SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - Scientists say existence of Higgs boson near certain

Posted: Jul 04 2012 04:46 am

Quote:

Scientists said Wednesday that they were almost certain that they had proven the existence of the Higgs boson, the most sought-after particle in all of physics.

Researchers from the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, are presenting their analysis of data from the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator.

The Swiss presentation comes after researchers in Illinois said earlier this week scientists that they had crept closer to proving that the particle exists but had been unable to reach a definitive conclusion.

Finding the Higgs boson would help explain the origin of mass, one of the open questions in physicists' current understanding of the way the universe works.

The particle has been so difficult to pin down that the physicist Leon Lederman reportedly wanted to call his book "The Goddamn Particle." But he truncated that epithet to "The God Particle," which may have helped elevate the particle's allure in popular culture.

http://x.co/lhgU

pretty interesting news. i wonder if this will turn out being another miscalculation like last time.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

My friend studied physics at Oxford he told me that today that we would have to suit up and go to the pub to celebrate the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

It's meant to be heralding a new future for physics, totally revolutionising the field. However i am not too sure how "near certain" would warrant the creation of a new paradigm based on this.

There is near certain and then there is certain. I wouldn't want to go about my new research with this in mind and find out that within the near certain, that small amount of uncertainty proved that it didn't exist.

Since i never studied physics at that high a level i dunno how acceptable near certain is giving the fact that it's ridiculously difficult to prove it exists and the phenomena which is being worked which basically requires trillions of data to prove.

Posted: Jul 04 2012 09:29 am

This is what pisses me off about science. There's nothing left to discover that doesn't require a $100 billion machine. Back in the day, all Issac Newton had to do was watch an apple fall to discover gravity. I could have done that. That could have been me.

Banned Joined: Sep 13 2008 Posts: 3129

sidewaydriver wrote:

This is what pisses me off about science. There's nothing left to discover that doesn't require a $100 billion machine. Back in the day, all Issac Newton had to do was watch an apple fall to discover gravity. I could have done that. That could have been me.

Pfft, back in MY day all we had to do was chisel a wheel out of stone. That was REAL science

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

Pfft, back in my day I fucking crawled out of the ocean. I didn't even do anything, but people say it was pretty important.

Let me tell you though, it was really lonely.

Posted: Jul 04 2012 11:58 pm

I guess that makes you the missing linky.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

lol.

How nice it is that we happened to discover this on Independence Day.

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

We meaning the USA? The LHC is in Europe.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

JoshWoodzy wrote:

We meaning the USA? The LHC is in Europe.

We being humans in general. US may not have discovered it, but that doesn't make it any less nice that we happened to discover it on the 4th of July. For us (being people in the US), that's just a cool coincidence.

Posted: Jul 05 2012 02:17 pm

Drew Linky wrote:

JoshWoodzy wrote:

We meaning the USA? The LHC is in Europe.

We being humans in general. US may not have discovered it, but that doesn't make it any less nice that we happened to discover it on the 4th of July. For us (being people in the US), that's just a cool coincidence.

You should ask Alow if he thinks that's a cool coincidence. Razz

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

No one cares about Alow. This Is A Joke

Posted: Jul 06 2012 02:46 am

LOL, this thread. So much unintentional comedy.

Posted: Jul 06 2012 03:04 am

Our mocking of this landmark scientific discovery just shows how inferior our brains are. Except Jeebus, he's in Mensa.

Posted: Jul 06 2012 05:14 am

sidewaydriver wrote:

Our mocking of this landmark scientific discover just shows how inferior our brains are. Except Jeebus, he's in Mensa.

and he's also smarter than Einstein

Posted: Jul 06 2012 07:10 am

I thought this thread was about tits. I read boson as bosom. What a disappointment.

Joined: Aug 04 2009 Posts: 2515

Cameron wrote:

Drew Linky wrote:

JoshWoodzy wrote:

We meaning the USA? The LHC is in Europe.

