# Higgs boson probably doesn't exist...



## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

sofort99 said:


> But it is useful because as a model, it gives answers that are close enough. The same thing will happen with the standard model, it will be accepted as wrong, but close enough for certain things where exact accuracy doesn't count if the math is simpler.


_That is essentially what I've been saying this whole time except using different words._

You say 'wrong' and I say 'incomplete' but we are saying the same thing, damit.

I don't get why you are hung up on it being 'wrong' or 'falsified' if no model is ever completely right anyway! It's superfluous! Unnecessary! And a contradiction! _Caring about it doesn't make sense!_

If all models are wrong, but some are useful, then this is an irrelevant finding. Of course it's 'wrong' if all models are 'wrong', since it is a model.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Or if I can calm down, I'll put it this way.

"Wrong" does not distinguish between "useful but wrong" and "entirely wrong/wrong and not useful". This is why I say it is _incomplete_ instead.

There is a lot that we don't understand, and in fact have plugged in so many hypothesis to fill holes that this is going to happen. It is impossible to completely determine what we don't already know. To have things not go as planned is to be expected!

These are all arbitrary categorizations to distinguish sets of theories anyway. They all talk about one thing - the natural world. One thing that works the way it works, and no other way. We might never understand it perfectly, but I don't think we can say that a model which makes useful predictions is entirely 'wrong' since it is making useful predictions. It must have _something_ right in it, or else it would be pure coincidence that it can predict things. 

So rather than saying it is 'falsified' which implies that we have certainty about the workings of the universe to make such a claim, I prefer to say it is incomplete. It is useful but there is still something missing.

This isn't a big thing, this is the normal state of affairs, if you acknowledge that we don't have a perfect understanding of anything. The only time this creates problems is if you have 'beliefs' in certain things.

This is why I typically say things like "as far as we know, _x_, _y_ and _z_" Just like models often require that photons have zero mass - _but we don't actually know for 100% fact that photons have exactly zero rest mass._ We just treat them as if they do until we find out otherwise, because it works. This is rather standard.


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## Ziwosa (Sep 25, 2010)

sprinkles does it again 
love you!


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## Epizeuxis (May 23, 2011)

Nice thread, nice discussion, nice debate. 

What if such a particle/boson actually exists, but is impossible for us to detect? 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk


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## Katmandu (Jul 27, 2011)

darylimjz said:


> What if such a particle/boson actually exists, but is impossible for us to detect?


It seems like the Higgs models fall apart if the boson isn't in a certain energy range. If there's a force-carrying particle for gravity that we cannot detect with the LHC, it's different from the theorized Higgs boson.



Now, what I'm interested in is whether or not a force-carrying particle is required to explain gravity to begin with. In relativity, the "force" of gravity — the attraction massive objects have towards one another — seems to be a geometric epiphenomena, meaning anything affected by this pull actually isn't being impinged on by a force, but instead is having its inertial geodesic trajectory altered by localized spacetime distortions. In other words, energy densities (matter=energy) will contort both space and time (time is a dimension in addition to the three spatial dimensions), causing an object at rest (inertial; not accelerating or having an outside force exerted upon it) to have its path altered. Imagine having a road (the medium of spacetime) not be uniform in shape, and thus your vehicle which traverses this road will take the straightest path it can, but ultimately physically cannot appear to be going straight to an outside observer without an actual force to compensate for this geometric distortion.

So how do objects gain rest mass? Energy and mass are just different manifestations of the same thing. Why do some particles have no rest mass, such as photons? Photons can only exist and move at the speed of light because they have no mass, and so an infinite Lorentz factor (the factor by which objects approaching the speed of light undergo time dilation and length contraction) does not require they have infinite mass/energy — but requires they cannot exist at any other speed. Well, in relativity, there's this relationship between rate of travel through the spatial dimensions, time, energy/mass, etc. 

Could the underlying causal mechanism responsible for Lorentz transformations be the same as gravity? Is looking for a force-carrying particle an entirely misguided approach?


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## Bote (Jun 16, 2010)

I think the Higgs particle was overblown by the media anyway. The 'God particle' phrase should have never gained momentum, as it led the people and I would say even some scientists to believe that it is the most important thing in the history of science. I kinda had the same enthusiasm for general relativity when I was a teenager and knew very little of it. It seemed so mysterious and I always had this feeling that there is a big secret I'll uncover if I study it. Well that didn't quite turn out like that. I felt disappointed after finally grasping the math behind Hilbert's proof for e-mc2. It's just an approximation like everything else in physics. I guess it was far more exciting to understand when it was new and people were still operating with Newton's linearity and the idea of absolute time. I'd also much rather prefer it if the predictions of Dirac's equations were not revealed to me in the overtly simplified manner of the media. It almost impossible to shake off the imprecise graphics of animations -.-.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Its supersymmetry that has been largely ruled out, not the higgs. The last announcement they made just two weeks ago (see, Hunt for the Higgs @ physicsworld.com) was that they were closing in on the higgs. I refuse to listen to rumors that contradict a two week old announcement.

