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Peter Higgs, physicist who discovered Higgs boson, has died
- hobo_mark 2y agoHe didn't discover the Higgs, but he formulated it (along with other people) in 1964. Its discovery was not until 2012.
- freddealmeida 2y ago[flagged]
- ajross 2y agoThe same is true of every other boson, except arguably photons in the classical limit (e.g. you can put a multimeter on an antenna and detect them "non-probabalistically"). The Higgs detection is sound. A quick check of wikipedia says 5.9 sigma. Good enough for me, anyway.
- bee_rider 2y ago> e.g. you can put a multimeter on an antenna and detect them "non-probabalistically" I think I get what you mean, but we should be clear—every measurement is probabilistic, right? We can measure photons with low enough inaccuracy that we don’t bother quantifying the probability that they might not exist. But, it is actually on some philosophical level a difference of degree, not type. I’m pretty sure.
- ducttapecrown 2y agoWhat does it mean for a measurement to be probabilistic? I'm a math grad student, so still a layman, but here's the way I think about it: Every particle travels over every possible path as the wave spreads out. Once you measure the particle, it tells you a path. So the measured value of the particle is probabilistic, not the measurement.
- dguest 2y agoI don't know where you get 5.9 sigma but that might have been the confidence at the time it was discovered in 2012. Since then the LHC took a lot more data and the confidence is more like 20 sigma. That said, these days it's harder to find a paper that gives a confidence for discovery, since they are all quoting the signal strength with respect to the standard model prediction. They generally measure this within about 5%, see for example https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05498 https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05498
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago"Probabilistic evidence" != "no evidence". > The error rate is very high. Citation needed. More citation needed to show that it's high enough that it invalidates the evidence.
- icepat 2y agoIt sounds like this comes from a misunderstanding of probability and how it applies to physics. Can you explain what you mean?
- golergka 2y agoAny evidence of any physical phenomena is probabilistic. And with Bell's inequalities, we know that for a fact.
- eigenket 2y agoThis doesn't follow from Bell's inequalities. There are deterministic models of quantum mechanics which are compatible with Bell's theorem.
- golergka 2y agoThat's why I argue with people on the internet — to be corrected and learn new things in the process! Please tell more.
- eigenket 2y agoBells theorem says that he predictions of quantum mechanics are incompatible with any "local hidden variable model". Experiments show that the real world appears to follow the predictions of quantum mechanics, so no local hidden variable model can explain what we see in these experiments. Therefore all you need to understand is what a "local hidden variable model" is, and what the lack of one would mean. You should think of doing measurements in quantum mechanics as something like flipping a biased coin, or rolling a biased dice. Every time you do a measurement you get some outcome (maybe heads or tails or a number from 1 to 6) but the probabilities aren't generally the same, they're biased in a way which tells you something about the system. They can even be biased so much that the outcomes are deterministic (0 and 1 are still probabilities). When you flip a coin or roll a dice, the outcomes are random from your point of view, but there isn't really any fundamental randomness going on. There's a bunch of data about how your hand moves, and the local wind speed and pressure and the physical characteristics of the coin which if you knew them then you'd be able to predict the outcome with certainty. People have even been able to build robots which can reliably flip coins to always get a desired outcome. This "extra information" that makes the outcome deterministic if you know it we could call hidden variables. Its "hidden" because you don't generally know it. If Bell's theorem said that there was no hidden variables model consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics we'd be done now. We would have decided that quantum mechanics is fundamentally probabilistic and no extra hidden information could exist to make it deterministic. But Bell emphatically doesn't do that. The theorem says there is no local hidden variable model consistent with quantum mechanics. So what does "local" mean here? For that you can imagine that instead of rolling one dice I'm rolling one here, you're rolling a second one wherever you live, our friend on Mars is rolling a third one, etc. A hidden variable is "local" if it only affects the dice in once location. Bell's theorem says that if you want to have a hidden variable model that reproduces quantum mechanical predictions then it needs to be nom-local. That is the hidden variable has to affect the experiment here, and the one with you, and the one on Mars all at the same time. We consider that non-local hidden variables are unlikely because they're essentially magic, they need to affect things arbitrarily far away from each other all at the same time. Amongst other things this is wildly on conflict with special relativity.