We being humans in general. US may not have discovered it, but that doesn't make it any less nice that we happened to discover it on the 4th of July. For us (being people in the US), that's just a cool coincidence.

You should ask Alow if he thinks that's a cool coincidence. Razz

What is puzzling me more is the insistence of the US on using MM/DD/YYYY. Which is nonsensical in its own right but....

Then you call your holiday "4th of July" which is our system of DD/MM/YYYY.

It should be July the 4th by your dating system. You truly are master trolls.

EDIT: @atomjacked: i would be careful as Higgs is a 70-80 year old male. I'm sure he wouldn't mind showing you his bosoms.

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

Alowishus wrote:

EDIT: @atomjacked: i would be careful as Higgs is a 70-80 year old male. I'm sure he wouldn't mind showing you his bosoms.

Considering most scientists have really quirky senses of humor, that sounds frighteningly possible.

Also, the dating system has always thrown me for a loop. Why we did it differently than most other countries around the globe escapes me.

Watch as we try to convert like we did with metric... because that went so well.

Posted: Jul 06 2012 04:01 pm

Drew Linky wrote:

Alowishus wrote:

EDIT: @atomjacked: i would be careful as Higgs is a 70-80 year old male. I'm sure he wouldn't mind showing you his bosoms.

Considering most scientists have really quirky senses of humor, that sounds frighteningly possible.

Posted: Jul 06 2012 05:35 pm

Alowishus wrote:

Cameron wrote:

Drew Linky wrote:

JoshWoodzy wrote:

We meaning the USA? The LHC is in Europe.

We being humans in general. US may not have discovered it, but that doesn't make it any less nice that we happened to discover it on the 4th of July. For us (being people in the US), that's just a cool coincidence.

You should ask Alow if he thinks that's a cool coincidence. Razz

What is puzzling me more is the insistence of the US on using MM/DD/YYYY. Which is nonsensical in its own right but....

Then you call your holiday "4th of July" which is our system of DD/MM/YYYY.

It should be July the 4th by your dating system. You truly are master trolls.

EDIT: @atomjacked: i would be careful as Higgs is a 70-80 year old male. I'm sure he wouldn't mind showing you his bosoms.

You are so right on that. It confuses the hell out of me because sometimes people switch it up. If both the day and the month numbers are 12 and under, I won't know what the date is. Take today for instance: 07/06/2012. Is it June 7th or July 6th? I stick to the military way of labeling dates, i.e. 1 Aug 12.

Posted: Jul 06 2012 11:37 pm

MM/DD/YYYY makes more sense to me than any other format because it follows the common phrase format "July 6th, 2012". I don't know anybody who would say "6th of July".

What was this thread about again?

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

Certainly not science.

Posted: Jul 07 2012 12:14 am

I don't think we should bother with months anymore, just give the days a number based on their order in the year and the year itself. For example: January 1 of this year would be 1/2012 and July 7 of this year would be 189/2012.

Joined: Jun 08 2010 Location: Termina Field Posts: 1541

@om*d wrote:

I don't think we should bother with months anymore, just give the days a number based on their order in the year and the year itself. For example: January 1 of this year would be 1/2012 and July 7 of this year would be 189/2012.

And then we shouldn't bother with weeks, then? Because I like my weekends. Sad

Methid Man wrote:

MM/DD/YYYY makes more sense to me than any other format because it follows the common phrase format "July 6th, 2012". I don't know anybody who would say "6th of July".

I do. In fact, it is standard practice in my country (Australia, if anyone had forgotten), and to me it makes more sense to me, due to the values being in order from shortest (days) to longest (years). I can't be bothered to check what other countries do for this, but I assume a bunch of places in Europe would do the same.

Posted: Jul 07 2012 03:03 am

Methid Man wrote:

I don't know anybody who would say "6th of July".

(*slowly raises hand*)

Wizard Joined: Jun 12 2009 Posts: 4209

Fuck all of you haters. Sad