4 ms·

What is the Higgs?

142 points by subsystem 13y ago

Le_SDT 13y ago
Very good presentation for someone like me with no knowledge in physics but still facinated by all those discoveries! :) Thanks
- gueno 13y ago
  +1 much more "understandable" with the metaphor of snow
davrosthedalek 13y ago
Nicely made, however most visible mass (i.e. the mass of protons/neutrons) is generated dynamically by the quark interactions.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- bjrnjs 13y ago
  No, the Higgs boson has nothing to do with gravitational force - only mass. There's not yet an accepted theory on how the gravitational force exist, but researchers are looking for a spin-2-boson called a Graviton to explain it. More reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton
kachnuv_ocasek 13y ago
Back in 1993 there was a competition whose target was to explain the Higgs in one page of text. I found these very enlightening as well. Here are the winners: http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/~bernd/higgs/ http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/~bernd/higgs/
- ChrisArchitect 13y ago
  great link, neat to read the various approaches.
gibybo 13y ago
I have a basic understanding of electrons and the electric field. Can I think about a Higgs particle like a particle with a mass charge? Does the field work similarly to the electric field? Do all particles with mass have a Higgs particle in them?
- cshimmin 13y ago
  To answer your questions: 1) sorta. "mass charge" is just mass. In quantum field theory, particles can have an intrinsic mass parameter. The higgs mass parameter is interesting in that it is imaginary (i.e. its value squared in negative). 2) Not really. In quantum field theory, the fundamental spacetime entity is a field, and quantized excitations of the field are interpreted as particles. So the "Higgs field" is just a postulated field in spacetime, which is associated with the observable particle called the Higgs Boson. 3) No. Roughly speaking, the mathematical mechanism by which the Higgs "gives particles mass" is like this: You write down the theory with the Higgs particle doing its own thing; it turns out this theory can be "viewed" from different perspectives (physicists refer to this as a gauge). If you view the theory from a certain perspective (see: spontaneous symmetry breaking), the algebra of the equation gets all jumbled up. When you untangle the equation by factoring etc, you get back to something that looks like a physics theory, but now the Higgs got mixed into various places in the equation. In some places, it looks just like a "mass charge". This mechanism was originally proposed to get around a nasty problem in physics; our super-awesome theory of electroweak interactions was very clear that the weak bosons (W and Z) must be massless. But when we discovered these particles they were really heavy. The Higgs mechanism is a loophole that allows these bosons to be formally massless in the theory, but which get mixed with the Higgs to give an observable mass as described. The whole idea of a field having "imaginary mass", and that our universe could be in a spontaneously broken vacuum state (i.e. that we're viewing the theory from a weird perspective) are pretty hard to swallow. This is while the discovery of the Higgs boson is a huge vindication for theoretical physics; it puts all these crazy-sounding ideas on empirical footing.
geldedus 13y ago
Higgs boson, not the Higgs
ssivark 13y ago
That's a very nice illustration. If you'd like a quick read, here's an "elevator pitch" explaining the Higgs mechanism/boson -- http://dickfeynman.ruhoh.com/physics/higgs-for-laypeople/ http://dickfeynman.ruhoh.com/physics/higgs-for-laypeople/
yk 13y ago
(Sorry for ranting instead of explaining, but I do not have much time at the moment.) I really hate this molasses explanation of the Higgs field. The problem is, it is wrong, suggests a wrong intuition and obstructs actually interesting physics. It is wrong, because the mass is something very different from friction. It suggests a wrong intuition, because the snow field, or the molasses, generates a force when something is moving through the medium. But there is no medium to move through. ( And mass acts, when there is a change of velocity, friction if there is velocity.) And the last point, the Higgs mechanism is a mathematical manipulation, which gets a term into the equations, that looks exactly like a mass term would. ( But without breaking electro weak symmetry.) There is really a lot of interesting physics going on here. The most fundamental question is probably, what is the relation between reality and physical models. If in one model the Z boson is massive, and in a equivalent model the Z boson is massless, but both models agree on every quantitative prediction. In which sense can we say that the Z boson is massive?
- gus_massa 13y ago
  I agree. I hate the molasses explanation, because it suggests the wrong kind of equations. Higgs bosons don’t dissipate energy. Repeat after me: “The Higgs mechanism is totally unrelated to viscosity or friction” I think that the “added mass” can be a better analogy (A ball moving inside water drags part of the water, so to accelerate the ball you must accelerate part of the surrounding water, so the apparent mass is greater then the mass of the sphere. This is unrelated to viscosity. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Added_mass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Added_mass). But most people don’t have a good intuition about this effect, and I’m not sure that the analogies can be extrapolated to the correct equations. The main problem is that Higgs bosons are extremely difficult to explain. I tried a few times to explain the Higgs bosons to “normal” people (like someone with only a Math mayor and no advanced Physics knowledge). I tried to explain it without equations, in a 10 minutes coffee talk. By the time I could explain the “Higgs field vacuum expectation value” and how it produces something that looks like a mass the people usually are totally bored and lost the thread of the explanation :(. I never could reach the part of the explanation about how the “Higgs bosons” appear in the Higgs field :( :(.
  - 13y ago
InclinedPlane 13y ago
The best explanation of the Higgs mechanism I've seen so far has been from "minute physics": Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8 (If you only watch one part, watch part 2, it's only 170 seconds long.)
khuckzz 13y ago
The animation and illustrations are cool but I still have no idea what a Higgs is.