- T-A 2y agohttps://medium.com/@chris.m.pease/the-higgs-boson-and-5-sigma-eec238b43f93 https://medium.com/@chris.m.pease/the-higgs-boson-and-5-sigm... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04892-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04892-x
- empath-nirvana 2y agoDiscovery can happen in a purely mathematical/theoretical context, too.
- hbrav 2y agoI think it's fair to say the 'discovery' that this boson exists came with the LHC experiments. But Higgs did discover in 1964 that the Higgs boson could explain why particles have mass. His paper couldn't say "this is definitely the way the universe is", but rather "if the universe plays by the rules we think it does, this is a relatively simple way to explain this thing we see". And in my mind, both of those achievements are awesome.
- zelphirkalt 2y agoExactly. Give the countless engineers behind LHC some of the credit as well!
- godelski 2y agoIt's definitely semantics and I'm not sure it is worth arguing if we understand what one another means. Unless we're clarifying. But I do think it is good to discuss the role that others have played in the discovery. After receiving the 2017 Kip Thorne said (Weiss and Barish were the other two) It is unfortunate that, due to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, the prize has to go to no more than three people, when our marvelous discovery is the work of more than a thousand. Even discoveries of the past were due to the efforts of many. Einstein's shoulder's of giants, which I jokingly refer to as "3 scientists in a trench coat, all the way down". But with modern science, the problems are more difficult and the effort to make these breakthroughs more clearly depends upon the work of hundreds or thousands. It is good to promote these ideas and this recognition. I think it can also help motivate us to better work together, and not letting us think we are a lowly unimportant cog in a giant machine. Because while we may be small cogs, our work is still important (even if not as important as others).
- nilkn 2y agoI still wouldn’t use the word “discover” in this context. Physics is not pure mathematics. There are many theories that just do not correspond to reality. Would you say that strings and extra dimensions have been discovered? No, we’d say they’ve been predicted by a certain theory, but not discovered yet — the prediction may not even be right!
- ayakang31415 2y agoPrecisely, he predicted it.
- hiddencost 2y agoGlad he got to see the confirmation before he went.
- akumetsu 2y agoSad to hear, I remember the excitement over the experimental evidence once his particle was detected. I'm always amazed by theoretical predictions that can actually be verified plus it was interrsting to hear about the higgs boson as part of my studies shortly after it was detected. Nowadays it seems many theoretical predications are not even close to being verifiable in the coming years or with the current and planned tech. Unless we are talking about superconductivity at room temperature ofc
- freddealmeida 2y ago[flagged]
- archgoon 2y agoI believe that several citations of your assertions is in order.
- toomuchtodo 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Higgs
- neom 2y agoJust to add a couple more good Higgs resources courtesy of the fine folks at PBS Space Time: How the Higgs Mechanism Give Things Mass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw Could the Higgs Boson Lead Us to Dark Matter? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yLMY6Mpw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yLMY6Mpw8 Where Is The Center of The Universe? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLHtIWLkHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLHtIWLkHg (For me personally, I gave a massive sad sign when I saw this on the homepage. I really liked him a lot for a few reasons: He did his thinking in isolation, for a long period of time walking around the Scottish highlands . He was a keen disciple of interdisciplinary thought being pivotal to innovation. He appears to have imagined things and thought about things in a pretty weird way for his time, although that might seem obvious, how well he grappled with the reality of weirdness is exemplary. 힝)
- dotnet00 2y agoThe story of how Higgs predicted his mechanism was part of what got me into physics as a kid. It fit 10 year old me's obsession with the 'soft-spoken genius' archetype perfectly and formed a pillar in my belief that 'genius' was made through hard work (and some amount of luck) rather than being born with it. The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was, what I was doing and very excitedly trying to explain how cool it was to my parents at the time.
- KingFelix 2y agoThat is awesome, we need some more amazing scientists in the public eye to inspire the young. I know there are a lot of amazing scientists, but somehow need to get them on tiktok or something? Can you share the story?
