[KuevDulin]

"According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the manifestation of the so-called Higgs field, an invisible energy field filling all space."

They have discovered The Force?

[bortycuz]

No they havent seen midochlorions.

[bortycuz]

Todays sci-fi becomes tomorrows science fiction

[SteantyjetMaw]

"According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the manifestation of the so-called Higgs field, an invisible energy field filling all space."

They have discovered The Force?

yep (well, it's looking good).

[freddyujnf]

It's a bit sad I was thinking, since I have no REAL idea what it is about, but I can't help finding the process of the proposing and following up and hunting absolutely fascinating.
I'm using the kids as an excuse really, to get basic info, but don't tell anyone :P

it is why i keep coming back to the science forums. always something to learn !

*don't tell anyone but i'm pretending i'm only following the links for jjs g/ks to see if they re what she needs

[SteantyjetMaw]

@ joey.
I think Dropbear would enjoy this one too; not unlike his example.

http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html

"1. The Higgs Mechanism
Imagine a cocktail party of political party workers who are uniformly distributed across the floor, all talking to their nearest neighbours.

The ex-Prime- Minister enters and crosses the room.

All of the workers in her neighbourhood are strongly attracted to her and cluster round her.

As she moves she attracts the people she comes close to, while the ones she has left return to their even spacing.

Because of the knot of people always clustered around her she acquires a greater mass than normal, that is, she has more momentum for the same speed of movement across the room.

Once moving she is harder to stop, and once stopped she is harder to get moving again because the clustering process has to be restarted.

In three dimensions, and with the complications of relativity, this is the Higgs mechanism.

In order to give particles mass, a background field is invented which becomes locally distorted whenever a particle moves through it.

The distortion - the clustering of the field around the particle - generates the particle's mass.

The idea comes directly from the Physics of Solids.

Instead of a field spread throughout all space a solid contains a lattice of positively charged crystal atoms.

When an electron moves through the lattice the atoms are attracted to it, causing the electron's effective mass to be as much as 40 times bigger than the mass of a free electron.

The postulated Higgs field in the vacuum is a sort of hypothetical lattice which fills our Universe.

We need it because otherwise we cannot explain why the Z and W particles which carry the Weak Interactions are so heavy while the photon which carries Electromagnetic forces is massless.


2. The Higgs Boson.
Now consider a rumour passing through our room full of uniformly spread political workers.
Those near the door hear of it first and cluster together to get the details, then they turn and move closer to their next neighbours who want to know about it too.
A wave of clustering passes through the room.
It may spread out to all the corners, or it may form a compact bunch which carries the news along a line of workers from the door to some dignitary at the other side of the room.
Since the information is carried by clusters of people, and since it was clustering which gave extra mass to the ex-Prime Minister, then the rumour-carrying clusters also have mass.
The Higgs boson is predicted to be just such a clustering in the Higgs field.

We will find it much easier to believe that the field exists, and that the mechanism for giving other particles mass is true, if we actually see the Higgs particle itself.
Again, there are analogies in the Physics of Solids.
A crystal lattice can carry waves of clustering without needing an electron to move and attract the atoms.
These waves can behave as if they are particles.
They are called phonons, and they too are bosons.
There could be a Higgs mechanism, and a Higgs field throughout our Universe, without there being a Higgs boson.

The next generation of colliders will sort this out.

from David J. Miller, Physics and Astronomy, University College London.
(cartoons courtesy of CERN). "

[SteantyjetMaw]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolog...d-this/259472/

[moopogyOvenny]

Pippa Middletons arse.

hmm.., yep, found it..

[FinanseMikky]

A good analogy I heard, jj

The Higgs boson is like paparazzi milling around the oscars the popular stars get the most attention from the paparazzi and are slowed down by them as they try to move through the throng.. The less popular ones are barely noticed and are able to move through without much impediment at all.

In the same way some particles are impeded by their flow through the Higgs Field and this "resistance" we see as Mass. Other particles are less impeded, or not impeded at all (mass-less) as they move through

Is this really a good analogy, or is it just like the ball on a rubber sheet analogy for gravity?

My understanding of the Higgs mechanism is that when the particle field is initially calculated, it is assumed to have zero mass. But this leads to the particle field having a non-zero vacuum expectation value (if the mass is non-zero). So the particle field is redefined by introducing a new field (the Higgs field) that subtracts from the original particle field giving it a zero vacuum expectation value. But when the redefined particle field is recalculated, the Higgs field acts as a mass term in the equations. Thus, a zero mass particle field with non-zero vacuum expectation value is corrected by the Higgs field to a non-zero mass particle field with zero vacuum expectation value.

[beepbeet]

Is there any importance of the Higgs field to Relativity? If mass tells space how to curve, and the operation of the Higgs field gives particles their mass then.... ?

