goddamn Particle
And now "A Man with Three Buttocks"
I stopped reading the article when it said
That was a stupid sentence to insert in an otherwise good article and topic.
Ido, isn't it itme for you to tunie into the Rush Limbaugh show?
@PJ-1795048
I disagree.
It needs to be made perfectly obvious to certain backwards folks that the term "God particle" is unofficial and this whole thing isn't a plot by the evil scientists to get rid of God.
Simply because a particle has zero spin DOES NOT PROVE it has anything to do with mass or gravity.
How does a particle that has 126 times the amount of energy density or mass, give those smaller particles "mass" by passing through a cloud of huge particles? How does it give mass to an electron or positron when they have 18,362 times less energy or mass then a proton. How does a Higgs give mass to a particle that is not moving and is stationary? Why does a Higgs and every other known particle DECAY into electrons and positrons? Maybe because they are the basic building blocks of the universe just like "1" is the basic building block for all number/math systems and not the number 2312316.
It is like the number zero and how its absolute value is equal to 2 which is LARGER then 1 or -1 in magnitude. 0 is actually a larger/bigger number then 1 or -1 since zero occupies the space between 1 to -1 on a numberline. Zero is not nothing and it is really 1 + (-1). Any physics theory should also reflect this. 1/10 or 0.1 STILL have "ones" in them and they are NOT smaller then 1. They are simply ways to solve an otherwise unsolvable problem, a work around, and nothing more. We should not be trying to seek higher meaning from them since they are figments of our imagination only. One is the SMALLEST number, NEVER FORGET that fact.
Any waves we measure are REALLY particles that we do not have the proper equipment to measure them with. Take your hand a solid particle, place it in front of your face, and now wave it back and forth as fast as you can side to side in front of your eyes. What happened to your hand as you exceeded the capture rate of your eyes (measurement device)? Did a solid object not turn into a probability smear across time and space according to your eyes. We know our eyes can be deceived and I find it funny that we do not understand this same limitation when trying to understand the universe. Why can an electron or positron not be a particle too? WTF are the measurement devices made out of? ELECTRONS. As Heisenburg stated long ago we cannot EVER accurately measure both the velocity and position of single electron at the same time since every single one of our measurement devices is made out of electrons and they will have some error.
We still look at the Big Bang backwards too. How does something that just collapsed or exploded "cool and condense" right after an explosion? Instead it is HOT and COMPRESSED. Why else would a proton have so much stored energy then? If it were "cool and condensed" it would be at about the same energy density as its surroundings and not contain 18,362 more energy.
For a brief time only Taus were allowed to exist in the universe since the energy density was much higher right after the big bang. Then as the universe expanded and reduced the average local energy density (cooled off) Muons were allowed to exist. This continued for some time and as the universe expanded and cooled off even more electrons were allowed to exist. Did any stars or planets get destroyed in the process? NO they kept on fussing, burning, existing, etc.. Think about water. If you were in a closed room that was over 212F or 100C, could water exist as a liquid or would it all be a gas/vapor? It would be a gas and not a liquid. If that same room were above 32F or 0C and below 212F/100C then liquid water could exist. If that same room were below 32F or 0C then ice could exist. Does water cease to exist as it changes states? NO. So why would the universe cease to exist either?
Why do you not care about all the electrons that cease to exist and what happens to them? Where do they go and why can we not "measure" them when they are in a non-moving lower energy "zero" ground state? Where do they go and why?
If it really bugs you that the universe might end, much like water we should be able to look at how many muons there are in relation to electrons. Between 0C and 100C there can still be water vapor/humidity in the air, it all just depends on the temp., pressure, etc.. We know the energy range of taus, muons, and electrons so we should be able to make some kind of educated guess as to when electrons may not be the lowest/smallest stable particle based on the number of muons out there. We can also simulate older higher energy densities to fill in more data too.
God = power in the bible and God sees time differently then man btw too. Maybe just maybe those are some "hints".
Alan,
Shame on you, am surprised you would delete some of my posts which merely express contrasting opinions. When contrasting opinions are silenced only the rhetoric prevails.
LOL. Now way higs boson cuases mass. It dont even exist and exists only in lab. So how it produces mass when it aint around? Phisisicts are so dumb. Big heads and not enough brains to fill them.