- moelf 2y agoSpecific to Particle physics and Peter Higgs, this book (https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/frank-close/elusive/9781668612026/ https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/frank-close/elusive/978166...) by Frank Close is fantastic.
- dotnet00 2y agoMy parents had a hard time explaining my dad's job to me, so they just told me he was a scientist because he had a masters in physics (he was a diplomat). Like any little kid, my parents were my heroes, so of course this led me to becoming obsessed with scientists and reading up on science stuff, eg trying to read my sister's university textbooks. I developed a hobby of reading up on and sharing factoids I found online, and found one about the 'god particle'. At first I thought it was cool because it seemed to basically talk about a particle that causes mass (of course, this was actually wrong, but that didn't really matter to a 10 year old), but reading about how it was predicted 40-50 years ago and the largest single machine humanity had built was being used to try to find it made it my favorite factoid and I'd excitedly start talking all about it the moment anyone showed even the slightest bit of interest. In 2012 when the detection was announced, we were on a short 2-3 day vacation in Dubai and were having breakfast in the hotel. The TV was right next to us, and seeing the news I was trying (and failing) to explain to my parents how the Higgs boson had been predicted 50 years ago and it took that long for the technology to finally catch up to be able to verify it, and how this would represent one of the last remaining pieces of the standard model (although back then I didn't quite grasp that the standard model was not a full theory of everything). I was trying to explain to them the size of the LHC, how it was the biggest single machine we've built, how when they were turning it on for the first time, there were fears about it creating micro-black holes which might swallow the Earth. I think that while we need scientists in the public eye, we don't need them as social media entertainers, a lot of well known science communicators on social media come off as attention-seeking charismatic fakes/frauds to me (eg NDT). Stuff like the interviews and documentaries Stephen Hawking had appeared in (or to a lesser extent, the ones Michio Kaku has appeared in) did much more for me in being inspired, even without having known what research they were known for. I think we could also do with more books like Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' and encouraging kids to read them. Also, instead of over-simplifying everything and passing off scientists as geniuses in the traditional sense, we should be more open in showing that the people who made these discoveries or predictions were not inherently born with it, the vast majority of them were completely normal people who worked very hard to build skills in the thing they enjoyed. Another discovery I feel was somewhat similar is that of discrete time crystals, casually predicted in 2012, turned out to actually be possible in 2018 and has a similar 'cool' factor.
- UncleSlacky 2y agoLame claim to fame: Higgs was the PhD supervisor of one of my university professors. He told us that Higgs left a message on his desk before going hiking one weekend to the effect that he'd had a great idea and would tell them all about it when he got back.
- ColinWright 2y agoI wonder if he got the idea from Hardy, who before undertaking a journey on a very small boat sent a postcard saying he had proved the Riemann Hypothesis: Hardy stayed in Denmark with Bohr until the very end of the summer vacation, and when he was obliged to return to England to start his lectures there was only a very small boat available…. The North Sea can be pretty rough, and the probability that such a small boat would sink was not exactly zero. Still, Hardy took the boat, but sent a postcard to Bohr: “I proved the Riemann Hypothesis. G.H. Hardy.” If the boat sinks and Hardy drowns, everybody must believe that he has proved the Riemann Hypothesis. Yet God would not let Hardy have such a great honor and so He will not let the boat sink. -- https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcleod/Riemann/Hardy.html https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcleod/Riemann/Hardy.html
- anthony__j 2y agohaha, that's pretty clever. makes you wonder if fermat was doing a similar prank with his margins
- ColinWright 2y agoIt's generally believed that Fermat thought he had a proof, but probably almost immediately remembered that not everything is a Unique Factorization Domain, so the "obvious proof" fails. Then he didn't bother returning to correct the error. So no, probably not. (+) I should go and learn more about the specifics of this to make sure I'm relating it correctly. EDIT: (++) OK, here's what I was thinking about: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/953462/what-was-lames-proof https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/953462/what-was-lam... EDIT2: (++) Second link with similar details: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/324740/fermats-proof-of-his-last-theorem https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/324740/fermats-proo...
- robblbobbl 2y agoCondolences.