[SteantyjetMaw]

From Phillip Adams ‏@PhillipAdamsABC

God says he deserves Nobel Prize.'It's my bloody particle'

[FinanseMikky]

Is there any importance of the Higgs field to Relativity? If mass tells space how to curve, and the operation of the Higgs field gives particles their mass then.... ?

As far as I'm aware, the Higgs field has no bearing on general relativity because quantum field theory is a special relativistic theory (or over a curved background spacetime). Non-zero mass in special relativity only has the effect of making the particle trajectory (or its quantum equivalent) timelike rather than lightlike. Mass in quantum theory refers to the mass of a single particle of a particular type, whereas in general relativity, it is energy-momentum density that gives rise to spacetime curvature.

[SteantyjetMaw]

Is this really a good analogy, or is it just like the ball on a rubber sheet analogy for gravity?

My understanding of the Higgs mechanism is that when the particle field is initially calculated, it is assumed to have zero mass. But this leads to the particle field having a non-zero vacuum expectation value (if the mass is non-zero). So the particle field is redefined by introducing a new field (the Higgs field) that subtracts from the original particle field giving it a zero vacuum expectation value. But when the redefined particle field is recalculated, the Higgs field acts as a mass term in the equations. Thus, a zero mass particle field with non-zero vacuum expectation value is corrected by the Higgs field to a non-zero mass particle field with zero vacuum expectation value.

I'm sure Dropbear wouldn't ordinarily have posted this one for people on the SSSF, but he was aware of my grandkids to whom I wanted to make clear the importance of the event ... their Mum (who died some years ago now) was a physicist and I had to ... well wanted to ... try to find some way to make it interesting / memorable such that one day thought they might think, Oh that's why Nana wanted us to know about that ".... even if they went on to think " but good god, fancy nana thinking it was like paparazzi!!!".... it's all grist to the mill ... except pippa middleton's arse ... they get more than enough of that sexist crap ... even as did their Mum in ANU's physics labs, courtesy of lab staff (older man in particular) who would change things / prepare (not) setup her experimental stuff as he was instructed to do and did for his "boys" ... and notwithstanding repeated instructions from the Prof who invited her to join them to do her PhD there .

Welcome to 2012.

[letittbe]

this article also contains a video with some interesting comments concerning the higgs boson

'God particle' find sets scene for one hell of a row
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci...705-21ike.html


from the link

The first to publish, that August, were Robert Brout and Francois Englert at the Free University of Brussels. Brout died in 2011, and the award cannot be given posthumously.

Second to publish was Peter Higgs, with two papers on the theory in September and October 1964. In his second, he became the first to mention explicitly that the theory demanded a new particle in nature, which was given the name Higgs boson in 1972.

Third to publish was a group of three theorists, including two US researchers, Dick Hagen and Gerry Guralnik, and a British physicist, Tom Kibble. Their work was published in November.
Professor Geoffrey Taylor.

Professor Geoffrey Taylor. Photo: Angela Wylie

All three teams worked independently.


more...

[FinanseMikky]

I'm sure Dropbear wouldn't ordinarily have posted this one for people on the SSSF

Actually, I've heard this (or some variant of this) analogy given, and whereas the ball on a rubber sheet gravity analogy is clearly a bad analogy, I do not know if the same is true for the Higgs boson analogy. I should remark that I do not find anything wrong with analogies per se. The issue with me is whether the analogy is a reflection of the truth, or whether it is just to appease the general public.

[letittbe]

>>>A good analogy I heard, jj
The Higgs boson is like paparazzi milling around the oscars the popular stars get the most attention from the paparazzi and are slowed down by them as they try to move through the throng.. The less popular ones are barely noticed and are able to move through without much impediment at all.
In the same way some particles are impeded by their flow through the Higgs Field and this "resistance" we see as Mass. Other particles are less impeded, or not impeded at all (mass-less) as they move through

===

that analogy appears in slight variations from other people

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle4389387/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_te...rnalists_.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...eaders-explain

http://www.jest.com/embed/182619/cnn...bieber-analogy

http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html

[SteantyjetMaw]

Fair enough too.
I think I'd be a classic general public kind and the kids too young to have any clue at all either, but I wanted something to pin the day on, knowing it would have been huge to her (and frankly, I do believe I offer them more / better science than they get from school ... and I know how that sounds).

[letittbe]

Higgs Boson Particle Discovery May Help Reveal Dark Matter Secrets

http://www.space.com/16444-higgs-bos...rk-matter.html

from the link

The discovery of a new subatomic particle that is likely the elusive Higgs boson — a particle thought to give all other matter its mass — could be an important step toward uncovering the invisible stuff that makes up the majority of the universe, physicists say.

more...

[CuittisIL]

According to Sheldon Cooper...

[SteantyjetMaw]

New Scientist ‏@newscientist Higgs certainty boosted by a more complete analysis http://ow.ly/cFFNn