God Particle Detected at CERN

opinion guy · 14-12-2011 06:15PM

aidan24326 wrote: »

Saying the money should be spent on HIV or cancer research or the like is nonsense. Those research indutries are in a separate field already funded to the tune of billions of dollars.

You think they all get money from their own special money fountains ??
There is a limited pool of cash to be divided out.

Seachmall wrote: »

I've never seen a black swan, do black swans exist?

If two neuotrnios collide in the woods but noone is there to hear it is there a sound :pac:

Podge_irl · 14-12-2011 06:18PM

opinion guy wrote: »

You may believe that but if there was no LHC there woudl be 10,00 extra physicists looking for work.

Experimental particle physicists and engineers. I'm neither. "Physicist" is a nice catch-all phrase, but it's like saying healthcase professional to cover doctors, dentists and vets.

Haha or maybe it needs more funding. Certinaly more useful than a higgs boson lasting a femtosecond or whatever it is

You can give it all the funding you want, it's unlikely to matter. Probably less useful then working on the Higgs actually.

Thats not the point. The point is they could see it didn't add up. It didn't cost anything to improve things. So if it doesn't cost anything go ahead knock yourself out.

It didn't cost anything for Einstein to come up with a new theory that improved things. It cost a reasonable amount to prove that GR was in fact right.

I don't care that your model doesn't add up. The wet dreams of physicist should not justify 7billion in expenditure.

Well thankfully people didn't think similarly 100 years ago.

Offset those costs by the random and varied stuff they woudl achieve

Much like the LHC, though possibly on a longer timescale.

Its just not a urgent.

So? There will always be problems in the world. There will never be a perfect time to do this kind of research. We do it in the hope of a producing a better future.

We agree on something. Now, as you are a physicist, tell the various folk on here that this won't mean warp drives, hover boards and time machines, please.

It probably won't mean those things, though of the three hover boards would be the most likely outcome.

Of course, this is all glossing over the fact that while the LHC was built with finding the Higgs in mind, it has also thrown up the FTL neutrinos. They could have immense use and the possibilities are exceptionally interesting. And we never expected them. Hence the point of doing experiments.

Chuck Stone · 14-12-2011 06:33PM

Podge_irl wrote: »

Yes. And that's not a phenomenon localised to physics. Unfortunately there are huge advancements made by individuals in theoretical physics, but the physical equipment and engineering required for the experiments is only going to get worse and worse. But that's like complaining a house costs more to build today then in Viking times when they were made of sticks and mud.

I'm willing to accept that this is a valid argument i.e. that there's not much choice other than to inject large sums into scientific endeavour.

Tbh I think it doesn't bode well for the near future for the US and EU seeing as injecting large sums into science will probably come under close political scrutiny in the context of sovereign debts.

No it doesn't, but then I doubt very many people understand exactly what's going on in cancer treatment drugs either...

Yes but when a loved one is getting treated for cancer you have a very tangible return.

Podge_irl · 14-12-2011 06:37PM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Tbh I think it doesn't bode well for the near future for the US and EU seeing as injecting large sums into science will probably come under close political scrutiny in the context of sovereign debts.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of research moving to China/India over the coming decades. America was originally going to build its own collider to rival/collaborate with CERN but it got canned (probably sensibly). Most such big projects in the future will simply require international co-operation.

skelliser · 14-12-2011 07:40PM

The level of ignorance on this thread is staggering if not a little worrying.

The only argument but forward is that because there is no immediate return then such projects should be canned. Its all about short term gain.
And this is even after it was pointed out the real and tangible stuff that CERN has given us in its 60 years.

A similar thought process existed and it was called the celtic tiger were billions was wasted on houses no one will ever live in and done all for short term gain.

now im off home in my horseless carage and use GPS, a product of GR, to direct me home threw the traffic. There i will heat my dinner in the oven which uses electricity, a product of electrons and after that i will watch telly on my TV set, a cathode ray tube.

il leave you with this nugget.
This year and for the next 10 the irish taxpayer will pay 3 billion euros a year to fund the bailout of Anglo. A bank that doesnt do any business anymore. This money is effectivily being thrown into a blackhole.
Also our interest payments alone this year on the IMF/EU deal will be 5 billion.

