4 ms·

A Higgs Setback

20 points by rpledge 15y ago

Yhippa 15y ago
Well, that's science for you. No shame if they don't end up finding the Higgs boson. You just regroup, devise alternate theories and move on. Surely with all of the data there's something we can learn about this. There as something interesting in the article about Congress cancelling the Superconducting Super Collider. There is something to be said about how society values finding particles that could change humanity against more mundane needs like economic stimulation and ensuring it's people are fed.
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  how would finding this "change humanity"? i know that it's been sold as "the god particle" etc etc, but what changes do you expect if it is found?
  - jinushaun 15y ago
    I'm also curious. They said the same thing about the human genome, but once it was mapped nothing really happened. If anything, we realised that we knew even LESS about the human body than before because the genome didn't provide a magical blueprint to fix all our biological ills. We got a list of ingredients, but still don't know how to put it all together. Answers to questions about gene expression and protein folding still remain, and the research for them continues as they did before using the same old wet lab techniques. One thing biologists did learn from the HGP was how useful computers were. That was actually what I studied in university: computational biology.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      Perhaps you were oversold on the HGP :-) Actually as more and more humans have their DNA mapped, and we begin to see the variations and nuance it becomes more valuable. The HGP was analagous to getting a map of the United States with the state outlines and names filled in, and perhaps outlines on the major bodies of water. As the technology improved each successive 'frame' that gets layered into that provides additional information (capital cities, roads, etc). So 'finding the Higgs boson' won't change humanity like 'achieving a stable fusion reaction with net power generation' would but it does let people use that information in finding solutions to problems that are life changing. In biology, the combination of the HGP and the work on understanding cellular mechanics and operation, will eventually result in tools where we don't 'cure' disease so much as 'fix' it.
  - foob 15y ago
    It's not always obvious what the applications of advances in physics will be until long after they happen. Do you think that Maxwell could have possibly foreseen the depth of the impact that electricity and magnetism would have on mankind? Did Einstein expect that general relativity would allow for timing corrections in GPS satellites? Did Heisenberg realize the potential impact of a scanning tunneling microscope? Basic physics research has a long history of leading the way for technological advances. I expect that, in one way or another, this trend will continue in the future.
    - andrewcooke 15y ago
      well, there's a pretty simple argument that maxwell could have used, but which current particle physics cannot: the experiments that maxwell did were in "normal conditions". they didn't need extreme energies, or scales. so any new knowledge could clearly affect our everyday lives. in contrast, if the only effects that a theory has are at the scale where you need to construct huge machines to examine conditions found only in remote astronomical objects then it's much harder to make the same case. in other words - if there is some useful application for this then we could also use that to test the science (much more cheaply and simply than we are doing now). there is huge pressure to find some "laboratory scale" application because that would lead to a breakthrough that avoids all this tedious messing around with massive underground machines. that no such test is possible argues strongly against any application. this is a very strong argument. you might say, for example, that finding the higgs particle could lead to a simplified explanation of X that would improve Y and so Z. but every scientist working on this is already desperately searching for consequences like X because they could then jump to Z and so prove that the higgs particle exists....
yaks_hairbrush 15y ago
Don't understand why Peter Higgs was so upset about Hawking's wager. Hawking is a notorious loser of bets.
rjprins 15y ago
I find the remark about not funding such elementary research silly. It could be said that not finding the Higgs particle is a bigger discovery than actually finding it. Either way, it's about gaining knowledge.
- choxi 15y ago
  I like when physics theories don't work out, it means the real answer is probably even more interesting

20 points by rpledge 15y ago

Well, that's science for you. No shame if they don't end up finding the Higgs boson. You just regroup, devise alternate theories and move on. Surely with all of the data there's something we can learn about this. There as something interesting in the article about Congress cancelling the Superconducting Super Collider. There is something to be said about how society values finding particles that could change humanity against more mundane needs like economic stimulation and ensuring it's people are fed.

andrewcooke 15y ago
how would finding this "change humanity"? i know that it's been sold as "the god particle" etc etc, but what changes do you expect if it is found?
- jinushaun 15y ago
  I'm also curious. They said the same thing about the human genome, but once it was mapped nothing really happened. If anything, we realised that we knew even LESS about the human body than before because the genome didn't provide a magical blueprint to fix all our biological ills. We got a list of ingredients, but still don't know how to put it all together. Answers to questions about gene expression and protein folding still remain, and the research for them continues as they did before using the same old wet lab techniques. One thing biologists did learn from the HGP was how useful computers were. That was actually what I studied in university: computational biology.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    Perhaps you were oversold on the HGP :-) Actually as more and more humans have their DNA mapped, and we begin to see the variations and nuance it becomes more valuable. The HGP was analagous to getting a map of the United States with the state outlines and names filled in, and perhaps outlines on the major bodies of water. As the technology improved each successive 'frame' that gets layered into that provides additional information (capital cities, roads, etc). So 'finding the Higgs boson' won't change humanity like 'achieving a stable fusion reaction with net power generation' would but it does let people use that information in finding solutions to problems that are life changing. In biology, the combination of the HGP and the work on understanding cellular mechanics and operation, will eventually result in tools where we don't 'cure' disease so much as 'fix' it.
- foob 15y ago
  It's not always obvious what the applications of advances in physics will be until long after they happen. Do you think that Maxwell could have possibly foreseen the depth of the impact that electricity and magnetism would have on mankind? Did Einstein expect that general relativity would allow for timing corrections in GPS satellites? Did Heisenberg realize the potential impact of a scanning tunneling microscope? Basic physics research has a long history of leading the way for technological advances. I expect that, in one way or another, this trend will continue in the future.
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    well, there's a pretty simple argument that maxwell could have used, but which current particle physics cannot: the experiments that maxwell did were in "normal conditions". they didn't need extreme energies, or scales. so any new knowledge could clearly affect our everyday lives. in contrast, if the only effects that a theory has are at the scale where you need to construct huge machines to examine conditions found only in remote astronomical objects then it's much harder to make the same case. in other words - if there is some useful application for this then we could also use that to test the science (much more cheaply and simply than we are doing now). there is huge pressure to find some "laboratory scale" application because that would lead to a breakthrough that avoids all this tedious messing around with massive underground machines. that no such test is possible argues strongly against any application. this is a very strong argument. you might say, for example, that finding the higgs particle could lead to a simplified explanation of X that would improve Y and so Z. but every scientist working on this is already desperately searching for consequences like X because they could then jump to Z and so prove that the higgs particle exists....

yaks_hairbrush 15y ago

Don't understand why Peter Higgs was so upset about Hawking's wager. Hawking is a notorious loser of bets.

rjprins 15y ago

I find the remark about not funding such elementary research silly. It could be said that not finding the Higgs particle is a bigger discovery than actually finding it. Either way, it's about gaining knowledge.

choxi 15y ago
I like when physics theories don't work out, it means the real answer is probably even more interesting