To Physicist Retired...are you at all interested in Quantum Enigma...Quantum Consciousness? I find that topic quite interesting. It posites as you know that the universe is conceivably a product of conscious observation. But to me what is the far greater proposition is that human's have barely tapped into their "psychic" potential which should evolve over time assuming of course that we don't destroy ourselves beforehand (which is likely). Perhaps there are those who already understand how we associate with the cosmos. One of our posters who refers to crestroy seems to believe at least a version or should I say his own interpretation of quantum consciousness. Are these simply flights of fancy or is there a possibility that quantum mechanics can indeed embrace such ideas.
From what I can tell, Quantum Consciousness is pretty much just New-Age hand waving, but then I don't pretend to understand quantum mechanics in the first place. But then I doubt the Quantum Consciousness folks do either. I'm petty sure it does not mean "anything goes."
Jock...for your contemplation.
Please look up multiverse on Wikipedia and section on Anthropic Principle. I cannot seem to copy and post it here. I too am a sceptic. I am also open to concepts and ideas if there is an inkling of "sensibility" to the topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Posted twice in case first does not show.
Cheers.
tired-######## (w/e it is...)
nowhere did they say that having zero spin gave it mass or density- they said that it would have to decay into a reliably measurable form over time to meet the standards to diagnose it as a higgs. what causes it to meet those characteristics is an entirely different matter altogether. spouting off facts about water and math don't make your argument any more valid- all they "attempt" to do is confuse people into giving you more credit than you deserve. all your comments that relate water to the universe, and/or the big bang, assume that the universe is finite and measurable and stable. none of that is known to any certainty and is a large part of the conjecture in many opposing theories in physics to begin with. we DO know how and why stars formed, and where they came from and how they caused elements and so-forth, what we didn't know is where the original hydrogen and such came from in the first place or why. nor do we know what dark matter is or where it came from. what gave those thing mass and caused them to react to the 4 forces is a very legitimate question and if this may one day lead to that answer, more power to them. stop trying to confuse people with a flash of unrelated knowledge and cause them to miss the obvious flaws in your chief claim, which you make because, one can only assume, you believe yourself to be smarter than the worlds largest collection of top-educated science minds in the world...
Blackbird,
As a physicist, I'm relatively convinced by this analysis:
The Importance of Quantum Decoherence in Brain Processes
More at the link. Bottom line: quantum waves decohere far too quickly to drive brain functions in the way we observe them to be driven.
To be fair, this is not my area of expertise, and I know some people are working on it.
@McGee - I am 100% with you. I would do just that by not talking about it. If we even mention it - it gives it importance.
Pushin' back the Foreskin of Knowledge, Bit by bit!
There will Always be a Degree of Uncertainty, and Smaller and Smaller Gaps in Human Knowledge, ...eh? -joe
Your 'Implication' is rather Naughty. Are we/us to assume then, that the 'Human Knowledge', was
Un-Circumcised???
All this is, or ever was, is a cool way to continue to find more money for the 'Inevitable' - "This requires further Research!!!!!!
Good! At least it's a cool way. People sure as heck spend money on stuff that doesn't add to anything outside status symbols.
Speaking of foreskin, didn't you think that Sagan looked like a penis with his turtle neck sweaters?
Sheldon Cooper is going to be very happy when he hears this!
No way!! He's gonna Challenge the whole tootin rootin Experiment. He's gonna tell them he needs a far better DNA Match. He'll just smile with 'Penny'.
Sheldon's only mentioned twice here? No wonder there's a stereotype out there that scientists are nerds. I'm just saying it's a STEREOTYPE. I'm not saying I agree with it. But then again, when I saw this headline I immediately thought:
Penny: Um… three little kittens? Three little pigs? God, I don’t know. Star Wars?
Sheldon: Good Lord, I could not have made this easier. Hydrogen atom, H, plus pigs minus pea, Higgs. Bow, General Zod trapped in the Phantom Zone. Bow-zone. Pear. Tickle. Pear-tickle. Higgs Boson Particle. How could you not get that?
Leonard: He’s right, Penny. It’s all there.
So with 99% certainty - that still means there is a 50/50 shot they are wrong. Just thinking of all the other times we were 99% (or more) sure of something, only to be proven wrong later.
