Higgs boson discovered?

JeffDG said:
No, they've claimed 5 sigma probability, not 5 9's probability...my stats stuff is a bit old, but IIRC, that should be about 99.9%
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I heard 99.999% on the TV news - but we all know how accurate that can be. If you heard 5-sigma I would tend to believe that, and quite easily believe that the TV network read "5-sigma" on the press release and converted that to "5 9's" without realizing the difference.

Florida Cracker said:
It takes such a huge ego to even imagine that you can discover the "G*d" particle an explain everything away. Scientists and politicians share profoundly accelerated sense of self importance, imo.
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That's the media's name for it - none of the scientific community use that term. When Higgs wrote up his research on the particle in his book, he wanted to call the book "The ******n Particle" due to the incredible difficulty in identifying it and proving its existence, but his publisher refused to accept the book with that title since they feared it would be seen as blasphemous and turn off potential readers. The title got shortened to "The God Particle" to keep the pblisher happy, and the press ran away with it.
 
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airguy said:
Actually the announcement was that the current level of certainty is 99.999% - which is pretty darn near a hundred percent but not good enough for the particle-physics crowd to call it a certainty.
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What I read said they were 99.999% (5 sigma) certain they saw something but the results are still preliminary.
The results are preliminary but the 5 sigma signal at around 125 GeV we’re seeing is dramatic. This is indeed a new particle. We know it must be a boson and it’s the heaviest boson ever found,” said CMS experiment spokesperson Joe Incandela. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks
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I have all I need to know from the original Star Trek series.
 
airguy said:
That's the media's name for it - none of the scientific community use that term.
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Actually, it came from Leon Lederman. It was the title of his pop science book.

He should be slapped for it. There is unfortunately quite a lot of stupidity along these lines in certain parts of the particle physics and cosmology communities.

It's not ego. It's a foolish attempt to sound profound. As if the stuff he's doing wasn't profound enough without adding the BS.

But it is true that none of the science community takes that "God particle" moniker seriously. Not even him.
 
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Anthony said:
I have all I need to know from the original Star Trek series.
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When one considers the popularity of the series coupled with quantum entanglements and that the thought we produce becomes the information that is ordered into our universe, it really shouldn't be all that surprising when popular science fiction becomes the future.
 
Henning said:
When one considers the popularity of the series coupled with quantum entanglements and that the thought we produce becomes the information that is ordered into our universe, it really shouldn't be all that surprising when popular science fiction becomes the future.
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Beam me up Scotty?
 
Alexb2000 said:
Beam me up Scotty?
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Not until after we go to hydrogen though, only then will we have the money for this kind of stuff. Also the Higgs Bosun can prove to exist in a dimension that intrudes into ours which can provide the pathways to be beamed through, 'hyperspace' if you will.
 
chucky said:
That's not something I think I'll ever wish. I rather like being able to publish papers with fewer than 100 coauthors.
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Heh, good point. But it's an exciting time for the theorists too. ;)

(For non-physicists, it's typically in high-energy experimental papers that one finds 100+ co-authors.)
 
airguy said:
I heard 99.999% on the TV news - but we all know how accurate that can be. If you heard 5-sigma I would tend to believe that, and quite easily believe that the TV network read "5-sigma" on the press release and converted that to "5 9's" without realizing the difference.
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Actually, I think they left a 9 off -- a quick table lookup shows 5 sigma is actually over 99.9999%. But I'm not a stats expert either.

That's the media's name for it - none of the scientific community use that term. When Higgs wrote up his research on the particle in his book, he wanted to call the book "The ******n Particle" due to the incredible difficulty in identifying it and proving its existence, but his publisher refused to accept the book with that title since they feared it would be seen as blasphemous and turn off potential readers. The title got shortened to "The God Particle" to keep the pblisher happy, and the press ran away with it.
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Actually it was Leon Lederman, not Higgs who used the term God Particle. IIRC he wrote a book for the lay public with that title, and it passed into the popular lexicon. I think the bit about "The ******n Particle" was just a quip about what he "should have called it". You're right that no one in the scientific community uses that term, except when referring to Lederman's book, and then not without cringing. Apparently even Lederman cringes at the phrase now, hence his quip.
 
Florida Cracker said:
It takes such a huge ego to even imagine that you can discover the "G*d" particle and explain everything away. Scientists and politicians share profoundly accelerated sense of self importance, imo.
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Agree. This is my reasoning: Science is the instrument that answers "how?" and religion and philosophy answers the question, "why?"
 
Anthony said:
I have all I need to know from the original Star Trek series.
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And in all seriousness, this might be the more important point. The makers of our current devices owe something of their success to that series.

Ask someone under 30 if they think it is incredible that you can walk up to a door, and it just slides open for you. I remember when I was a kid thinking that that was amazing!
 
spiderweb said:
Agree. This is my reasoning: Science is the instrument that answers "how?" and religion and philosophy answers the question, "why?"
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Science is How, Philosophy is Why, Religion is How to Profit from what you can make people believe.
 
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spiderweb said:
Agree. This is my reasoning: Science is the instrument that answers "how?" and religion and philosophy answers the question, "why?"
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The "scientific method" is a philosophy and is preached as a religion.
 
and here is what my engineer brother in law sent me today . . . probably pretty accurate . . .
 

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Henning said:
Science is How, Philosophy is Why, Religion is How to Profit from what you can make people believe.
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"Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." LRH (not to be confused with LHC).
 
bbchien said:
I may be in trouble here. This guy is my mechanic....
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Hey, it may be the next new pet rock. If it works out, he will have so much money pouring out his ears that he will wrench on your plane for free. "tire looks a little worn, let's just replace the entire wing. Cost? It's free, see ya next month when I replace the engine instead of the spark plugs."
 
So does all this mean they are through looking for the solution to preventing belly button lint? I evidently didn't get the memo on that one.
 
Josh_C said:
So does all this mean they are through looking for the solution to preventing belly button lint? I evidently didn't get the memo on that one.
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Eww. It's called.....bathing:rofl:
 
Jaybird180 said:
The "scientific method" is a philosophy and is preached as a religion.
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Really?

It's a "religion" that attempts to disprove itself, and success in doing so makes careers. Can you say the same thing about yours, or is it blasphemy?
 
Here's what Steven Weinberg has to say about it. (The Higgs Boson, I mean, not religion).
 
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