- runnr_az 2y ago[flagged]
- lrivers 2y agoFABFOB
- santbo 2y agoRIP. Lucky who is born in an English-speaking country with a short name easy to remember by other English monolinguals. The "Higgs boson" has many fathers, but his name got attached to the concept for simplicity, giving him world fame and, ultimately, a Nobel prize when he likely didn't contribute significantly more than others, cf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#History or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Physics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Ph...
- vazma 2y agoI was incredibly fortunate to meet him at CERN the day before the Higgs boson announcement. As an intern, I encountered him the evening prior; he was dining alone in the CERN cafeteria, blending in like a kindly elderly gentleman. He was exceptionally humble and courteous. I feel so lucky that I mustered the courage to speak with him and shake his hand. Rest in peace, Mr. Higgs.
- teekert 2y agoThese are the kind of opportunities one must take when they present themselves. Well done.
- CapeTheory 2y agoMassive in his field.
- callumw13 2y agothis is the kind of strong interaction I like to see on this website
- jszymborski 2y agoThis has given me a case of the Higgs boson blues https://youtu.be/1GWsdqCYvgw https://youtu.be/1GWsdqCYvgw
- jaredwiener 2y agoBut will there be a funeral mass?
- russelldjimmy 2y agoYes, about 125.11±0.11 GeV/c^2
- pfdietz 2y agoIt was a success for particle physics that they found the Higgs, but it was also a tragedy. Discovering the Higgs and nothing else new was the nightmare scenario for the LHC, and so it has come to pass.
- joshcryer 2y agoIt really damaged string theory which is by far the greatest thing to happen with the LHC.
- pfdietz 2y agoAh, a glass is half full person! :)
- vikramkr 2y agoCalling it a nightmare scenario is quite the overdramatic description of a successful experiment that validated a core prediction of the standard model
- pfdietz 2y agoThe scenario is a nightmare to people doing the work, since it seems to indicate there will be no new physics until energies at far beyond what can practically be reached. So, particle physics dies as an active field.
- silverfrost 2y agoProposed - not discovered. He put it forward as an explanation, he didn't make the actual discovery.
- crypto_mogul 2y ago[dead]
- adif_sgaid 2y ago[dead]
- taylorbuley 2y agoBBC version https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68774195 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68774195
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoDoes the Higgs detection have any economic value, like room tenperature superconductors would? Or is it a scientific curiosity
- wavemode 2y agoIt serves as an important confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics, which is a foundational theory underpinning many other important discoveries. But the particle itself probably has no current practical application.
- openrisk 2y agoWith the knowledge and technology of today there is arguably very little direct economic value to be had from this part of particle physics. One cannot preclude potential future implications though (it has happened many times in the past that understanding phenomena that were far removed from everyday experience created later the conditions for massive technological breakthroughs). Particle physicists and other researchers in fundamental science are also typically keen to point out at indirect effects. E.g., building the massive accelerators to detect particles pushes forward more conventional technologies. The Web was famously invented to serve CERN collaboration needs.