And what times were those, exactly, in which a group of scientists (never mind particle physicists) specifically stated an outcome of probability 99% and the actual result fell into the 1% range? Because I've got nothing.
People make predictions all the time, but rarely tend to attach a mathematical model to them.
Actually, it's "more than 99 percent certainty," somewhere around 99.999 percent ... put another way, 5-sigma. Much, much more certain than "50/50." I suppose you're saying that because something is either correct or incorrect, hence 50/50. But that's not how probability works. It's more a case of determining whether the readings you're getting are a statistical fluke or reflect a novel phenomenon.
How do you figure 99% is equal to 50%? The findings have to pass 5-sigma verifications which is why they had to run so many tests to verify the results beyond any reasonable doubt, so 99% is well 99% because scientists don't like to give 100% to account for the very very few isolated results that didn't match and were assumed to be rogue numbers due to measurement or calculation errors.
I'm 99% sure I can't fly by just flapping my arms, but in a freak occurrence of all the variables in just the right combinations, there's still one chance in several billion that I could do it once.
Science is open to new data, but in the last hundred years, new information has added or changed things that weren't fully understood, but the concept of total reversals are more of media people misinterpreting, misunderstanding, or going for hyperbole than the actual science itself. For example I was at the AAAS talk where it was mentioned that the current mass equations may predict an unstable universe which the press jumped all over with doom and gloom. What they failed to mention was that most in attendance chuckled at that graph especially when it was pointed out that slight changes in the measured mass of quarks within the margin of measurement error alone changed the result by quite a bit and that doesn't even take dark matter or dark energy into account, so it's fine to project from what we know now, but we probably don't know anywhere near enough to project tens to hundreds of billions of years into the future.
Yeah - Im not trying to say they're wrong (heck, 99% of of whats in the article is greek to me). I just find it somewhat comical that how in one decade we can be absolutely convinced of something, only to change our minds later (is Pluto a planet or not???? - I want a refund on my elementary science education dollars). Guess Im just skeptical anymore when anyone states something as fact, especially when the scales become so enormously large or small.
It's necessary to make that assumption in order to project a world-weary, all-knowing cynicism.
Dear Alan..for all of us keenly interested but regard the topic as hard to understand, can you briefly describe how the universe will end...the "big crunch" or evaporation/dispersion or something more 'exotic say like a kind of "instantaneous replacement" by another universe? Any website you can recommend for the layperson? Many thanks.
I am 100% sure that 99% of the people in the world could give a flying rats @ss about this find. I personally think science is grand, but?
>How do you figure 99% is equal to 50%?
I think he was being facetious. ; )
So you're saying 99% of the people DO care about it? That's pushing it. ;) Or do you mean "couldn't" give a rat's ass?
I find this stuff interesting as well and a 5-sigma is damn near 100%. It's no 6-sigma, but a 6 is nigh impossible.
"is Pluto a planet or not????"
That had nothing to do with science. It was entirely semantics. Our view of the physical characteristics of Pluto never changed. But humans have to put everything into "categories" when nature doesn't, so we will always have such problems.
Yeah, that's the process of discovery. It's just adding to a historical conversation. Aristotle positively influenced Science for 1400 years, but he believed the Sun(and Universe) orbited around the Earth.
Blackbird,
That actually was described more than 30 years ago (see here). Discovery News puts it into layman's terms:
On the 'bright' side, the explosion will happen at the speed of light. Anything still living in the Universe won't even see it coming.
@KC American
Expounding on your Pluto analogy - astronomical science has not wavered re the existence of Pluto, but semanticists have come to realize that the definition of planet was (and still is) lacking in precision.
Language is like that For example, if asked if your significant other was fat, how would you reply? Perhaps with more caution than precision? Which possible answer is better? No? Yes? Depends? Define fat? Who is asking? Compared to who?
Six choices. Regardless of your answer, the fact and nature of the existence of your significant other is not disputed (but your existence may be)
Hmm, somebody didn't study Probality/Statistics.
@ojibobo, Reread my post #4.7 again. I state 99% could give a flying rats @ss about this find. Or DON'T care. Using Couldn't would be a double negative in the statement.
"Could give a ___'s ___" is an incorrect and unnecessarily shortened version of the phrase "Couldn't give a ___'s ___", used to indicate a total lack of interest. The dropping of the contraction is a strange but pervasive use of the term, similar to how "I couldn't care less" is often shortened to "I could care less", somehow retaining the same meaning despite meaning, grammatically, the exact OPPOSITE of what the correct phrase does.
