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"It would be bigger than the detection of the Higgs boson, which was just confirmation of what was already known." This is so wrong. Finding the Higgs where it

"It would be bigger than the detection of the Higgs boson, which was just confirmation of what was already known." This is so wrong. Finding the Higgs where it was expected was very important because otherwise "what was already known" would have been false.

gpderetta 10y ago
Of course it was important, but discovering hints of physics beyond the standard model at energies we have a chance to probe is a Big Deal.
ThePhysicist 10y ago
I think the difference that the author wants to stress here is that this new particle would be something that no one has predicted. The discovery of the Higgs, on the other hand, was an experiment that confirmed a theory which had been formulated several decades ago. And while this is also an amazing achievement, finding a particle that can't be accounted for with our current theories is much more exciting (to me at least), as it means that our current understanding of particle physics is fundamentally or at least partially wrong. This, I think, is exactly the kind of discovery that people expected from the LHC: Something new and exciting that invalidates our current theories and gives us a possibility to devise / test new ones against real experimental data. After all, the real shortage in particle physics is not the number of theories (we can invent a quasi infinite number of them), but the data against which we can test them.
- ifdefdebug 10y ago
  As I see it, before the Higgs was seen, this search was also a search for "new physics", because if Higgs was wrong, a lot of new physics would have been needed to explain the things Higgs was trying to explain. It's just that everybody was expecting a confirmation because all of the rest of the SM turned out to be right so far, so nobody really expected new physics to come from there. Now since the last chance of "new physics" due to the lack of a signal where a signal should have been is gone, everybody turns their hope to finding a signal where no signal was expected. This is of course totally legitimated, but it doesn't take away any of the importance of the former. I would love to see something new too, but if the SM explains everything we are able to measure today just fine, then be it. Then the SM is all we need, until we are able to measure more. It's just like the people in the 19th century: they had to go with Newton because they couldn't measure anything beyond Newton. But on the other hand, back then Newton was all they needed, because Newton could explain everything they saw.
  - acqq 10y ago
    > people in the 19th century: they had to go with Newton because they couldn't measure anything beyond Newton As far as I know in 19th century there were already the measurements and the calculations resulting from them that didn't match Newton's model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Le_Verrier#Precession_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Le_Verrier#Precession_o... By the way, Le Verrier also discovered Neptune just by studying the measured movements of the known planets.
    - ifdefdebug 10y ago
      I stand corrected. Please read my sentence as: "in the 18th and early 19th century".
- SubiculumCode 10y ago
  You can't disprove a null, just fail to reject the null. Failing to find the Higgs would not have provided evidence that the Higgs did not exist.
  - ThePhysicist 10y ago
    Yes, exactly! That's why finding unknown particles is so interesting, as it can invalidate a given theory.

gpderetta 10y ago

Of course it was important, but discovering hints of physics beyond the standard model at energies we have a chance to probe is a Big Deal.

ThePhysicist 10y ago

I think the difference that the author wants to stress here is that this new particle would be something that no one has predicted. The discovery of the Higgs, on the other hand, was an experiment that confirmed a theory which had been formulated several decades ago. And while this is also an amazing achievement, finding a particle that can't be accounted for with our current theories is much more exciting (to me at least), as it means that our current understanding of particle physics is fundamentally or at least partially wrong. This, I think, is exactly the kind of discovery that people expected from the LHC: Something new and exciting that invalidates our current theories and gives us a possibility to devise / test new ones against real experimental data. After all, the real shortage in particle physics is not the number of theories (we can invent a quasi infinite number of them), but the data against which we can test them.

ifdefdebug 10y ago
As I see it, before the Higgs was seen, this search was also a search for "new physics", because if Higgs was wrong, a lot of new physics would have been needed to explain the things Higgs was trying to explain. It's just that everybody was expecting a confirmation because all of the rest of the SM turned out to be right so far, so nobody really expected new physics to come from there. Now since the last chance of "new physics" due to the lack of a signal where a signal should have been is gone, everybody turns their hope to finding a signal where no signal was expected. This is of course totally legitimated, but it doesn't take away any of the importance of the former. I would love to see something new too, but if the SM explains everything we are able to measure today just fine, then be it. Then the SM is all we need, until we are able to measure more. It's just like the people in the 19th century: they had to go with Newton because they couldn't measure anything beyond Newton. But on the other hand, back then Newton was all they needed, because Newton could explain everything they saw.
- acqq 10y ago
  > people in the 19th century: they had to go with Newton because they couldn't measure anything beyond Newton As far as I know in 19th century there were already the measurements and the calculations resulting from them that didn't match Newton's model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Le_Verrier#Precession_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbain_Le_Verrier#Precession_o... By the way, Le Verrier also discovered Neptune just by studying the measured movements of the known planets.
  - ifdefdebug 10y ago
    I stand corrected. Please read my sentence as: "in the 18th and early 19th century".
SubiculumCode 10y ago
You can't disprove a null, just fail to reject the null. Failing to find the Higgs would not have provided evidence that the Higgs did not exist.
- ThePhysicist 10y ago
  Yes, exactly! That's why finding unknown particles is so interesting, as it can invalidate a given theory.