- godelski 2y ago> have any economic value Don't downvote them! This is actually a good question! (and gives us a chance to talk about why we should pursue these things!) It's also incredible difficult to answer! Can we define what it means? Direct or indirect? === Indirect (LHC) === Well one of the reasons the LHC was built was to find the Higgs. To do so, we had to invent a lot of shit along the way. Thing is, when you're pushing the bounds of human knowledge, you don't exactly have all the devices you need to measure and test everything. The WWW[0] is famously one of such "spin-offs" as we needed to connect scientists from around the globe to distribute the data from this project. Remember that it is an international project[1*]. There is also a lot about superconductors and refrigeration, both of which significantly contribute to modern medical devices. A lot for magnets, vacuum devices, and electronics, all of which have permeated into industry. These scientific projects also are a big political effort and demonstrate good will and can be grounds for collaboration and building democracies. The hosting countries also have a lot to benefit from as direct collaboration happens there. Just think of the force of putting a bunch of very smart people in a room together, especially when they are experts in very different things. It's difficult to predict the direct revenue, but at such a cheap cost, even small innovations can easily end up covering the costs. Certainly the internet has more than paid for CERN, in the form of tax revenues to each country compared to the cost they give, not to mention benefit to the public (especially considering other indirect aspects). === Direct (LHC) === Maybe a bit harder. There's some slides here [2] that claim CERN nets 3.3bn for 1993 - 2038. You can find much more detail here[3] and another independent one here[4]. I'd just like to note [4]'s last line in their abstract: We conservatively estimate that there is around a 90% probability that benefits exceed costs, with an expected net present value of about 2.9 billion euro, not considering the unpredictable applications of scientific discovery. === Specifically the Higgs === That's unfortunately impossible to say. To make use of it technologically we're at least 50 years away, which is to say "who the fuck knows". But also remember the cost is almost nothing. If we speculate, it is not unreasonable that the technologies that could be enabled through the understanding of this science (and the requisite further knowledge we'll need) could be insurmountable. We're talking about understanding how mass works. So if we're ever going to invent things like inertial dampeners (which would make mass an irrelevant aspect of transportation), mass effect drives, gravity generators, and so on, knowledge of the Higgs would be essential. But don't hold your breath on seeing technologies any time soon. Remember that we're playing the long game with science. It is good to think about short term, but never forget the long game. If you forget you may win battles but will lose the war. === Side Note About Money === The LHC is actually one way I like to think about the ultra billionaires (like Musk, Bezos, Gates types). The reason being that with that level of wealth we cannot ignore the effects of compound interest, as this plays a significant role. Let's take Bezos, the #2 on the list (behind Bernard Arnault) with $203.3B. We can ask, how many LHCs could Bezos make? We assume 10 years to build at 0.5B/yr and then 1B/yr to operate. We'll assume a 7% interest rate, compounded yearly, which means 14.231B/yr! So clearly Bezos is worth at least 14 LHCs! We could get more precision and actually compound, but the quick version gives us a sufficient lower bound to really put into perspective either the wealth of Bezos or how cheap the LHC is. However your want to frame it. FWIW, with the same lazy analysis we get Forbes top 10 as: Arnault @ 15.2 LHCs, Bezos @ 14.2 LHCs, Musk @ 13.72 LHCs, Zuckerberg @ 12.7 LHCs, Ellison @ 10.7 LHCs, Buffett @ 9.6 LHCs, Gates @ 9.2 LHCs, Page @ 9.1 LHCs, Ballmer @ 8.8 LHCs, and Brin @ 8.8 LHCs. I'm just saying, we could afford a lot of LHCs... [0] https://www.home.cern/science/computing/birth-web https://www.home.cern/science/computing/birth-web [1*] I wanted to take a minute to mention the cost, so we can better guestimate the ROI. The project took 10 years to build and cost about $5bn and costs about $1bn/yr to operate, with Germany being the largest contributor and only contributing 21%[1^]. I'm not sure how it works, but the Federal budget is about 370B euros but total gov spending was 1.76T for 2021. That would be 0.065% of the federal budget or 0.014% of the total spending. Pretty fucking cheap if you ask me! [1^] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Participation_and_funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Participation_and_funding [2] https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/webkit/press_material/Brochure_A5_SocioEconomic_EN.pdf https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/webkit/press_material/Brochure_A... (site: https://fcc.web.cern.ch/society https://fcc.web.cern.ch/society) [3] https://indico.cern.ch/event/760053/contributions/3152652/attachments/1720884/2784363/Cost-Benefit_Analysis_of_the_Large_Hadron_Collider.pdf https://indico.cern.ch/event/760053/contributions/3152652/at... [4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040162516000731 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00401...
- sohkamyung 2y agoI read "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass" by Frank Close and I found it an excellent read on the elusive Higgs Particle and the elusive Peter Higgs himself (Higgs went for a walk to hide from people on the day the Nobel Prize was announced).
- trashface 2y agoHiggs' bosons return to the universe
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoJust keep in mind that if this way present day, the Sabine hosenfelds of the world would be saying iTs NoT eVeN tEsTaBlE, and HN would be cheering her for fighting the evil corrupted mainstream academia.