Bloody vernacular.
For all we know, it's already happened and we are living in the new universe. Would a historical phase change, after it happened, be discernible by whatever beings arise after it occurred?
That's assuming that a phase change is possible in the first place, of course.
Absolutely, Byron. And we may not be alone - there could be countless other universes 'out there', too. Have you seen this?
Scientists find first evidence that many universes exist
The work is ongoing, with additional results expected this year. Cool, right?
Am loving your posts, Physicist. Thanks.
So Higs Boson suposed to be responseble for mass. LOL It don't normally exist and must be created in lab, so how can it be cuase of mass. Seems like phsisicits have heads that are to big without enough brains to fill them. Ha ha.
Blackbird,
Before scientist can convince me of how things may or may not end or that other universes are bumping into ours, they must first explain in comprehensible fashion what came before the BIG BANG, and if space is infinite or not, which raises even more questions.
Back in the 1960s there was a study done on the accuracy of theories over the past 10,000 years, and it turned out more than 92% of them were later proved inaccurate............just sayin
Alan,
The only reason scientist or anyone else uses terms of 99% or 99.999% is to cover their butts if they turn out to be wrong. A rational person would never accept the 99.999% term as fact, they are just random numbers intended to influence the gullible
Deleted due to poor table support in comments
The Higgs Boson wasn't created in the LHC. When protons or other heavy particles collide they shatter into sub-particles which can decay into other sub-particles and released energy. The problem with very complex machines like the LHC is that a collision can give you something like four terabytes of data in a tiny fraction of a second, but we don't have anywhere near the capacity in detectors or computing power to gather more than a very small percentage of that. So, choices have to be made for what to set up to monitor for each collision.
The Higgs was there all along in the collisions, but they had to make many very educated guesses as to what energy level it would likely be found at to be able to actually capture it with the sensors. The teams were able to eliminate most places where they felt it would not be found and started closing in on the range where it should be. After many more runs they eliminated more places in that range down to where they felt they were getting warm. Then eventually between truly great science and probably also a little luck, they found the particle they were looking for with the right characteristics. Once found, they were able to repeat the findings in both the Atlas and CMS detectors which use completely different methods to detect the collision results to both confirm it was real and seeing it was repeatable.
@mark-1751582: Yes, that's right. And before we identified gravity, everything just floated around. Probably what happened to the dinosaurs, you know.
You've made my day, Adam ;-)
Ellis,
Since the scientific method is only 500 years old, theories could not have even existed prior to that time. If such a study really was done (do you have a link?), it should have used the word 'ideas', not 'theories'.
A theory has an explicit definition in science. A scientific theory summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step (theory) and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon.
Above all, theories must be able to predict the outcomes of future tests accurately. 'The world is flat' could only be tested by someone falling off the edge. I don't think too many people tried to do that test - and if they did, the test failed.
As I wrote elsewhere on this thread, science didn't exist until the time of Galilleo. Before that, we only had Natural Philosophy - and there were no scientific theories.
Dick, your 4.7 statement doesn't have a "negative" in it. So adding "couldn't" would not make it a double negative. Personally, I believe most people reading 4.7 understood its intent.
Physicist,
It has nothing to do with a scientific method of only 500 years old, science has been a part of mans quest for knowledge as far back, and further than the belief the Earth was flat, the sun and planets revolved around Earth or the inventions of making fire. To proclaim man has only used science to discover and explain events for 500 years is naive.
I am not aware of a link to the study on theories I watched on tv back in the sixties, and I do not believe there were links to the site by way of computers as there are now. If you are a retired physicist, you certainly should be more rational than you appear.
Physicist,
The theory the Earth was flat was tested, how do you think man discovered it is round ?
To correct you on another of your statements, an accepted valid explanation does not translate into fact.
This is actually rather simple to settle, Ellis.
Name one idea (Hypothesis) that pre-dates 1500, underwent rigorous testing with repeatable results, ultimately formed a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism that drove those results, included predictive capability for future testing (which verified that the description of that mechanism was indeed valid), and was then accepted as a Theory.
Because that's how scientific theories are developed.
