5 ms·

Tevatron confirms a 115-135 GeV Higgs

98 points by dochtman 15y ago

yummybear 15y ago
"Confirms" is a little strong for sigma 2.2
- saulrh 15y ago
  On the other hand, they're seeing a spike in exactly the same place that the LHC's been seeing a spike. That's good news - it means that there's new physics in there rather than just a measurement error.
  - kellenfujimoto 15y ago
    Even so, agreement in data does not constitute proof, it's just "closer" to proof, whatever that's worth.
- johrn 15y ago
  It looks like his argument is that somehow combining results from various detectors/measurements ends up with sigma > 3. I don't understand why that would be the case, but he isn't just saying 2.2 == confirmation.
- spauka 15y ago
  Not just a little strong, its bullshit... 2.2 sigma still leads to about a 4-5% chance of random error, and in particle physics that is an absolutely MASSIVE margin of error. As people have been saying, Physicists probably won't get truly excited about this discovery until 5 sigma, or a 99.9999% confidence interval. Articles with titles like this mislead the public and in my opinion do more harm than good because they stop people from thinking critically about whether there are flaws in the process, instead leading them to take things for given.
  - aptwebapps 15y ago
    >Articles with titles like this mislead the public and in my opinion do more harm than good because they stop people from thinking critically about whether there are flaws in the process, instead leading them to take things for given. I was with you up until the 'thinking critically' part. When did that start?
AznHisoka 15y ago
So does this mean we can travel to the future now? Woot.
- antoko 15y ago
  We've always been able to travel to the future, in fact we can't help but do that. Pausing time or going back in it is where the problem-space is.
  - robododo 15y ago
    Then explain this. How am I typing this message FROM THE PAST?
  - vlisivka 15y ago
    How you can confirm that there is no pauses in time? To confirm that, we need to watch something outside of our space-time continuum.
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xpose2000 15y ago
It doesn't seem to be fully confirmed yet. There is just much stronger evidence that points to its existence. Better link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/science/higgs-boson-may-be-indicated-in-new-data.html?_r=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/science/higgs-boson-may-be...
Zarathust 15y ago
phd-comics.com got it right years ago. This is how news are relayed from the science community http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif I've been trying to ward off time travel discussions on facebook since the "ftl neutrino". "We measured X, can you help us find out what is wrong with the experiment" to "omg ftl cars next year!!!" is such a common step
voodoomagicman 15y ago
Does anyone here have a good understanding of what the higgs boson is supposed to be? If I understand correctly it is supposed to be the carrier of masss. At the same time its proposed mass is larger then the mass of a proton or electron. How can mass not be quantized to multiples of the value of a single higgs boson?
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  The Higgs isn't like some sort of "mass coin", particles don't have mass by containing one or more instances of a Higgs boson. Instead there is a Higgs field which individual particles couple to which gives rise to mass. The Higgs boson is an excitation of the Higgs field the same way a photon is an excitation of the EM field, a graviton is an excitation of the gravitational field, etc.
  - repsilat 15y ago
    A couple of quick clarifications: 90-99% of the mass in regular matter is due to strong force interactions. In things like protons, neutrons etc the Higgs is only responsible for a small amount. See [1] for a little more detail. As a quick aside, gravitons aren't quite kosher science yet. We haven't observed them, and we don't even have a coherent theory of how they would work. Something to do with equations being non-renormalizable, I don't claim to understand any of it. 1: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pd6wc/why_is_there_a_problem_with_the_weakness_of/c3oieh4 http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pd6wc/why_is_the...
squarecat 15y ago
Is that page TRYING to make me hate the internet??

98 points by dochtman 15y ago

yummybear 15y ago

"Confirms" is a little strong for sigma 2.2

saulrh 15y ago
On the other hand, they're seeing a spike in exactly the same place that the LHC's been seeing a spike. That's good news - it means that there's new physics in there rather than just a measurement error.
- kellenfujimoto 15y ago
  Even so, agreement in data does not constitute proof, it's just "closer" to proof, whatever that's worth.
johrn 15y ago
It looks like his argument is that somehow combining results from various detectors/measurements ends up with sigma > 3. I don't understand why that would be the case, but he isn't just saying 2.2 == confirmation.
spauka 15y ago
Not just a little strong, its bullshit... 2.2 sigma still leads to about a 4-5% chance of random error, and in particle physics that is an absolutely MASSIVE margin of error. As people have been saying, Physicists probably won't get truly excited about this discovery until 5 sigma, or a 99.9999% confidence interval. Articles with titles like this mislead the public and in my opinion do more harm than good because they stop people from thinking critically about whether there are flaws in the process, instead leading them to take things for given.
- aptwebapps 15y ago
  >Articles with titles like this mislead the public and in my opinion do more harm than good because they stop people from thinking critically about whether there are flaws in the process, instead leading them to take things for given. I was with you up until the 'thinking critically' part. When did that start?

AznHisoka 15y ago

So does this mean we can travel to the future now? Woot.

antoko 15y ago
We've always been able to travel to the future, in fact we can't help but do that. Pausing time or going back in it is where the problem-space is.
- robododo 15y ago
  Then explain this. How am I typing this message FROM THE PAST?
- vlisivka 15y ago
  How you can confirm that there is no pauses in time? To confirm that, we need to watch something outside of our space-time continuum.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

xpose2000 15y ago

It doesn't seem to be fully confirmed yet. There is just much stronger evidence that points to its existence. Better link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/science/higgs-boson-may-be-indicated-in-new-data.html?_r=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/science/higgs-boson-may-be...

Zarathust 15y ago

phd-comics.com got it right years ago. This is how news are relayed from the science community http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051809s.gif I've been trying to ward off time travel discussions on facebook since the "ftl neutrino". "We measured X, can you help us find out what is wrong with the experiment" to "omg ftl cars next year!!!" is such a common step

voodoomagicman 15y ago

Does anyone here have a good understanding of what the higgs boson is supposed to be? If I understand correctly it is supposed to be the carrier of masss. At the same time its proposed mass is larger then the mass of a proton or electron. How can mass not be quantized to multiples of the value of a single higgs boson?

InclinedPlane 15y ago
The Higgs isn't like some sort of "mass coin", particles don't have mass by containing one or more instances of a Higgs boson. Instead there is a Higgs field which individual particles couple to which gives rise to mass. The Higgs boson is an excitation of the Higgs field the same way a photon is an excitation of the EM field, a graviton is an excitation of the gravitational field, etc.
- repsilat 15y ago
  A couple of quick clarifications: 90-99% of the mass in regular matter is due to strong force interactions. In things like protons, neutrons etc the Higgs is only responsible for a small amount. See [1] for a little more detail. As a quick aside, gravitons aren't quite kosher science yet. We haven't observed them, and we don't even have a coherent theory of how they would work. Something to do with equations being non-renormalizable, I don't claim to understand any of it. 1: http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pd6wc/why_is_there_a_problem_with_the_weakness_of/c3oieh4 http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/pd6wc/why_is_the...

squarecat 15y ago

Is that page TRYING to make me hate the internet??