For those of you into sub atomic physics, or just physics in general, you've probably already heard that CERN is hosting a news conference early on Wednesday morning to announce "a discovery" (http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-find-new-particle-but-is-it-the-higgs-1.10932). Based on a lot of independent rumours, (including the fact that Peter Higgs, whom the so-called "God particle" is named after, has been invited to speak at this announcement), it sounds like they'll be confirming the detection of the last particle predicted by the Standard Model of quantum mechanics - the Higgs Boson - which is the particle that gives other particles mass.

I'm not a physicist, so I can't really explain the implications of this, but my friends who are physicists tell me that this certainly brings us closer (and possibly all the way to) the "Grand Unified Field Theory" which will harmonize quantum mechanics with general relativity. This is a goal that has been the Holy Grail of physics for the past 80 years, and is predicted to herald a golden age in physics much the same way that evolutionary theory did for biology.

Very exciting news :clap:

Don't bother knocking until the results surpass 5 sigma.

From what I've read, they're at 4 sigma, but it will probably take another two or three years of data collection to get to 5

:rolleyes: Too bad MFs physics understanding stops at sigma levels for ephemeral fundamental particles.

Seems the standard model rules for a bit longer. Nice bit of science.....and engineering.

:rolleyes: Too bad MFs physics understanding stops at sigma levels for ephemeral fundamental particles.

Seems the standard model rules for a bit longer. Nice bit of science.....and engineering.

Why would you say I don't understand the ephemeral particles?

For those of you into sub atomic physics, or just physics in general, you've probably already heard that CERN is hosting a news conference early on Wednesday morning to announce "a discovery" (http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-find-new-particle-but-is-it-the-higgs-1.10932). Based on a lot of independent rumours, (including the fact that Peter Higgs, whom the so-called "God particle" is named after, has been invited to speak at this announcement), it sounds like they'll be confirming the detection of the last particle predicted by the Standard Model of quantum mechanics - the Higgs Boson - which is the particle that gives other particles mass.

I'm not a physicist, so I can't really explain the implications of this, but my friends who are physicists tell me that this certainly brings us closer (and possibly all the way to) the "Grand Unified Field Theory" which will harmonize quantum mechanics with general relativity. This is a goal that has been the Holy Grail of physics for the past 80 years, and is predicted to herald a golden age in physics much the same way that evolutionary theory did for biology.

Very exciting news :clap:

Yes I read about this this morning... quite a little ways to go yet but it is a development for sure... if it is in fact why they have been called to convene, at this point it is still speculation.

Scientists announcing the discovery of the Higgs boson particle at Cern have slightly marred the most significant scientific advance in 40 years by choosing a bad font for the presentation.

Comic Sans - the widely-derided text style infamous for its cheerful, rounded corners - was selected by researchers at Cern for a presentation of the findings.

On Twitter observers were furious - in a largely tongue-in-cheek way - that the font had been chosen for such a momentous announcement.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/672963/thumbs/r-610894252-large570.jpg

(HuffingtonPost (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/04/higgs-boson-discovery-comic-sans_n_1648494.html?ir=Canada&utm_hp_ref=canada))

"I'm not a fan of bashing Comic Sans... but presenting your god particle research with it is like playing J. S. Bach on a ukulele."

(Marcus Shaefer, comment on the related CBC story (http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/07/do-you-use-the-comic-sans-font.html?cmp=rss))

Reading through the coverage of the announcement, this bit really struck me:

"All the matter that we can see, however, appears to be no more than about four per cent of the total.

"A more exotic version of the Higgs particle could be a bridge to understanding the 96 per cent of the universe that remains obscure."

(news.com.au (http://mobile.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/scientists-may-have-found-god-particle/story-fn5fsgyc-1226417165748))

Ironic how there can be a search for a "god particle" for a scientific branch of study that largely denies the existence of god…

Ironic how there can be a search for a "god particle" for a scientific branch of study that largely denies the existence of god…

Scientists routinely make jokes at the expense of religion, as most of us see religion as fairly comical. In molecular biology, we refer to the mechanisms of gene expression (going from DNA->RNA->Protein) as "the central dogma." I never really thought much of these sorts of things until I discovered that may undergrads are confused by this sort of terminology, because they don't clearly understand the distinction between science and religion, so they don't get the joke. Now I try to avoid using these sorts of expressions.

Calling the Higgs Boson "the god particle" may be a tad annoying, but it's entirely consistent with the popularization of science in contemporary culture, in which you'll find breezy, pseudo-scientific periodicals routinely employing loose analogies and witty commentary meant to help the non-scientific masses grok whatever weighty subject is at hand. It's rather like combining a celebrity mag with a scientific journal - an inelegant fit at best, at least as far as scientific accuracy is concerned.

It was named the God Particle in a popular book by by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman because it is: "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive." It was not a joke, but a comparison.

It was named the God Particle in a popular book by by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman because it is: "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive." It was not a joke, but a comparison.

It's a humorous comparison; like our use of "the central dogma" in biology. When there is something important in science, scientists like to make religious analogies, because scientists are largely non-religious people living in a largely religious society, and these light-hearted pokes at religion are part of our way of dealing with this dichotomy.

It's a humorous comparison; like our use of "the central dogma" in biology. When there is something important in science, scientists like to make religious analogies, because scientists are largely non-religious people living in a largely religious society, and these light-hearted pokes at religion are part of our way of dealing with this dichotomy.

Again, it was not a joke. It is a comparison.

I see. Like referring to the iPhone as the Jesus Phone because it seemed like there was nothing it couldn't do.

24468

Thankfully, a bit of humour!

http://i.imgur.com/i1nhk.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/i1nhk.jpg

It was not always this way, however.

http://i.imgur.com/i1nhk.jpg

:lmao:

I really am wondering wether this will begin the "golden age" of physics as my physicist friends have been predicting. Evolution is the "grand unifying theory" of biology, and the characteristics of the Higgs Boson are supposed to allow theoretical physicists to develop a "grand unifying theory" of physics. Given that the explosion of knowledge in the biological sciences we have enjoyed for the century-and-a-half since Darwin has been founded on our understanding of evolution, will a similar explosion (hopefully only metaphorically) of understanding occur in physics?

Can anyone hazard a guess at what a grand unified feild theory would allow physics to do?

so apparently the entire "god particle" nickname is thanks to an editor or publisher :

Higgs is an atheist, but is displeased that the Higgs particle is nicknamed the "God particle",[27] as he believes the term "might offend people who are religious".[28] Usually this inappropriate nickname for the Higgs boson is attributed to Leon Lederman, the author of the book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?, but the name is the result of the insistence of Lederman's publisher: Lederman had originally intended to refer to it as the "goddamn particle".[29]

referring to it as the "goddamn particle" because of how hard it was to find.

That's a pretty funny alt-take on the phrase, alright. Hey, a scientist with a sense of humour - who knew?

so apparently the entire "god particle" nickname is thanks to an editor or publisher :



referring to it as the "goddamn particle" because of how hard it was to find.

Yes, the book title was the choice of the writer--and the writer told that joke as well.