Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[RecoveringYuppy]

It usually comes up in high school chemistry.

A resource chosen semi-randomly from many on the web.

http://www.rapidlearningcenter.com/chemistry/highschool_chemistry/dimensional-analysis.html

 

[Roboramma]

c^½ = 17314.5158177 (m/s)^1/23π = 9.424778
c^½ / 3π = 17314.5158177(m/s)^1/2 / 9.424778
r = 1837.12717877 (m/s)^1/2Actual = 1836.15267245

What is the conversion factor you use to remove those units, Farsight? Can you demonstrate how it works in some other system of units to give you the same result? I don't want an explanation that purports to show that it works, I want a demonstration, as, if your explanation is valid, such a demonstration should be trivial

 

[Perpetual Student]

Obviously not. If you use units of miles/hour for c, and (say) slugs for m, you'll get a correct result for E in units of slug (miles/hour)^2. Nothing changes in the formula, and the result is always correct regardless of the unit system used. The reason is, the units of energy are mass times length^2/time^2. So the units on the left side of the equation equal the units on the right side, as is the case in all well-formed equations.

Try the same thing in your formula. You'll get a different result for the proton/electron mass ratio - because the proton/electron mass ratio does not have dimensions, while c does. But obviously the proton/electron mass ratio does not depend on units. Therefore, your formula is patent nonsense.

I think it's time for some "surgical evidence."

 

[Farsight]

Nobody thinks a stationary cannonball can have its kinetic energy reduced. However, one moving towards you can, by applying a force in one direction over a displacement in the opposite direction. It's commonly called a deceleration. You are making very basic mistakes.

I'm not, I'm giving you the very basics. There's another way to reduce the kinetic energy of a cannonball moving towards you. Step aside, then chase after it and match its speed.

Einstein would not have an issue with this, and we do not have an issue with Einstein. We have an issue with what you think Einstein says, not with what he did say.

What he said is there in black and white in his 1905 E=mc² paper Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy content? Here's the excerpt again:

"The kinetic energy of the body with respect to (ξ ɳ Ϛ) diminishes as a result of the emission of light, and the amount of diminution is independent of the properties of the body. Moreover, the difference K0 − K1, like the kinetic energy of the electron (§ 10), depends on the velocity.

Neglecting magnitudes of fourth and higher orders we may place

From this equation it directly follows that:—

If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c². The fact that the energy withdrawn from the body becomes energy of radiation evidently makes no difference, so that we are led to the more general conclusion that

The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content; if the energy changes by L, the mass changes in the same sense by L/9 × 10²°, the energy being measured in ergs, and the mass in grammes."

 

[Perpetual Student]

And the "surgical evidence" ... ?

 

[ben m]

If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by L/c².

A cannonball decelerating in a gravitational field does not give off radiation.

Also, your quote is from 1905 and explicitly ignores gravity; it's concerned only with collisions, absorption, and emission. Einstein wrote a coherent (and now well-tested) theory of gravity, published in 1916, which treats rest mass as an invariant. And says so in explicit mathematical terms.

Unlike your vague quote. What's the point of sitting here trying to parse whether Einstein's 1906 use of the word "generally", in a paper that doesn't mention gravity, should or should not be interpreted to support your statement about cannonball gravitational potential energy? This is what D'rok means by "hermeneutical scholasticism". Why not try the obviously idiot-proof one of evaluating the cannonball rest mass using Einstein's actual gravitational equations of motion?

 

[MattusMaximus]

I also like the fact that Farsight is now "offering to explain" his assertion that the potential energy associated with gravitational fields is positive, despite the fact that I (and others) have been challenging him for days to show his math behind this assertion.

Okay, Farsight, the ball is in your court. Please show us the math backing up your assertion. Not your "logic", not more words/assertions, show me the MATH.

 

[Reality Check]

List of basic school-level physics Farsight doesn't understand:

• Scalar

• Vector

• Scalar product

• First law of thermodynamics

• Conservation of momentum

• Difference between energy and momentum

• When to use E=pc and when to use E²=(pc)²+(mc²)²

Any more?

