A few related questions to comment on:

1. All the standard model particles (quarks, leptons, force bosons) have been detected @CERN & Fermilab mainly. Is it even possible for them to discover the Higgs boson, which would round off some mysteries, such as why do the weak force carriers, W, Z, have so much more mass than photon? I think it's possible because estimated mass of Higgs particle is just over 100 GeV, should be detectable someday. SHC collider should have several Tev available.

2. In some symmetry theories, various gravitons are proposed (scalar, vector, tensor). Can these ever be detected? I doubt it. For one, the gravity force couples too weakly to make graviton detectable. Also, how much energy would be needed? I doubt they'll ever be able to confirm these symmetry theories. I remember an experiment Sci. Amer. described about 20 years ago in which matter would fall an equal distance to antimatter. If these 3 types of gravitons really exist, the experiment should find a violation of equivalence principle and matter falls 14% slower than antimatter. But I didn't see a followup, so I guess the experiment failed.

3. many scientists are leaving string theory to go back to easier theories. I think they are discouraged because the predicted effects haven't been confirmed. I doubt if they'll ever detect strings, even if they exist.

4. what is left for Fermilab to do? I would think they should keep exploring the hadrons and searching for Higgs, and trying to pin down details of standard model. The SHC collider at Cern will search for the following, excerpted from Wikipedia: " In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles". They'll search, I hope they find, maybe we'll understand elementary particles much better 10 years from now because they'll have rule in/out various of the theories. It'll be a lot easier to understand once they know which theory actually conforms to nature and which were just good ideas on paper.
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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

Shouldn't be long now...

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XKCD's take on the LHC search for the Higgs.

Nick

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Nick Theodorakis

I like this article. One quote stood out to me:


"A quiet dread felt by all the researchers at CERN is that a team in Chicago, working at the legendary Fermilab, might grab the elusive Higgs first, using an ageing accelerator, the Tevatron, which is due to be phased out in 2010."

Evidently CERN vs. Fermilab is a rivalry, kind of like cola competitors.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

And a Good Thing^TM too! Some really good state-of-the-art research will be done, limits will be pushed higher, maybe even the Tevatron will be upgraded rather than retired.

Can you imagine what we would have now if, before the first Sputnik was launched, the United Nations had decided that space exploration should be under their control and that the US, USSR, UK and France had signed on to this? We would still be engaged in endless talk, talk, and more talk with nothing to show for it. Well, OK, there would be a nice, shiny UNSA building in Brussels or Geneva or somewhere.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

According to the Series "Lexx", attempting to measure the Higgs Bosun particle will result in the earth being compressed to the size of a pea.

[quote=HypothesisTesting;1204197]...SNIPPET...

2. In some symmetry theories, various gravitons are proposed (scalar, vector, tensor). Can these ever be detected? I doubt it. For one, the gravity force couples too weakly to make graviton detectable. Also, how much energy would be needed? I doubt they'll ever be able to confirm these symmetry theories. I remember an experiment Sci. Amer. described about 20 years ago in which matter would fall an equal distance to antimatter. If these 3 types of gravitons really exist, the experiment should find a violation of equivalence principle and matter falls 14% slower than antimatter. But I didn't see a followup, so I guess the experiment failed.

Hypo. The test of physical parameters of the proton and antiproton, using Penning traps confirmed identical inertial/gravitational masses years ago.

pete

see:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...9ca2f163fec28e

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

Ok.

It seems to me that this is disproof of the 3-graviton supersymmetry theory?

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

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Hypothesis. As yet supersymmetry is still hunting for all it's particles. I'm with Eta C on the statistics on the axion, too. I still think the finding will be in a low energy experiment...~0.003 ev, intermittent coupling of a fermion with a low energy Z, with branching ratios yielding sometimes neutrinos/antineutrinos discretely, and others low energy photons.
Your comment on the high masses of the W's, and the massive Z regard it's short range at that energy, dictated by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.....massless particles can have infinite range, not massive ones. pete.

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov

"[...] the particle accelerator is not a temple, but a scientific instrument, the largest and most expensive ever built. But it is still true that the newspapers claim it is looking for the God particle, and that this, if found, would unlock the secrets of the universe. Is there anything more to the claim than PR?"

Andrew Brown at The Guardian

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

If you want to get good PR and get the public behind the search for the Higgs Bosun, just leak a story that there's a theory that someone thinks discovering the HB might lead to a technological breakthru making holographic TV's possible....

The Higgs boson is less than 1 TeV , so this should definitely be detected in the LHC. This is the science, and it'll confirm the standard model. But it won't unlock the secrets to everything (TOE) because that will be a still unproven theory. As other posts point out, they'll keep looking for some of these more exotic predicted particles at LHC.

One quote in Andrew Brown's paper:
"What's truly glorious and godlike about the God particle is that we have absolutely no idea what it might mean even after we've found it". Scientists are PREDICTING the Higgs particle ahead of its discovery, so of course they know what it would mean. How does he think they even conceived of the concept of this particle in the first place

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet

I´d really appreciate people, especially scientists, stopped calling Higgs Boson the "god particle". It feels like science surrendered to religion, or worse yet, corroborate religious views.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

That name has also bothered me, until I read the book and discovered what Ledermann really wanted to entitle it. I can't use that word here, and the publisher didn't like it either, so it got shortened to "God particle" and it stuck.

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Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I don't like the title, but it is a great book. I wish he had just called it "Search for the Higgs particle", much better title. Peter Watkins wrote a book called "Story of the W and Z" telling his participation in their discovery, a good title.

I don't like whimsical titles for things, unless the shoe fits. The name "color" for QCD makes sense since the 3 primary colors make white light, like the three quark colors have to combine to make "white" particles.

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"fifty is nifty" , unknown poet