I suppose we’d better have a thread….

The Internet is crackling with rumors following news reports that the long-sought Higgs boson — popularly referred to as the “God particle” — has been detected and that physicists at the Large Hadron Collider atom-smasher CERN, near Geneva, will announce the discovery in a news conference July 4.

“Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 percent certain it has been found — which is known as ’4 sigma’ level,” Britain’s Daily Mail said.

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From the same aticle:

Will the results be interesting? Maybe not interesting enough, writes Adam Mann in a blog post at Wired titled “How the Discovery of the Higgs Boson Could Break Physics.”

“The possible announcement on July 4 of the long-sought Higgs boson would put the last critical piece of the Standard Model of Physics in place, a crowning achievement built on a half-century of work by thousands of scientists. A moment worthy of fireworks,” he writes.

And then he adds: “But there’s a problem: The Higgs boson is starting to look just a little too ordinary.”

In what might be considered a glass-half-empty viewpoint, a lot of scientists had been “secretly hoping” that the particle they found would be interesting and unexpected -– and if that’s not what they find, it “leaves less room for new, exciting physics,” and “if coming years fail to turn up interesting results, the field could be headed for a crisis,” Mann writes.

<font size="5" color="blue"> "Here's the Wired article":http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/higgs-boson-breaks-physics/</font><br>

Will be announced in Melbourne, BTW.

Well, goodnight.

I’ll get the champagne ready.

Takes all the excitement out of an announcement if they already know what the announcement is.

i think the method of discovery will be more interesting. ie: is it a blip at the certain energy levels they were expecting? or did they ‘see’ it another way

<font size="3"color="orange">Announcement today at 5pm, but in the meantime.... Higgs boson discovery video leaked A VIDEO from Europe's CERN physics lab, apparently posted mistakenly on the eve of an announcement on the elusive "God Particle," reveals that a new subatomic particle has been observed in the relevant range. "We've observed a new particle," Joe Incandela, a spokesman for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), says in the video that appeared on the Science News website before being picked up elsewhere. "We have quite strong evidence that there's something there... To ascertain its properties is still going to take us a bit of time," Mr Incandela said. Questioned by a feverish US media, CERN quickly insisted that the video was only one of several that was filmed in advance of today's hotly awaited announcement, scheduled for 5pm AEST, hinting that some other scenario may unfold. But Mr Incandela appeared pretty sure of what he is saying in the video, as he pours light on what has become something of a holy grail scientists, physicists in particular. "But we can see that it decays to two photons, for example, which tells us it's a boson, it's a particle with integer spin," he says. "And we know its mass is roughly 100 times the mass of the proton.... This is the most massive such particle that exists, if we confirm all of this, which I think we will," Incandela added. Analysts pored over the subtle semantic differences in the video that might illustrate CERN's progress in finding the "God particle," an elusive sub-atomic particle that is believed to confer mass. "Note that the language used refers to 'observation' NOT 'discovery'," wrote Peter Woit, a senior lecturer in mathematics at Columbia University in New York, who linked to a copy of the video on his blog. "'Observation' generally means a lower standard of evidence.... However, it appears that (CERN is) sensibly playing this down, with nothing in the video mentioning the word 'discovery' or their decision not to use that word," he said. "Full report":http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/higgs-boson-discovery-video-leaked/story-e6frg8y6-1226416600999</font><br>

“Questioned by a feverish US media”

It must be a slow day on the Kardashian front.

“And we know its mass is roughly 100 times the mass of the proton…. This is the most massive such particle that exists, if we confirm all of this, which I think we will,” Incandela added.

How does a particle that gives mass to a proton have the mass of 100 protons?

Maybe they meant it metaphorically, or misquoted, or they are making it sound impressive.

I am 99.99 percent sure that they will announce that they have found the Higgs boson.

morrie said:

I am 99.99 percent sure that they will announce that they have found the Higgs boson.

they went to the old chrysler factory and found 5 sigmas.

morrie said:

I am 99.99 percent sure that they will announce that they have found the Higgs boson.

Probably.

Dropbear said:

morrie said:

I am 99.99 percent sure that they will announce that they have found the Higgs boson.

they went to the old chrysler factory and found 5 sigmas.

Thank goodness. I thought that they may have pinched them from the business management people and our whole corporate structure would crumble, with just one sigma to stand on.

I hope Skeptic Pete is sitting down when they announce they have found the God particle.

Peak Warming Man said:

I hope Skeptic Pete is sitting down when they announce they have found the God particle.

Heard a chap on the radio talking about – he said it was originally nicknamed the “God-damn particle” because it was so hard to find, but it got toned down for American TV and politicians.