If, as you claim, we have 10,000 years of them, it should be pretty easy to find one example.
Source.
So you won't believe - or rather, countenance, since this is mere hypothesis at this point - a given scientific hypothesis until scientists definitively answer some, arbitrary, unrelated question that they may never be able to find sufficient evidence for? That makes no sense. It's like if I refused to believe in the principles of quantum physics until scientists fully and definitively explained ghost sightings.
Ellis will of course not believe any of it until he reads it in the Bible. So he keeps on reading said Bible under the electric lamp, while he tell us of his lack of confidence in science on his computer, over the internet. Yes the fact that over the years scientific theories have been reconsiodered and replaced as new data comes in is proof positive that scientists have no idea what they are doing.
Sadly Ironic.
To Physicist Retired if you are still reading this unfortunately collapsed thread...
Could/would this mean that such encroachment is already happening? I seem to recall a model of the "known" universe which indicated a vast gap which could implicate an "encroaching universe". Guess that's just a "bump". Would the cannibalistic universe happen everywhere at once hence instantaneous annihilation?
In the words of Tychus Finnley: "Well, it's about time."
If you're going to quote my company, at least get it right.
"Hell...it's about time."
:-)
D'oh! You're right! >_<
Man, I can't believe I messed up a four-word quote.
I blame lack of sleep. Spent all yesterday playing Heart of the Swarm and most of last night dreaming about being stomped on by ultralisks.
Totally worth it.
Indeed. Heart of the swarm will be played tonight. Let us hope that in the far future, things are more peaceful than they are in Starcraft and we are more advanced technologically.
Wait, what?
The Big Slurp! Like a billion billion suns all sucking up extra large sugary drinks at once!
I'm having a hard time developing a mental image of that, but it sounds extremely unpleasant.
Cosmic diabetes.
Some sort of science prophecy, it would seem. I think I'll call this segment of the Tech-Bible "Higgs' Cataclysm".
I know it sounds kinda weird, but at "tens of billions" of years into the future, it's not especially relevant (though still interesting. Who knew elementary matter had a shelf life?).
Dammit! I had plans!
Time to start recalculating that Mayan calender.
1.4 billion Flat Earth Society Catholics are celebrating this today. Cheers.
Higgs confirmation AND election of a new pope? Coincidence?
To be fair, the Roman Catholic Church of today has an infinitely more enlightened view of science than many conservative Protestant sects.
For example, John Paul II pretty much admitted that evolution is real:
http://catholicism.about.com/b/2007/08/04/evolution-and-catholicism-compatible-pope-says.htm
Oh, I understand that, and have mentioned it myself. This includes accepting the heliocentric view before most of the rest of the world (Earth goes around Sun, rather than vice-versa).
However, there were not many Protestant news stories this week.
It wasn't just the Catholics who believed the earth was flat. They were at the time only a small fraction of the many prevalent religions at the time.
It was the educated scientists, of the time, who believed the earth was flat. The masses just went with flow because they had no way to prove or disprove the theory, and most were land dwellers and could have cared less one way or another.
As for scientists of today stating positively one way or another, in 20 years the scientists will be laughing at the scientists of today. Arrogance has a way of catching up to to them.
I think that being able to correct yourself when you've found more information is a boon.
The thing I don't get is that even the ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round. Pliny the Elder held that it was a consensus.
They can laugh if they want. That's their prerogative. But since all science is built on previous science, today's scientists are still essential to the work of scientists 20 years from now. It's not "arrogance", it's just the refinement and correction of knowledge.
People who disparage imperfect and uncertain knowledge are absurd, because there's no such thing as truly perfect and certain knowledge. Even the religious, who claim to have all the answers that science does not, are riven by division and differences in their interpretations of their faith.
"It was the educated scientists, of the time, who believed the earth was flat."
Not true. Many of the educated knew very well that the Earth was round. I have no idea of the percentage, but after all they only had to watch a ship disappear over the horizon. But by Reinassance time they had rediscovered that both the Arabs and the Alexandrians had accurately estimated the circumference of the earth many centuries before.
Not accurate - in several ways.
1. Before the development of the scientific method, there were no 'scientists'. What we call 'science' today didn't exist. Prior to Galilleo's time, we had 'Natural Philosophy' - which didn't require testing or repeatable results (the very foundations of the scientific method). All one had to do was 'think' about things. Now you see the flaw in relying on 'common sense' when discussing scientific issues.