The meaning of the word relativistic as in a relativistic QFT !
The Higgs mechanism Wikipedia article states that it is a relativistic QFT.
Peter Higgs states that it is a relativistic QFT:
Farsight: What does Higgs mean by Lorentz-covariant and relativistic ?
Farsight: The answer is easy: obeys SR, e.g. E=mc2 .

 

[MattusMaximus]

Yoo hoo! Hey Farsight...

Ahem...

I also like the fact that Farsight is now "offering to explain" his assertion that the potential energy associated with gravitational fields is positive, despite the fact that I (and others) have been challenging him for days to show his math behind this assertion.

Okay, Farsight, the ball is in your court. Please show us the math backing up your assertion. Not your "logic", not more words/assertions, show me the MATH.

*crickets chirp*

 

[Orphia Nay]

As part of their Stories of 2012, The Guardian relives the Higgs Boson discovery announcement with Fabiola Gianotti:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/dec/25/higgs-boson-discovery-extraordinarily-tense

 

[mijopaalmc]

Post 747

What are the chances that it was assembled by a tornado tearing through a junkyard?

 

[Farsight]

Orphia: I'm surprised the Guardian ran that story. It's a "puff piece". The best article on the subject I've seen is Particle headache: Why the Higgs could spell disaster by Matthew Chalmers. It was in New Scientist on the 12th November 2012, and features CERN physicists telling it straight from the horse's mouth. Not the press office, not administrators or managers trying to curry favour via a compliant media and an ignorant public, but the physicists. Here's an excerpt:

"It's a nice story, but one that some find a little contrived. "The minimal standard model Higgs is like a fairy tale," says Guido Altarelli of CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. "It is a toy model to make the theory match the data, a crutch to allow the standard model to walk a bit further until something better comes along." His problem is that the standard model is manifestly incomplete. It predicts the outcome of experiments involving normal particles to accuracies of several decimal places, but is frustratingly mute on gravity, dark matter and other components of the cosmos we know or suspect to exist. What we need, say Altarelli and others, is not a standard Higgs at all, but something subtly or radically different - a key to a deeper theory."

The full text is behind a paywall, but if you google it you can find a copy elsewhere.

 

[Kid Eager]

Orphia: I'm surprised the Guardian ran that story. It's a "puff piece". The best article on the subject I've seen is Particle headache: Why the Higgs could spell disaster by Matthew Chalmers. It was in New Scientist on the 12th November 2012, and features CERN physicists telling it straight from the horse's mouth. Not the press office, not administrators or managers trying to curry favour via a compliant media and an ignorant public, but the physicists. Here's an excerpt:

"It's a nice story, but one that some find a little contrived. "The minimal standard model Higgs is like a fairy tale," says Guido Altarelli of CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. "It is a toy model to make the theory match the data, a crutch to allow the standard model to walk a bit further until something better comes along." His problem is that the standard model is manifestly incomplete. It predicts the outcome of experiments involving normal particles to accuracies of several decimal places, but is frustratingly mute on gravity, dark matter and other components of the cosmos we know or suspect to exist. What we need, say Altarelli and others, is not a standard Higgs at all, but something subtly or radically different - a key to a deeper theory."

The full text is behind a paywall, but if you google it you can find a copy elsewhere.

I don't believe there's anything unreasonable in the Guardian article, nor is it discordant with the November New Scientist article. The Guardian article acknowledges the achievement; the New Scientist article points out that there's still more things to be proven in the Standard Model.

Physics World also feels the Higgs discovery worthy of mention:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/dec/14/physics-world-reveals-its-top-10-breakthroughs-for-2012

 

[Anders Lindman]

Is it still the case that the Higgs boson explains some of the mass of particles, but not all? If so, how is the other mass explained? And is inertia explained as an effect of the Higgs field? If so, is only some of the inertia explained by the Higgs field but not all?

Plus the relationship between the Higgs boson and gravitons seems unclear. See for example this thread at another forum: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=605260

 

[Farsight]

Is it still the case that the Higgs boson explains some of the mass of particles, but not all? If so, how is the other mass explained?

People say that the Higgs mechanism is responsible for the mass of "fundamental" particles like electrons and quarks, this being 1% of the mass of matter. They say E=mc² is responsible for the other 99%. I think E=mc² is responsible for 100% myself, and that inertia is like the flip side of momentum. A photon is massless, but as per Compton scattering it can make things move. If you trap a massless photon in a box it adds mass to the system. The box is harder to move as a result. I view the electron as a standing-wave created via pair production, or "a 511keV photon in a box of its own making".

