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God Particle Detected at CERN

  • 13-12-2011 02:39AM
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭


    http://news.sky.com/home/technology/article/16129043
    Scientists are set to confirm they have caught a glimpse of the elusive 'God particle' - the so far theoretical concept that helps to explain some of the mysteries of the Universe.

    The Cern physics research centre in Switzerland is expected to reveal that experiments in the Large Hadron Collider have produced signals that provide the clearest evidence yet that the sub-atomic particle exists.
    "I am feeling quite a level of excitement," said Oliver Buchmueller, one of the senior scientists seeking the particle.
    The Higgs particle, or boson, is a key missing piece in the most widely accepted theory of physics - called the Standard Model - which describes how particles and forces interact.
    For more than a year scientists at Cern have been firing particles in opposite directions around a 27km long ring-shaped tunnel 100m below ground.
    When the particles have acclerated to almost the speed of light they are encouraged to collide. Sensitive detectors are then used to examine the debris for new particles.
    There is still a possibility that the findings are down to chance disturbances, rather than a real observation. Further tests are planned.
    "We are moving very close to a conclusion in the first few months of next year," said Dr Buchmueller.
    The £6bn experiment is an attempt to replicate the conditions shortly after the Universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in the Big Bang.
    The Standard Model of physics predicts that sub-atomic particles should have no mass.
    But according to the theory proposed by some scientists, an invisible Higgs force field and an associated boson were created soon after the Big Bang.
    These create a drag on other particles, giving them mass.
    If the Cern experiments confirm the Higgs boson exists it would fix the biggest hole in the Standard Model - and give credence to what has been a largely mathematical model of how the Universe works.
    But if they showed it does not exist it would shake the foundations of modern physics and force a massive rethink on the forces that glue the Universe together.

    Sounds Good. :D
    Tagged:


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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,721 ✭✭✭Al Capwned


    sounds like ****e


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,403 ✭✭✭✭MrStuffins


    Thread title is very misleading.

    It hasn't been "found" at all.

    All of the results will not be put together until March, this is when the proper results will come out.

    Scientists have been afraid of this kind of jumping the gun happening and one prominent scientist said only yesterday that when the teams compare results today that this would happen, but it won't be conclusive proof.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    What's in it for me?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    If it was "The Star" newspaper it would be "boffins discovered...". That irks me.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭MisterEpicurus


    @ ChuckStone: A blowjob


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    pragmatic1 wrote: »
    If it was "The Star" newspaper it would be "boffins discovered...". That irks me.

    in fairness readers of The Star can consider anyone who reads anything but The Star a "boffin". The ability to tie your own shoelaces makes you a nuclear technician in their eyes.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,288 ✭✭✭TheUsual


    I love how people with twitter and facebook and a few hours of science on BBC have made them into experts.

    I did a lot of Physics in school and college and am happy to say I don't know what they are talking about ... not really.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    @ ChuckStone: A blowjob

    Well then the 7.5 billion spent on the big whirly-go-round was worth every cent.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,672 ✭✭✭policarp


    Big Bang, Black Hole, Uranus, Asteroids, Haemoroids we all came from beside a sh!thole, so why make it seem more sexy?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 412 ✭✭Haelium


    Well then the 7.5 billion spent on the big whirly-go-round was worth every cent.
    Yes, it was, we are now one step closer to understanding the universe.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 588 ✭✭✭MisterEpicurus


    Bye Bye God, your particle is found


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,132 ✭✭✭Killer Pigeon


    As someone who is half-way through a physics degree and is cramming for an exam in the morning, I firmly couldn't give a toss.

    "Higgs this and Hadron that. Terrible stuff. Ride me Boson was another one."


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,132 ✭✭✭Killer Pigeon


    policarp wrote: »
    Big Bang, Black Hole, Uranus, Asteroids, Haemoroids we all came from beside a sh!thole, so why make it seem more sexy?

    All very nice woody words. Not the tinny sort I would say.