2. The ancient Greeks not only knew the earth was round, they actually calculated it's size (to a very high level of accuracy). Eratosthenes of Cyrene did this work through experimentation - so I guess he was an exception to reason #1 above.
Oh really? Golly, even lay people knew that wasn't true - all you had to do was walk far enough and see landmarks disappear over the horizon. In fact, Eratosthenes, a greek astronomer, who lived around 200 BC, accurately calculated the diameter of the earth. The notion of a round Earth persisted ever since.
Not all Catholics believed the world was flat. Most educated, and many uneducated, people knew the earth was round. After all at sea or from a hill top looking over a plane one could the earth's curvature. The actual debate was the earth-centered vs sun-centered model.
All I know about Pliny the Elder, is that it scores 100 out of 100 on beeradvocate.com
I can't vouch for his views on the shape of the earth though.
I can promise everyone that the flat Universe theory is one day going to end up on the trash heap of history alongside the flat Earth theory. We can actually know with relative certainty that we live in a closed system, finite, curved space (contiguum) Universe, because we can look out in any direction from here on Earth, and if we look far enough out and back in time in any direction from here on Earth, we are always looking out and back to the very same point in space and time, which in turn is the "Big Bang" origin of our Universe. This precludes the Universe from ever dissipating enough to become unstable and eventually just break down and wink out. - RC
Physicist-retired, please, please, please response to more MSNBC article in the Vine. You sir, are awesome! It is such a nice change to see someone here contribute cogent, well-reasoned responses that are aimed at educated people without the use of any ad hominem attacks. Thank you!
Don't tell these folks the earth is round...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb-cxF26ev0
Your kind words are much appreciated, Jian.
And I've been on the Vine for 5 years now (see my 67 articles and 400 seeds at that link) - but maybe I should spend more time here. The ad hominems are a real disincentive, though.
I believe one of the false assumptions about whether people "knew" the Earth was round in the late 15th century is that history and knowledge progressed uninterrupted through several hundred years of Dark Ages. Moreover, clearly there was widespread dispute over testing and/or calculation versus Natural Philosophy at that time (Enlightenment ring a bell?). We believed in the Celestial Sphere and a Geo-centric Universe at the same time as we possessed telescopes and mathematical proof that the planets' elliptical orbits were Solar-centric. In terms of its relative value shall we also point out that Natural Philosophy determined that "heavy things" fall faster than "light things?"
Physicist,
Since my earlier response was mysteriously deleted, I will try again.
Since man has been upon earth he has relied upon science to discover many things, including how to make fire and the wheel. These discoveries required a certain amount of calculations as well as a number of controlled experiments. It is naive to proclaim the scientific method has only been around for 500 years
Pragmatic
A lot of knowledge was lost when the church took over Europe during the "Dark Ages" the average ancient Greek was far more educated and intelligent then even the above average folks of the dark ages. letting the church take over after the collapse of Rome set humanity's knowledge and advances back a few hundred years.
Knowledge of the Earth being round was not one of those thngs that was lost during the Dark Ages.
sometimes it still seams lost to some...
"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there'll be a catastrophe,"
And what is the benefit to mankind of this piece of knowledge, which by the way cost us multi milions of dollars/euros to gain, other than to provide employment to some theoretical scientists.
Before you start critiquing others, could you let us know what benefit you have provided mankind lately, please?
If we can determine the mechanisms for a sub-atomic collapse in mass, there's a possibility to control it.
That was an easy one, really. I didn't even have to pull out the old "knowledge itself has value" card.
You do realize that the earliest work with particle accelerators led to the technologies that you have today in your pocket, on your desktop, and in your car.
Sorry it they can't give you any ROI today, but that's not how science works.
"And what is the benefit to mankind of this piece of knowledge"
We are curious, because we are human.
I always find these statements to be rather humorous. Europeans spent $8 billion to build a machine that is revealing the secrets of the Universe.
In this country, we spend more than a billion dollars on abstenence-only education, with no impact whatsoever:
That report, BTW, is 6 years old. The total amount spent is much higher now.
I could list so many other ways we waste money. That was just the first one I thought of. In the meantime, CERN has produced amazing results.
Any questions?
