Large Hadron Collider Gearing Up For 2015.

[bornagainathiest]

A good article that covers the relevant points in layman's language.

 

http://www.nature.com/news/large-hadron-collider-the-big-reboot-1.16095

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

[Deva]

Thanks BAA - please keep us laypersons updated!

[Fweethawt]

I just watched 'Particle Fever' on Netflix last night. Although I still don't fully understand exactly what a Higgs boson is and its significance, I still got a lump in my throat and teared up when it showed them discovering it.

[Sexton Blake]

The Higg's boson? Who knows?

 

For decades they fudged and fudged it, because it was never where predicted so they said it must have a heavier mass and still heavier mass, etc. It finally got to the point where like Jehovah's Witnesses they were ready to give up if their latest prediction did not work. But they found an unidentified particle so they fastened on that like a drowning man grasping a straw.

 

BUT there is no evidence it does what is claimed of it. It is just another new particle apparently. I say apparently because what they get is sub-atomic trails of particles after a collision and then they have to work out what is what from this vague image. They will need to repeat the experiment and hope for the same results.

 

But as to it doing what is claimed of it, that is still a long way off.

[RogueScholar]

Repeat the experiement and note the results. No hope required. I will say that between ATLAS and CMS, 5 Sigma results are pretty compelling. Of course, in my area p <0.05 is compelling so that may not be saying much. Unfortunately, I cannot make any definitive statements as I can easily claim a great deal of ignorance.

 

With that said, the "trails" of subatomic particles are not "vague" in the context that I understand. We are well aware of principles such as conservation of mass, charge and so on. I can take a well understood case (at my level of understanding) to demonstrate the very basic concepts behind how this works. Take the case of a certain type of radioactive decay where a neutron decays into a proton. A neutron has a bit more mass (energy) than a proton and a neutron is not charged while a proton has a positive charge. Therefore, the mass and charge must be accounted for.

 

I drew a quick non-math diagramme of this process below (Drawing on the Right):

 

On the left we have the Neuton with two down quarks and an up quark. The neutron decays to a proton with two up and one down quark (U,U,D). The charge and mass must be accounted for and this particular decay is mediated by a W- boson (zig zag lines in the middle). On the right side of the diagramme you have an electon antineutrino and an electron. We can detect this electron and the energies and charge are exactly in line with what is needed for the neutron to proton decay. In fact, this diagramme exactly describes the process of a well known and observed phenomenon of Beta decay and the high energy electron that is released is the well described Beta particle of radioactivity.

 

This process is far from vague.