Thats 8 billion in one year on a bill for which we never owned.

I

FootShooter · 14-12-2011 07:41PM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Yes but when a loved one is getting treated for cancer you have a very tangible return.

Proton therapy is a result of particle psychics and the attempt to discover new particles.

Also, parts of the cooling system at ITER, is adopted from the LHC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shGI-kpnMgY

headmaster · 14-12-2011 07:46PM

Seachmall wrote: »

I've never seen a black swan, do black swans exist?

Sorry, I didn't know you were blind. To answer your question, I do not know and that's a fact.

hooradiation · 14-12-2011 07:47PM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

A statement of childish bravado. Meet me behind the sheds so we can sort out the mysteries of the universe with an ol' punch up.

Well, if you believe have to sink to that level then by all means go ahead. But you'll still be wrong at the end of it.

MisterEpicurus · 14-12-2011 10:29PM

Higgs Boson enters a church. The priest comes up to it and says, "I'm sorry, but you are not welcome here". The Higgs Boson, quite surprised, replies, "But, without me, you can't have mass!"

aidan24326 · 15-12-2011 01:07AM

opinion guy wrote: »

You think they all get money from their own special money fountains ??
There is a limited pool of cash to be divided out.

Well, they do actually, that money fountain being the big Pharma companies. Like I said, different fields who will obviously draw interest (and of course funding) from different sources.

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 01:19AM

aidan24326 wrote: »

Well, they do actually, that money fountain being the big Pharma companies. Like I said, different fields who will obviously draw interest (and of course funding) from different sources.

Big Pharma ???
Things like cancer research need funding from government as well as from big pharma. Big pharma can't be trusted with that on their own.

Enkidu · 15-12-2011 01:05PM

I'm just wondering, the people here who are objecting to the LHC, are you objecting to ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf or just ATLAS? And if just ATLAS, is it just the Higgs measurement or also the top quark mass and the CP violation experiments?

Cú Giobach · 15-12-2011 01:11PM

Enkidu wrote: »

I'm just wondering, the people here who are objecting to the LHC, are you objecting to ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf or just ATLAS? And if just ATLAS, is it just the Higgs measurement or also the top quark mass and the CP violation experiments?

deconduo · 15-12-2011 01:22PM

Seeing that CERN played a massive role in the development of the internet as it is today, the whole world is in debt to them considering the amount of money, jobs and economic growth that the internet has contributed to globally.

Chuck Stone · 15-12-2011 01:28PM

Enkidu wrote: »

I'm just wondering, the people here who are objecting to the LHC, are you objecting to ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf or just ATLAS? And if just ATLAS, is it just the Higgs measurement or also the top quark mass and the CP violation experiments?

I object to willful overuse of acronyms.

Batsy · 15-12-2011 01:50PM

If the Higgs boson (named after the English theoretical physicist Peter Higgs who first proposed it) isn't found at CERN how long will it be before Merkozy and some europhiles come along and say that it's because Switzerland isn't in the EU?

The reason why Higgs proposed the existence of the Higgs boson is that, according to theory, all particles, including those that make up humans, should be without mass and move at the speed of light. This clearly isn't the case.

So Higgs came up with the Higgs boson:

Predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs boson is a particle that carries the Higgs field. The Higgs field is theorized to permeate through the entire Universe. As a massless particle passes through the Higgs field, it accumulates it, and the particle gains mass. Therefore, should the Higgs boson be discovered, we’ll know why matter has mass.

Read more: http://www.astroengine.com/2008/08/what-is-the-higgs-boson/#ixzz1gbkFOMEe

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 01:51PM

Enkidu wrote: »

I'm just wondering, the people here who are objecting to the LHC, are you objecting to ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, TOTEM, LHCb, and LHCf or just ATLAS? And if just ATLAS, is it just the Higgs measurement or also the top quark mass and the CP violation experiments?

I object to googling the LHC website and copy pasting a list of experiments and then calling it a point.

http://press.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

Tell me this. What are the practical applications of knowing more about quark-gluon plasmas, charge-parity violation, higgs boson's ? I mean even remotely vaguely yet plausibly possible within the next 50 years in which we may succeed in wiping ourselves out ?

