5 Sigma [Higgs][Standard Model]

[PeZook]

The idea that somehow elliminating mass allows FTL is beyond retarded ; Massless particles move at the speed of light, and as I pointed out before, doing such a thing breaks (or at the very least fucks with) chemistry, so everybody dies.

[phongn]

Other ME fans. Supposedly Higgs could allow mass manipulation or some such to achieve things they did in the game.

I think you should be careful what layman fans have to say about a very complex topic, much less speculation on what Higgs could do.

[Surlethe]

There are a ton of people who have read pop-science descriptions of quantum field theory and now think that they "understand" the Higgs mechanism and boson. This fuels speculation like we've seen in this thread about mass manipulation and FTL. News: You don't understand the Higgs mechanism unless you've worked through the math yourself. "Understanding" the Higgs boson (or, generally, QFT) by reading pop science and watching analogy videos online is like "reading" Shakespeare by looking at a pictographic translation.

[Stark]

Everything I've read about this branch of science comes with a disclaimer like 'this is a really simplified series of thought experiments and not the actual science at all'.

[Simon_Jester]

A lot of people don't pay attention to those disclaimers.

At some point in the 20th century, the cutting edge of physics became too complicated to explain accurately without equations. It wasn't that bad in 1900, but it's pretty much set in today.

[His Divine Shadow]

The ship disintegrates into individual particles all moving at light speed in random directions?

I.E. it blows up

[Spoonist]

I thought it very ironic that the big internet bruha about this is about comic sans
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/20 ... -font.html

[Sarevok]

There are a ton of people who have read pop-science descriptions of quantum field theory and now think that they "understand" the Higgs mechanism and boson. This fuels speculation like we've seen in this thread about mass manipulation and FTL. News: You don't understand the Higgs mechanism unless you've worked through the math yourself. "Understanding" the Higgs boson (or, generally, QFT) by reading pop science and watching analogy videos online is like "reading" Shakespeare by looking at a pictographic translation.

Well even in science and engineering everyone has their own fields and can't expect to understand others to required depth. I am just an ordinary electrical engineer and I can't hope to make heads or tails out of the math particle physics researchers use. That's not what I do or studied at all (beyond just scratching the surface in a few courses).

So for people who are not into particle physics work what are the practical uses of Higgs boson ? I am very curious because as you the information available to us lay people is just as typical sensational stuff. I am genuinely interested in whether all the research done has any practical implications in the future if not our own life time. This forum has people who are more into serious side of science so I figure it would be a good place to ask.

[phongn]

I thought it very ironic that the big internet bruha about this is about comic sans
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/20 ... -font.html

Fabiola Gianotti (the spokesperson for ATLAS) loves her Comic Sans and will not be persuaded to change She's been doing it for many years.

Well even in science and engineering everyone has their own fields and can't expect to understand others to required depth. I am just an ordinary electrical engineer and I can't hope to make heads or tails out of the math particle physics researchers use. That's not what I do or studied at all (beyond just scratching the surface in a few courses).

So for people who are not into particle physics work what are the practical uses of Higgs boson ? I am very curious because as you the information available to us lay people is just as typical sensational stuff. I am genuinely interested in whether all the research done has any practical implications in the future if not our own life time. This forum has people who are more into serious side of science so I figure it would be a good place to ask.

It's fine that you don't understand it in any detail (particle physics is a pretty narrow field!) but you should be careful about looking at speculation. As an EE, you should know well the bullshit people say about any number of things within your field.

But to repeat myself: no, there are no practical implications we can see. We'll just have to wait (and it may be beyond our lifetimes).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Sort of like Hawking I'm sad they found it. Trying to explain why it didn't exist would have made physics a very interesting field for a while.

[phongn]

Sort of like Hawking I'm sad they found it. Trying to explain why it didn't exist would have made physics a very interesting field for a while.

You can hope that the LHC finds hints of supersymmetry (might require full 14 TeV collisions or the SLHC luminosity upgrade).

[khursed]

I'm puzzled by something, we discovered many bosons before, and have yet to master any exotic manipulation of them, why would we suddenly be able to alter mass now that we've glimpsed this boson for the first time?

It's not like we all own a photonic amplifier in every home, to change the electrical force around us conveniently.

There are no W or Z boson manipulator to change the radioactivity of stuff.

No Gluon blaster to alter atomic structures.

We just discovered a very important piece in the puzzle of the universe, it's not like we also got mastery over it and can now alter the laws of physics at will...

Think smaller, we know photon can be subtly played with to possibly create real life cloaking apparatus, just as they did for microwave, so any potential application of the discovery of the higgs will have to be of that nature to begin with.

I think we'll see small yet wondrous application way before anything remotely as fantastic as FTL. Like possibly super glue, or atom scale lithography. Then maybe one day cold fusion? Who knows, but the point is, before we get to the practical microwave oven type things, we'll have to do a lot of work.

Considering the amount of effort needed to even see the higgs, I doubt we'll see any exotic manipulation for a while, however, speculative physics should come up with interesting ways of doing so.

[Chirios]

@ khursed, nobody is saying we can, just that it would be cool if we could.

[Surlethe]

Everything I've read about this branch of science comes with a disclaimer like 'this is a really simplified series of thought experiments and not the actual science at all'.

Yeah. Tangentially -- since Feynman actually managed to present quantum field theory without that disclaimer and I'm reading the book right now -- my initial reaction to why Feynman could get away with presenting an accurate (but heuristic) model in QED is because U(1) is a very familiar, intuitive group. Layfolk have no intuitive understanding of nonabelian bullshit like SU(2) or SU(3).

[Irbis]

I'm puzzled by something, we discovered many bosons before, and have yet to master any exotic manipulation of them, why would we suddenly be able to alter mass now that we've glimpsed this boson for the first time?

Considering the amount of effort needed to even see the higgs, I doubt we'll see any exotic manipulation for a while, however, speculative physics should come up with interesting ways of doing so.

Why?

Well, 75 years ago there was this guy who also was studying new particles, and, due to local marble being very cheap, noticed that the same experiment done on wooden and marble tables yelds different results.

I'll let you decide if his work influenced world today in any way and how quickly it did so despite (paraphrasing) "considering the amount of effort needed to even see the Element 94" he needed.

Tl/Dr - yes, we might not see results tomorrow, but I wouldn't exactly be so pessimistic about it.

[Magis]

I'm puzzled by something, we discovered many bosons before, and have yet to master any exotic manipulation of them, why would we suddenly be able to alter mass now that we've glimpsed this boson for the first time?

We actually don't manipulate any particle at all in engineering. All we can do is try to design an environment where certain particle reactions happen more frequently or less frequently than otherwise.