Dropbear said:

“And we know its mass is roughly 100 times the mass of the proton…. This is the most massive such particle that exists, if we confirm all of this, which I think we will,” Incandela added.

How does a particle that gives mass to a proton have the mass of 100 protons?

As you would expect, it’s all a little involved:

In particle physics, the Higgs mechanism…. is the process that gives mass to elementary particles. The particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field that permeates all space. More precisely, the Higgs mechanism endows gauge bosons in a gauge theory with mass through absorption of Nambu–Goldstone bosons arising in spontaneous symmetry breaking.

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morrie said:

I thought that they may have pinched them from the business management people and our whole corporate structure would crumble, with just one sigma to stand on.

Baaaahhhh… If it ain’t broke, break it.

:-)

>More precisely, the Higgs mechanism endows gauge bosons in a gauge theory with mass through absorption of Nambu–Goldstone bosons arising in spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Well that was fairly obvious.

:)

T minus 1h 10m to announcement.

Divine Angel said:

T minus 1h 10m to announcement.

Is there anywhere where we can watch it online?

Witty Rejoinder said:

Divine Angel said:

T minus 1h 10m to announcement.

Is there anywhere where we can watch it online?

the internet

Gold star for Dropbear .

Some form of transmitter.

Meg posted something on facebook about a webinar or something… lemme see if I can find it.

http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/weve-observed-a-new-particle-leaked-video-reveals-apparent-god-particle-confirmation-20120704-21g63.html

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/weve-observed-a-new-particle-leaked-video-reveals-apparent-god-particle-confirmation-20120704-21g63.html

oops, old news it appears…

Bing bing bing bing!

It’s time!

Jaysus, it must be wet panty time for some over there.

:)

How difficult could it be to give the bloke a microphone with a breath / pop filter on it, FFS.

So have they found the bloody thing or not??

There’s some heavy breathing, is there?

It may just be B.C in the background.

sibeen said:

There’s some heavy breathing, is there?

Some people breath heavy when they’re nervous but his body language does not suggest a problem with that.

sibeen said:

It may just be B.C in the background.

You would be able to hear the arguments over that microphone.

;-)

Some people just breathe heavily when talking about SPACE

fixed

This is it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV9AZgo2t1k

weren’t they about to make an announcement about the higgs particle a few months ago??

sounds CERN has its crossed wires problem back again

No.. this..

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-217334-scientists-close-to-finding-higgs-boson.html

wookiemeister said:

weren’t they about to make an announcement about the higgs particle a few months ago??

sounds CERN has its crossed wires problem back again

I thought it was tomorra.

They just announced a result (albeit hesitatingly and breathlessly) at sigma 4.9.

One of the two independent teams at the world’s biggest atom smasher says it has found strong evidence of a new subatomic particle that looks like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.

Joe Incandela, leader of one of the teams, told scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, that the data has reached the level of certainty needed for a discovery.

The tiny and elusive Higgs boson is popularly referred to as the “God particle.’‘

Physicists at CERN are presenting their evidence to applause before a packed auditorium, where scientists waited overnight to attend.

Full Story & Live Link

Just looking at the room, a competent public speaker shouldn’t need sound reinforcement for their voice.

It’s as though they’re saying “We know you’re not going to understand any of this – So we’re going to bring in a presenter with a thick accent – and just to really take the piss, we’re giving everyone bad microphones.”

So we found the Higgs. It was behind the couch after all.

I want to know who was it that lost the damn thing in the first place?

Can’t help thinking a lot of these physics bits and pieces would possibly be more alluring (and easier to understand) if they’d stop naming them after physicists. And God.

Kingy said:

I want to know who was it that lost the damn thing in the first place?

It wasn’t lost, it was hiding.

party_pants said:

Kingy said:

I want to know who was it that lost the damn thing in the first place?

It wasn’t lost, it was hiding.

I am missing a sock, did they find that too?
It’s red with a white stripe, last seen in the washing machine just before a power surge of about 125-126 gigaelectronvolts.

If it turns out this isn’t the Higgs boson after all, I suppose they’ll have to name it the Brian boson.

Lol Comic Sans.

Shit just got real

http://twitpic.com/a3pl0s

>Comic Sans

Makes it easier for the kids to read.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/4/3136652/cern-scientists-comic-sans-higgs-boson

The LHC explained -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WShZVxPZETw

i think they had to find it considering the money that was spent building cern

Short and interesting article by Sean Carroll:

After the Higgs Boson: What Scientists Will Do With the Discovery