And if you can control it, you can build anti-gravity devices. Furthermore, if you can figure out how space would collapse, you can build warp drives.
We have a rich history of free research leading to practical products. To complain that the products do not exist yet, when the research isn't completed seems irrational. But then so does the modern "conservative" mind state.
Physicist,
Why do we need to know what may be in the future, how everything in nature works and the need to extend human life longer ? There are already 7.2 billion humans on Earth and growing by 70 million people per year. Since this Earth is of a specific size with a limited amount of life sustaining resources, does it not seem reasonable to curb the need for more of which we do not have ?
If you have a logical mind you will realize the relativity between time, space and travel, and that physically speaking, humans will never be able to travel at the necessary speed for inter-galactic travel
I certainly don't disagree with that statement, Ellis.
There are many, many barriers to interstellar travel - not just speed. I see nothing (and have said nothing) to imply otherwise.
As for the other content you post, if you don't want to understand how things work, avoid science. It's that simple. On the other hand, there's a bit of irony in the fact that you type that comment on a computer, and post it on the internet.
You know what would be cool? If this scientific breakthrough were the big headline story, instead of the internal politics of a religious organization.
Hmm, maybe they should have used smoke signals to announce this...
They did. Then again, perhaps you were being ironic. If so, my bad.
Sometime between my 11:36 post and your 2:31 post, it got moved up on the page. No complaints here!
You know what I don't think we will be here for the end. So in the words of Alfred E. Newman "What me worry"?
So glad the Higgs Boson was confirmed.
I was afraid the confirmation hearings would be held up with a filibuster.
Totally awesome comment!! If it had to go through D.C., it would have been held up!
Speaking of which, you'll notice none of this cutting-edge research is happening here. The world's largest Super Collider doesn't happen to exist in the "Greatest Nation on Earth." Somewhere between Home-schooling and Austerity we have lost our way.
A particularly portentous particle provides proof of future poof!
Don't you mean possible future poof?
So tired of Higgs boson. Scientists haven't the cognitive apparatus to describe what the Higgs boson is so they call it a "particle". Go away and don't come back until we have teleporters, or flying cars at least.
"Stop talking about science until you're ready to use it to make awesome stuff for me."
Sadly, that's the attitude far too many people take toward the sciences. It's also the attitude that has people complaining about money being spent on subjects that doesn't particularly interest and/or benefit them, such as archeology and paleontology.
Science has a value beyond what you can pick up at Best Buy.
SF - I like you
Hey, I liked him first. ;-)
Aw, thanks! I like you too! :D
Molecular Replicator FTW.
I like you too! lol
bronx,
When Humanity does not understand something their first instinct is to learn about it, well the ones who are not enamored with religion and claim the everything is the result of some God anyway. That is what they are doing at Cern.
We one time did not know what a "particle" was yet we still discovered and named them. We did not know what cars were yet we invented and described them. We at one time did not understand fire and yet we discovered it and gave it a name.
There is not a single thing on this planet that was not discovered and named by Man. So your argument there is pretty ignorant.
Ok you guys....get a room!
Geowil "There is not a single thing on this planet that was not discovered and named by Man. So your argument there is pretty ignorant."
First it was a joke. Second, your blind faith and worship of a scientific achievement leave you as blind as any religious zealot. For them it's Jesus and for you it's Einstein.
My point was that we have had these announcements every 6 months for the past 4 years and the scientists should wait until consensus is made as to what it is we are observing.
And yes man is so great that they named the photon. But still have no idea what it is.
"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning" _Werner Heisenberg
Does being a cynic not make Schrodinger's cat more likely to be dead?
Being a cynic would imply that you believe Schroedinger's experiment would fail and therefore the cat would still be alive.
Maybe if you're cynical you'd think there's no cat in the box in the first place and the whole thing is hokum.
Hah! The end of the universe was predicted long ago in "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy". For a few bucks, people at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe could watch it. They were so sophisticated at that time that they had a way to prevent the restaurant from getting sucked in and destroyed. If we are still around in 50 billion years, I suspect we will have similar techology and be creating our own universes to inhabit after this one is toast. So, What Me Worry?
If we live that long we may even have the technology to prevent the Big Collapse although any form of humanity alive at that point would be as alien to us as we are to the creatures that live around the thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean.
