3 ms·

What is the Higgs boson and why it's important

50 points by 11031a 15y ago

delinquentme 15y ago
http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/BerndStelzer/higgs/ http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/BerndStelzer/higgs/ ^^ 5 - 1 page explanations of the Higgs Boson
hugh3 15y ago
Aw shit man, I'm a physicist, and even I can't fucking understand Higgs bosons. Allow me to quote from the Wikipedia page on the Higgs mechanism: In the standard model, the Higgs field is an SU(2) doublet, a complex spinor with four real components (or equivalently with two complex components), with a Standard Model U(1) charge of −1. It transforms as a spinor under SU(2). Under U(1) rotations, it gets multiplied by a phase; this mixes the real and imaginary part of the complex spinor into each other, so this is not the same as two complex spinors mixing under U(1) (which would have eight real components between them), but instead is the spinor representation of the group U(2). After symmetry breaking, three of the four degrees of freedom in the Higgs field mix with the W and Z bosons, while the one remaining degree of freedom becomes the Higgs boson – a new scalar particle. That clear? No, it fucking isn't. And it just gets fucking worse after that. I'd really like to be able to form some kind of picture in my head of how a Higgs Boson gives mass to other particles, but I just can't... and if I could it would probably be wrong.
VladRussian 15y ago
Higgs boson as God particle - it is a nice metaphor considering that the Higgs field plays the same role as the idea of God - a phenomenological theory to fill the gap in our understanding of Nature. I don't see how Higgs explains (or in any way addresses ) the gravitational and inertial mass equivalence - the elephant in the room. Any mass theory that doesn't notice it is just a non-starter. What we do know - gravitational waves exists (and thus gravitron - the quantum wave packet). The inertial mass in such approach arises naturally just as manifestation of gravitational mass. What we don't know here is the exact machinery how gravitational force interacts with matter. Higgs boson doesn't helps here. It doesn't shed any light on the details of gravitational interactions, and its explanation of mass must be compatible with what we know while it doesn't seem to even start to address it.

50 points by 11031a 15y ago

http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/BerndStelzer/higgs/ http://hep.physics.utoronto.ca/BerndStelzer/higgs/ ^^ 5 - 1 page explanations of the Higgs Boson

hugh3 15y ago

Aw shit man, I'm a physicist, and even I can't fucking understand Higgs bosons. Allow me to quote from the Wikipedia page on the Higgs mechanism: In the standard model, the Higgs field is an SU(2) doublet, a complex spinor with four real components (or equivalently with two complex components), with a Standard Model U(1) charge of −1. It transforms as a spinor under SU(2). Under U(1) rotations, it gets multiplied by a phase; this mixes the real and imaginary part of the complex spinor into each other, so this is not the same as two complex spinors mixing under U(1) (which would have eight real components between them), but instead is the spinor representation of the group U(2). After symmetry breaking, three of the four degrees of freedom in the Higgs field mix with the W and Z bosons, while the one remaining degree of freedom becomes the Higgs boson – a new scalar particle. That clear? No, it fucking isn't. And it just gets fucking worse after that. I'd really like to be able to form some kind of picture in my head of how a Higgs Boson gives mass to other particles, but I just can't... and if I could it would probably be wrong.

VladRussian 15y ago

Higgs boson as God particle - it is a nice metaphor considering that the Higgs field plays the same role as the idea of God - a phenomenological theory to fill the gap in our understanding of Nature. I don't see how Higgs explains (or in any way addresses ) the gravitational and inertial mass equivalence - the elephant in the room. Any mass theory that doesn't notice it is just a non-starter. What we do know - gravitational waves exists (and thus gravitron - the quantum wave packet). The inertial mass in such approach arises naturally just as manifestation of gravitational mass. What we don't know here is the exact machinery how gravitational force interacts with matter. Higgs boson doesn't helps here. It doesn't shed any light on the details of gravitational interactions, and its explanation of mass must be compatible with what we know while it doesn't seem to even start to address it.