RichieC · 15-12-2011 01:52PM

Batsy wrote: »

If the Higgs boson (named after the English theoretical physicist Peter Higgs who first proposed it) isn't found at CERN how long will it be before Merkozy and some europhiles come along and say that it's because Switzerland isn't in the EU?

what?

Chuck Stone · 15-12-2011 01:56PM

RichieC wrote: »

what?

The 'Hog's Bassoon'.

I wish that porcine pratt hadn't lost the bloody thing and then we would be all running around lookiing for it.

Enkidu · 15-12-2011 02:05PM

opinion guy wrote: »

I object to googling the LHC website and copy pasting a list of experiments and then calling it a point.

Of course I got them off a website! For my point to be valid it's hardly necessary that I knew them without looking them up is it? I just knew there were a few experiments, ATLAS and some others. It's funny that your conducting the debate at secondary school level:
"You had to look things up, so, eh, you're wrong or something!"

My point, which I don't think depends on my prior knowledge of the list of experiments, is that the LHC isn't just a big Higgs finding machine, there's a lot going on at the LHC. So of all the goings on, what do you object to?

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 02:10PM

Enkidu wrote: »

Of course I got them off a website! For my point to be valid it's hardly necessary that I knew them without looking them up is it? I just knew there were a few experiments, ATLAS and some others. It's funny that your conducting the debate at secondary school level:
"You had to look things up, so, eh, you're wrong or something!"

For your point to be valid you naed to actually understand what all of it means ? Do you ? I don't think so. I do think you were psoting all the acronyms to make it look like you did however.

My point, which I don't think depends on my prior knowledge of the list of experiments, is that the LHC isn't just a big Higgs finding machine, there's a lot going on at the LHC. So of all the goings on, what do you object to?

I've stated that repeatedly. I object to spending so much money on something that yields only abstract esoteric results when there are lots of practicals problems needing solving and that could well use the funding.

Enkidu · 15-12-2011 02:32PM

opinion guy wrote: »

For your point to be valid you naed to actually understand what all of it means ? Do you ? I don't think so. I do think you were psoting all the acronyms to make it look like you did however.

Hmm, okay.
Well ATLAS test for the presence of the Higgs mainly by looking at collisions in the two photon elastic sector. It also tests for CP violations, which checks if physics is still the same after you reflect particles in space and flip their charges. It also tests for the top quark mass which is obvious enough.
CMS is quite similar, but more suited to different values of momenta for the particles.
LHCb is basically looking at particles that contain a bottom quark, since we don't understand much about hadrons which contain a bottom quark.
ALICE studies quark gluon plasmas
TOTEM is trying to understand the proton better
LHCf will be looking at particles that just scatter forward, which is complimentary to the other experiments and useful in cosmic ray studies
Finally, there is MoEDAL is looking for Magnetic Monopoles, which pop up in a few unconfirmed theories.

Also, even if I was lying it doesn't matter. You should be more specific about what you object to at the LHC, you can't just say "it" is a waste of money when "it" is a research facility conducting hundreds of seperate experiments.

I've stated that repeatedly. I object to spending so much money on something that yields only abstract esoteric results when there are lots of practicals problems needing solving and that could well use the funding.

Which experiments at the LHC count as one of these esoteric results you object to?

foxyboxer · 15-12-2011 02:38PM

If you object to the LHC, then you object to the curiosity inherent in Human Beings.

It's the required next step in particle physics research. Period.

Would the naysayers object to building a larger hadron collider if CERN launched a worldwide fundraising drive where people donate to ensure it's continued operation?