Please check out www.theparticles.co.uk for more insights into this fascinating branch of physics
So physicists announced that they are 99 percent certain they found a particle that could be the Higgs Boson. I am 99 percent certain that I could be a real-life jedi.
Old Republic, or New?
If you're saying you could be Old Republic Jedi, then I call shenanigans.
You need to check your math. Midi-chlorians have been found to decay at a much slower rate than previously thought. Give me 7 trillions dollars a marry-go-round the size of Detroit and I guarantee with 99 percent certainty I might prove to you that I am Old Republic. The arrogance of the 1 percent never fails to astound me. OCCUPY CERN!!!!
Shawn,
the problem is your comment is not backed up by the scientific method nor any models. Cern's is.
I dying!! ROTFLMFAO!! Science rules!!
Geowil
Understood. I am actually excited about the work at CERN and I'm glad it is happening. I am poking fun at the article. To say you are 99 percent certain that this particle is HB sounds intriguing. To say you are 99 percent certain that this particle could be HB sounds humorously vague. How do you assign a degree of probability to could.
"marry-go-round"? Does that have something to do with successful speed-dating?
Just me-3629514,
unsuccessful
Let no one say this research is a waste of money:
Even if your interest is solely the monetary bottom line, the search for the Higgs boson led to the creation of the World Wide Web (note I did not say "Internet" -- there is a difference), which was invented originally for the purpose of allowing scientists at CERN to share data around the world.
And how much money is now made each day by an Internet whose framework is the World Wide Web???
Stars of the Large Hadron Collider.
This is important, exciting news. Definitely deserves to be higher up on NBC's top headlines queue.
Personally, I'm glad it's not the top headline, if for no other reason than to staunch the flow of luddites in the comments whining about money being spent on research too complex for them to understand and not immediately related to their interests.
"Luddites" should be capitalized ;-)
I consider it a token of deliberate disrespect to deny them that dignity.
Could you at least use spell check? The writing in your "news" articles is terrible, but spelling mistakes are the result of physical and intellectual laziness.
So they discovered the God Particle. This is very interesting and...oh wait...not the chagrin!!
AHHH!! It's the chagrin of many scientists for my referring to the particle in an unacceptable manner! The chagrin is killing me! It's worse than the Knights Who Say Ni! Oh what times are these when passing ruffian scientists can so profusely cast their chagrin about!?
I'm not sure what the problem is. The "God Particle" is just a cute and perhaps ironic way of referring to it. Some scientists don't think that scientists should be cute or ironic (especially if non-scientists might be misled), but others think it is just too darn much fun.
Most of 'em just chagrin and bear it.
I think the problem is the confusion that it generates with the public.
Many people have a tendency to read headlines without reading stories, and rarely investigate the subjects in-depth on their own. Apparently there have been a numer of people who have taken the title "God particle" too literally, as in linking it with God and religion, rather than frustration. It's a petty gripe, I admit, since anyone who misunderstands it like that probably doesn't care at all otherwise.
Perhaps, following the latest trend for combining words in a very annoying way as set forth in the 1000000000000000 page guidual from The Ministry of Silly Words, we should name it "The Godicle".
It was dubbed by Lederman, a jester indeed. And his publisher wouldn't let him call it the Goddamn Particle
this could reveal that we, so arrogantly self aware, are actually an imaginary event in the time/space continuum, conceived out of our own cranial fireworks.
Higgsy may be 'the last straw' before we say, 'holy smokes, we're not the end all of the intelligent universe"!
hey stevie hawkins, as for the 100 dollar bet, i'll go you double it if my theory pans out. nothing to lose actually, so show us all the numbers, lets all get a good look at the results of this Billion dollar shooting gallery. ;-))
I LOVE Stevie Ray Hawkins' version of Pride and Joy!
{"This calculation tells you that many tens of billions of years from now there'll be a catastrophe," Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist}
Amazing that an educated person can be so arrogant as to make a factual statement on the effect of the characteristics of a particle that was just recently proven to exist. This before we know of any type of variations that may exist, not to mention the possibility of additional particles or "forces" that have yet to be discovered or incorporated into a working theoretical model.
Funny thing is his statement is correct, regardless of the calculations as catastrophes occur every second of every day on our planet and in our universe. From floods to meteorites, supernova to species extinction...