With supersymmetry out of the way the field of possible theories remaining has been reduced significantly. Over the last few decades the evidence accumulating has supported contextual theories. Entanglement, for example, has proven to be contextual and subject to Indeterminacy. If they find the higgs or not the really exciting thing is that they are once again making progress in the field and just how important any one discovery might be remains to be seen.


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## a space whale (Jul 12, 2011)

hahaha classic Ti vs Te: there's another thread going on somewhere asking "what's with the rivalry between INTPs and INTJs???". Should just link here.

@sprinkles and what if we are all just manifestations in a sophisticated computer simulation, such that _everything_ we do and _all_ the words we use are meaningless. What do we _do_ then?


On (sort of) topic: I hope the new era is one where we take all the money and brains devoted to high-energy physics and use to it build spaceships again.


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

a space whale said:


> and what if we are all just manifestations in a sophisticated computer simulation, such that _everything_ we do and _all_ the words we use are meaningless. What do we _do_ then?


Continue pretending that it means something, like we already do. 



> On (sort of) topic: I hope the new era is one where we take all the money and brains devoted to high-energy physics and use to it build spaceships again.


:happy:


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## Vtile (Feb 27, 2011)

Everything is wrong in our universe, but same time all the things are perfect.


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## The Proof (Aug 5, 2009)

some day they're gonna catch some of these particles, they're gonna put them under a microscope, zoom in and see


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## sofort99 (Mar 27, 2010)

Scientists on track to disprove Higgs boson particle | TECHNOLOGY News



> US-based physicists said they hope to have enough data by the end of this month to establish if the elusive Higgs boson, a particle thought to have made the universe possible, exists in its long-predicted form.
> 
> If the answer is no, scientists around the globe will have to rethink the 40-year-old Standard Model of particle physics which describes how they believe the cosmos works.
> 
> ...


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## Mutatio NOmenis (Jun 22, 2009)

It's cool if it exists. It's even cooler if it doesn't, because that gives a whole new thing for scientists to do.


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

I hope it doesn't exist because I have $40 riding on its non-existence


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## Demosthenes (Sep 17, 2011)

*crunches popcorn*

This is quality entertainment.


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## iinnffpp (Nov 4, 2010)

Higgs must be disappointed. perhaps even crushed.


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## Souljorn (Dec 28, 2010)

sofort99 said:


> The standard model specifically predicts the higgs boson. If they determine it doesn't exist, the standard model will have been falsified.


so are you suggesting quarks, electrons, protons and neutrons don't exist?

i'm just confused over your complete lack of faith, maybe the higgs doesn't exist but it has been always theoretical so I really wasn't too invested in it but maybe they were just looking for the wrong thing or it go be smaller than expected. Either way we have one instrument capable of gathering that data and if anything I have learned from science is the best way to make a new law is by exhausting all of the murky water. So the current instruments might not be sensitive enough to register it but who knows maybe in 2013 after they double the power they'll come back with something even better. I want strings and I want to visit my other dimensional self, kill him and do that so forth until I become "The One"


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## sofort99 (Mar 27, 2010)

Just an update...

The CERN seminar with the preliminary announcement is Dec 13th.

The Higgs Boson has a projected likely mass of between 115 Gev and 135 GeV.

The rumors are that ATLAS has excluded those at a 95% certainty rate. In high particle physics, this is just barely enough to start making guesses at.

The most likely outcome, is that CERN announces this, and then the media jumps the gun and reports that the Higgs doesn't exist.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

"The latest rumour is that both ATLAS and CMS have evidence that the Higgs mass is about 125 GeV/C2 at confidence levels of 3.5σ and 2.5σ respectively. At 3.5σ, the measurement could be the result of a random fluke just 0.1% of the time whereas at 2.5σ the fluke factor is about 1%."

Blog - physicsworld.com

I think I'll just wait three days and ignore the rumor mill which can't seem to make up its mind.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Here it is:

Higgs hunters close in on their quarry - physicsworld.com

Confirmation the Higgs appears to exist and has a mass of 126 Gev supporting supersymmetry theory. Within a year they expect to confirm the finding beyond a shadow of a doubt and characterize its properties.


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