If you do then complain to a Bishop who raised millions in funds to build a cathedral, something which to me has no 'practical' value. After all, the money could have be used for cancer research, fighting AIDS, poverty etc etc etc

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 02:40PM

Enkidu wrote: »

Hmm, okay.
Well ATLAS test for the presence of the Higgs mainly by looking at collisions in the two photon elastic sector. It also tests for CP violations, which checks if physics is still the same after you reflect particles in space and flip their charges. It also tests for the top quark mass which is obvious enough.
CMS is quite similar, but more suited to different values of momenta for the particles.
LHCb is basically looking at particles that contain a bottom quark, since we don't understand much about hadrons which contain a bottom quark.
ALICE studies quark gluon plasmas
TOTEM is trying to understand the proton better
LHCf will be looking at particles that just scatter forward, which is complimentary to the other experiments and useful in cosmic ray studies
Finally, there is MoEDAL is looking for Magnetic Monopoles, which pop up in a few unconfirmed theories.

Also, even if I was lying it doesn't matter. You should be more specific about what you object to at the LHC, you can't just say "it" is a waste of money when "it" is a research facility conducting hundreds of seperate experiments.

Which experiments at the LHC count as one of these esoteric results you object to?

Its funny. I was almost going to make this exact same post above after you listed the experiments. Why do I have to be specific ? Which experiments ? All of them frankly. Knowledge of the Higgs boson, CP violation, b_quarks and the rest is of no practical use right now. We got more important **** to sort.

Don't get me wrong - its all intersting and cool, just not useful when we have stuff we actually NEED to sort out. I'd rather see the cash put into cracking fusion. Crack that, crack global warming, crack cancer, crack an alternative to petrochemicals for a portable, distributable fuel distribtuion system - then worry about Higgs bosons and supersymmetry etc

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 02:43PM

foxyboxer wrote: »

If you object to the LHC, then you object to the curiosity inherent in Human Beings.

Strawman argument

It's the required next step in particle physics research. Period.

So what. I'm not worried about keeping a select few physicsits happen with billions of public money.

Would the naysayers object to building a larger hadron collider if CERN launched a worldwide fundraising drive where people donate to ensure it's continued operation?

No. But thats not the same as spending public money on it. So another straw man.

If you do then complain to a Bishop who raised millions in funds to build a cathedral, something which to me has no 'practical' value. After all, the money could have be used for cancer research, fighting AIDS, poverty etc etc etc

Peoples private money is their's to do with what they will. If a bishop got public money to build his church then you are goddamn right I would object

marco_polo · 15-12-2011 02:44PM

Yeah there is nothing to be gained at all from particle physics unless you know the benefits in advance.

http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29777

In developed countries every year some 40,000 per 10 million inhabitants are diagnosed as having cancer, around half of whom are treated with high-energy photons produced by electron linacs. There are almost 10,000 electron linacs worldwide, which run more than one shift a day. They irradiate around 4 million patients a year, each in about 30 sessions over 5–6 weeks. The photon beams have energies of a few million electron volts, but are still called X-rays by medical doctors. They have replaced low-energy X-rays and the gamma radiation from radioactive cobalt because they deposit the dose (the energy per unit mass) at greater depth (see figure 1).

In the same year of Hansen's invention, and not far away, Robert R Wilson – a Harvard associate professor who was working on cyclotrons with his old teacher Ernest Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley (CERN Courier November 2006 p11) – was computing the shielding thickness for a 150 MeV cyclotron to be constructed and installed at Harvard. Fifty years later, opening the Advances in Hadron Therapy conference, held at CERN in 1996, Wilson said, "I found that a few inches of lead would fix everything. But I did not stop. Why? Fifty years later I do not know why I did not stop. I suppose the first reason was just plain simple curiosity. So I went on and I jumped into the most obvious thing I could do next: because one could hurt people with protons, one could probably help them too. So I tried to work out every detail and I was surprised to see that the Bragg curve came up and came down very sharply," (Wilson 1997). The narrow Bragg peak at the end of the range (figure 1) prompted him to publish in the journal Radiology a now-famous paper suggesting the use of protons (and carbon ions) to irradiate tumours while sparing – much better than with X-rays – the healthy tissue traversed, contiguous and located more deeply (Wilson 1946).