142 points by subsystem 13y ago

Very good presentation for someone like me with no knowledge in physics but still facinated by all those discoveries! :) Thanks

gueno 13y ago
+1 much more "understandable" with the metaphor of snow

davrosthedalek 13y ago

Nicely made, however most visible mass (i.e. the mass of protons/neutrons) is generated dynamically by the quark interactions.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bjrnjs 13y ago
No, the Higgs boson has nothing to do with gravitational force - only mass. There's not yet an accepted theory on how the gravitational force exist, but researchers are looking for a spin-2-boson called a Graviton to explain it. More reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

kachnuv_ocasek 13y ago

Back in 1993 there was a competition whose target was to explain the Higgs in one page of text. I found these very enlightening as well. Here are the winners: http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/~bernd/higgs/ http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/~bernd/higgs/

ChrisArchitect 13y ago
great link, neat to read the various approaches.

gibybo 13y ago

I have a basic understanding of electrons and the electric field. Can I think about a Higgs particle like a particle with a mass charge? Does the field work similarly to the electric field? Do all particles with mass have a Higgs particle in them?

cshimmin 13y ago
To answer your questions: 1) sorta. "mass charge" is just mass. In quantum field theory, particles can have an intrinsic mass parameter. The higgs mass parameter is interesting in that it is imaginary (i.e. its value squared in negative). 2) Not really. In quantum field theory, the fundamental spacetime entity is a field, and quantized excitations of the field are interpreted as particles. So the "Higgs field" is just a postulated field in spacetime, which is associated with the observable particle called the Higgs Boson. 3) No. Roughly speaking, the mathematical mechanism by which the Higgs "gives particles mass" is like this: You write down the theory with the Higgs particle doing its own thing; it turns out this theory can be "viewed" from different perspectives (physicists refer to this as a gauge). If you view the theory from a certain perspective (see: spontaneous symmetry breaking), the algebra of the equation gets all jumbled up. When you untangle the equation by factoring etc, you get back to something that looks like a physics theory, but now the Higgs got mixed into various places in the equation. In some places, it looks just like a "mass charge". This mechanism was originally proposed to get around a nasty problem in physics; our super-awesome theory of electroweak interactions was very clear that the weak bosons (W and Z) must be massless. But when we discovered these particles they were really heavy. The Higgs mechanism is a loophole that allows these bosons to be formally massless in the theory, but which get mixed with the Higgs to give an observable mass as described. The whole idea of a field having "imaginary mass", and that our universe could be in a spontaneously broken vacuum state (i.e. that we're viewing the theory from a weird perspective) are pretty hard to swallow. This is while the discovery of the Higgs boson is a huge vindication for theoretical physics; it puts all these crazy-sounding ideas on empirical footing.

geldedus 13y ago

Higgs boson, not the Higgs

ssivark 13y ago

That's a very nice illustration. If you'd like a quick read, here's an "elevator pitch" explaining the Higgs mechanism/boson -- http://dickfeynman.ruhoh.com/physics/higgs-for-laypeople/ http://dickfeynman.ruhoh.com/physics/higgs-for-laypeople/

yk 13y ago

(Sorry for ranting instead of explaining, but I do not have much time at the moment.) I really hate this molasses explanation of the Higgs field. The problem is, it is wrong, suggests a wrong intuition and obstructs actually interesting physics. It is wrong, because the mass is something very different from friction. It suggests a wrong intuition, because the snow field, or the molasses, generates a force when something is moving through the medium. But there is no medium to move through. ( And mass acts, when there is a change of velocity, friction if there is velocity.) And the last point, the Higgs mechanism is a mathematical manipulation, which gets a term into the equations, that looks exactly like a mass term would. ( But without breaking electro weak symmetry.) There is really a lot of interesting physics going on here. The most fundamental question is probably, what is the relation between reality and physical models. If in one model the Z boson is massive, and in a equivalent model the Z boson is massless, but both models agree on every quantitative prediction. In which sense can we say that the Z boson is massive?

gus_massa 13y ago
I agree. I hate the molasses explanation, because it suggests the wrong kind of equations. Higgs bosons don’t dissipate energy. Repeat after me: “The Higgs mechanism is totally unrelated to viscosity or friction” I think that the “added mass” can be a better analogy (A ball moving inside water drags part of the water, so to accelerate the ball you must accelerate part of the surrounding water, so the apparent mass is greater then the mass of the sphere. This is unrelated to viscosity. More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Added_mass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Added_mass). But most people don’t have a good intuition about this effect, and I’m not sure that the analogies can be extrapolated to the correct equations. The main problem is that Higgs bosons are extremely difficult to explain. I tried a few times to explain the Higgs bosons to “normal” people (like someone with only a Math mayor and no advanced Physics knowledge). I tried to explain it without equations, in a 10 minutes coffee talk. By the time I could explain the “Higgs field vacuum expectation value” and how it produces something that looks like a mass the people usually are totally bored and lost the thread of the explanation :(. I never could reach the part of the explanation about how the “Higgs bosons” appear in the Higgs field :( :(.
- 13y ago

InclinedPlane 13y ago

The best explanation of the Higgs mechanism I've seen so far has been from "minute physics": Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASRpIym_jFM Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guXMfg88Z8 (If you only watch one part, watch part 2, it's only 170 seconds long.)

khuckzz 13y ago

The animation and illustrations are cool but I still have no idea what a Higgs is.