And is inertia explained as an effect of the Higgs field? If so, is only some of the inertia explained by the Higgs field but not all?

See what the other guys say.

Plus the relationship between the Higgs boson and gravitons seems unclear. See for example this thread at another forum: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=605260

Gravitons remain hypothetical. A photon causes gravity. Not so much that you can measure it, but it does. Any concentration of energy causes gravity, but a photon isn't surrounded by a cloud of gravitons zipping around. And a gravitational field isn't a seething cloud of gravitons. Gravitons are virtual particles anyway, not real particles. They are "field quanta", like you divide a field up into little squares and say each one is a graviton. You shouldn't think of gravitons as actual particles like photons.

 

[sol invictus]

Is it still the case that the Higgs boson explains some of the mass of particles, but not all? If so, how is the other mass explained?

The Higgs boson is directly responsible for the mass of all fundamental particles. However, most of the mass of matter comes from protons and neutrons, and protons and neutrons aren't fundamental particles. Instead, they are bound states of three quarks and lots of gluons. While the quarks get their mass from the Higgs, most of the mass of the proton and the neutron comes from the energy (not just the rest mass) of the quarks and gluons that compose them.

And is inertia explained as an effect of the Higgs field? If so, is only some of the inertia explained by the Higgs field but not all?

The latter, for the same reason as above.

Plus the relationship between the Higgs boson and gravitons seems unclear.

Apart from the fact that we know very little about gravitons, there's nothing specific about the Higgs' interaction with gravity that's unclear.

 

[Anders Lindman]

People say that the Higgs mechanism is responsible for the mass of "fundamental" particles like electrons and quarks, this being 1% of the mass of matter.

I have seen other claims, such as:

"The Higgs field does not give an atomic nucleus all of its mass, and since the nucleus is the vast majority of the mass of an atom, that means it does not provide all of the mass of ordinary matter." -- http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/1...ield-give-the-higgs-particle-its-mass-or-not/

 

[Anders Lindman]

While the quarks get their mass from the Higgs, most of the mass of the proton and the neutron comes from the energy (not just the rest mass) of the quarks and gluons that compose them.

That seems inconsistent: that some of the mass is caused by the Higgs field, while other forms of mass don't require any Higgs field.

 

[Farsight]

I have seen other claims, such as:

"The Higgs field does not give an atomic nucleus all of its mass, and since the nucleus is the vast majority of the mass of an atom, that means it does not provide all of the mass of ordinary matter." -- http://profmattstrassler.com/2012/1...ield-give-the-higgs-particle-its-mass-or-not/

Interesting, Anders. I'll study that. Meanwhile if you haven't seen it before, check out Matthew Chalmers Particle Headache piece in New Scientist. It features CERN physicists saying things like this:

"The minimal standard model Higgs is like a fairy tale," says Guido Altarelli of CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. "It is a toy model to make the theory match the data, a crutch to allow the standard model to walk a bit further until something better comes along."

ETA:

Just to reiterate, the Higgs mechanism is said to be responsible for the mass of fundamental particles, wherein they interact with the Higgs field. The Higgs boson is said to be an excitation of the Higgs field.

 

[Anders Lindman]

Interesting, Anders. I'll study that. Meanwhile if you haven't seen it before, check out Matthew Chalmers Particle Headache piece in New Scientist. It features CERN physicists saying things like this:

"The minimal standard model Higgs is like a fairy tale," says Guido Altarelli of CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. "It is a toy model to make the theory match the data, a crutch to allow the standard model to walk a bit further until something better comes along."

ETA:

Just to reiterate, the Higgs mechanism is said to be responsible for the mass of fundamental particles, wherein they interact with the Higgs field. The Higgs boson is said to be an excitation of the Higgs field.

The Higgs field is everywhere according to that article: "The solution hit upon by Higgs and others was a new field that filled space..."

Sounds suspiciously like some aether theory, lol. So the Higgs field is an absolute reference frame... Hmm... Doesn't fit well with Einstein's relativity. Or?