However, the resonance within the medical community was almost zero and it was a decade before Berkeley and Harvard treated patients with proton beams from accelerators originally designed for nuclear-physics experiments. It wasn't until the beginning of the 1990s that radiation oncologists started to recognize this new therapeutic method, because the apparatus was huge by medical standards and the irradiations were done in nuclear-physics laboratories with horizontal particle beams and simple beam-shaping methods. By 1993 about 10 000 patients worldwide had been treated with protons, and by the end of 2006 this has reached 50,000. Today five companies supply turnkey proton-therapy centres.

Enkidu · 15-12-2011 02:45PM

opinion guy wrote: »

Why do I have to be specific ?

Since you think "it" shouldn't have been built, speaking of it like a single project with one goal. Your reasons so far consisted only of the Higgs and considering that is just one part of the LHC it's not a significant enough argument.

Which experiments ? All of them frankly.

Why? Why cancel TOTEM?

Don't get me wrong - its all intersting and cool, just not useful when we have stuff we actually NEED to sort out. I'd rather see the cash put into cracking fusion.

You don't think knowledge of the structure of the proton from TOTEM is useful to fusion research? Or knowledge of excited hadron states from LHCb?

foxyboxer · 15-12-2011 02:49PM

But that's life. I could wish for World Peace and an end to Hunger for Christmas from Santa but I know it's not going to happen.

Those problems need to be tackled of course but then how do we prioritise them?
I'm sure starving and dying infants in Africa are higher on the priority list than curing cancer. That's an immediate problem right there but if extra funding is diverted to cancer research then why not eradicate worldwide poverty first?

Getting the whole world around to a 'Priority List' would take years of lobbying and negotiations all the while those problems persist.

Look at the drawn out negotiations at the weekend regarding climate change.
Look at the Tories opting out of treaty change negotiations.

Arguing that the LHC and CERN is preventing problem resolutions is only a tiny fraction of the bigger picture.

JCabot · 15-12-2011 02:52PM

2012 is comming lads and so far we have

Possible collapse of the monetary system ,Mad unpredictable weather
and now detection of the god particle. Should we be worried or just bury our heads in the sand.

opinion guy · 15-12-2011 02:59PM

marco_polo wrote: »

Yeah there is nothing to be gained at all from particle physics unless you know the benefits in advance.

How about you actually read the thread ? What I've been saying is never has so much been spent on something with no practical gain. Give me 7billion to spend on a paper aeroplane aeronautics improvment reasearch center and I guarantee you spin off technologies - some of which will have medical applications. (I can imagine the better understanding of fluid dynamics for one would have implications for vascular diseases)

Enkidu wrote: »

Since you think "it" shouldn't have been built, speaking of it like a single project with one goal. Your reasons so far consisted only of the Higgs and considering that is just one part of the LHC it's not a significant enough argument.

Because until you everyone else have been calling it "it". But luckily I thought ahead to someone raising this point and I have an answer.

Why? Why cancel TOTEM?

You don't think knowledge of the structure of the proton from TOTEM is useful to fusion research? Or knowledge of excited hadron states from LHCb?

First off I'm not aying to cancel anything. I believe now it is started it should be continued. I question the decision to start in the first place. But fair enough - go ahead and fund TOTEM and LHCb. That would be cheaper and as you point out may have practical application. But then that leaves us with ATLAS to find the Higgs. Forget that. No payback thats justifies the outlaw at the current time.

foxyboxer wrote: »

But that's life.

Those problems need to be tackled of course but then how do we prioritise them?

Using an objective evaluation of the cost/benefit perhaps ?

I'm sure starving and dying infants in Africa are higher on the priority list than curing cancer. That's an immediate problem right there but if extra funding is diverted to cancer research then why not eradicate worldwide poverty first?

Because povery in Africa is not caused by lack of money. Its caused by political failure, wars and corruption.

Getting the whole world around to a 'Priority List' would take years of lobbying and negotiations all the while those problems persist.

Look at the drawn out negotiations at the weekend regarding climate change.
Look at the Tories opting out of treaty change negotiations.

Arguing that the LHC and CERN is preventing problem resolutions is only a tiny fraction of the bigger picture.

But there are priority lists. There are roadmaps laid out at government and internationally by scientific bodies. And almost always a project gets funded at the expense of others. LHC got funding that other things didn't. What progress in those fields could have been made ?

God Particle Detected at CERN

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