    Gaawwwwnnn!!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Haelium wrote: »
    Yes, it was, we are now one step closer to understanding the universe.

    A load of physicists messing around on a big merry-go-round for particles.

    We're still light years away from understanding the universe imo.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,708 ✭✭✭Curly Judge




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,144 ✭✭✭DonkeyStyle \o/


    What's in it for me?
    It wasn't looking good for a while there, but I think it means we're getting hoverboards.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 412 ✭✭Haelium


    A load of physicists messing around on a big merry-go-round for particles.

    We're still light years away from understanding the universe imo.

    So you're basically saying that because we're a long way away, we shouldn't bother researching at all?

    If scientists took that attitude we would not be where we are today technologically.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 34,788 ✭✭✭✭krudler


    A load of physicists messing around on a big merry-go-round for particles.

    We're still light years away from understanding the universe imo.

    a light year is a measure of distance not time. we know that because physicists messed around and figured it out. see how that works?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,137 ✭✭✭44leto


    Oh dear, they find the God particle and the particle says "let there be light" and everything rebegins again.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,132 ✭✭✭Killer Pigeon


    Haelium wrote: »
    So you're basically saying that because we're a long way away, we shouldn't bother researching at all?

    If scientists took that attitude we would not be where we are today technologically.

    Nowadays physicists take trivial things they've discovered and make it seem extraordinary, when in actual fact they're just looking for money to pay for their bread rations.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 193 ✭✭seantorious


    Faster than light travelling particles and the higgs boson. In one year thats a good haul. Heres hoping for disease cures next year.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    krudler wrote: »
    a light year is a measure of distance not time.

    yeah I know. I was messing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    I'm sorta hoping they don't find it. more interesting :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,659 ✭✭✭CrazyRabbit


    It's all a lie. They haven't detected me at all.


    God


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,593 ✭✭✭tigger123


    It's a Christmas MIRACLE!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,528 ✭✭✭foxyboxer


    A photon is checking in for a flight.

    "Any baggage?"

    "No, I'm travelling light"



    *bah-dum-tish*

    If we knew how everything in the universe worked it would take the fun out of it. Just over 100 years ago atoms were concusively proven to exist. Imagine what discoveries lie in the next 100 years. The LHC is a practical tool to that end.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    A neutrino was checking in for a flight and he was standing at the desk before anyone seen him arriving.



    Gets coat.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,190 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    A load of physicists messing around on a big merry-go-round for particles.

    We're still light years away from understanding the universe imo.
    We will never fully understand how the whole thing works, though we'll be able to model it to a very fine degree.

    The key here is that every tiny step we take forward in understanding how the universe fits together, allows to make progresses in all areas of science and technology. The reason that you can now get a phone which is capable of storing several libraries' worth of information and performing more calculations in one second than you could hope to do in your entire lifetime, can be directly attributed to tiny steps forward in our understanding of elementary particles over the last fifty years.

    At this stage, microchips are designed and assembled almost at the atomic level. Without understanding what forces are at play down there, the chips just wouldn't work as we expect them to. It's not a case that someone invented a microchip and then we just got better at it. Continual discoveries from places like CERN allowed hurdles to be overcome and new developments which allowed us to make better microchips.

    And as we know, improvement in electronics have touched virtually every aspect of everyone's life.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,528 ✭✭✭foxyboxer


    Same with gravity. Why is it so weak? I'm sure the brightest minds on the planet are trying to figure out how if I rub a balloon on my jumper and stick it to the wall the force of electromagnetism on the balloon can overcome the entire earths gravity. :D


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    seamus wrote: »
    And as we know, improvement in electronics have touched virtually every aspect of everyone's life.

    Undoubtedly.

    I just have reservations and questions about those big prestige projects. Is the 7.5 billion cost of the LHC an ethical way of spending what is in effect the money of European tax-payers?

    Would it be better used to research a cure for cancer? Or build and fund a children's hospital for, what, decades?

    I don't know.


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