Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[Reality Check]

What If the New Particle Isn't the Higgs Boson?

THE GIST
- The newly found particle could be a more exotic variety of a Higgs boson.
- This could actually be a more exciting finding than if the particle is actually the expected Higgs boson.

So what has this to do with your rather ignorant assertion that the Higgs mechanism (a relativistic QFT !) violates relativity, Farsight?

 

[Reality Check]

What's absurd is the notion that gluons are real particles. They aren't. They're virtual particles

What's absurd is your inability to learn what a gluon is !
Gluon

Gluons (pron.: /ˈɡluːɒnz/) are elementary particles that act as the exchange particles (or gauge bosons) for the strong force between quarks, analogous to the exchange of photons in the electromagnetic force between two charged particles.
...
Experimental observations
Quarks and gluons (colored) manifest themselves by fragmenting into more quarks and gluons, which in turn hadronize into normal (colorless) particles, correlated in jets. As shown in 1978 summer conferences[2] the PLUTO experiments at the electron-positron collider DORIS (DESY) reported the first evidence that the hadronic decays of the very narrow resonance Y(9.46) could be interpreted as three-jet event topologies produced by three gluons. Later published analyses by the same experiment confirmed this interpretation and also the spin 1 nature of the gluon[9][10] (see also the recollection[2] and PLUTO experiments).

Like photons they exist as both real and virtual particles.

So what you wrote is as ridiculous as "What's absurd is the notion that photons are real particles. They aren't. They're virtual particles".

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Goalpost moving often accompanies hand waving.

I thought this comment was really funny.

However, I wish to reiterate my request for an explanation of the "hand waggling" proof of the existence of motion. Having read through several historical texts where physicists have spent a great deal of time really giving the foundations of physics a solid footing, I have learned that it takes a great deal of care to actually do the work of establishing these foundations. Explaining just what it takes in order to describe, in a physically meaningful way, just what is going on in "hand waggling" is not easy and it requires a careful use of the concept of time. If Farsight was really interested in this subject as something more than a soapbox, then he might spend the effort thinking about this. (He may already have done so and, realizing that he cannot do away with time in describing motion, have decided to hide the results of his attempts.)

 

[ben m]

Read The role of the potentials in electromagnetism by Percy Hammond

This is an article written for engineers to help them gain engineering intuition for practical EM field calculations. The curvature Hammond mentions is not part of the real-E&M, it's part of the maybe-this-helps-your-intution. There are many such intuition-helpers in computational E&M. For example, a long solenoid is not really a pair of magnetic monopoles, but engineers are welcome to (and frequently do) pretend that it is.

A photon is essentially a singleton electromagnetic wave which is a spatial curvature propagating at c.

Are you utterly unable to tell the difference between Farsight-ism and mainstream physics? This "spatial curvature" is something you made up. That's why you can't find it in Jackson or Purcell or Griffiths, and that's why every physicist on this board has laughed at you for claiming it.

Did you forget making it up? I guess that happens sometimes. Like, I'm cleaning out an old file cabinet, and come across some calculations, and I say "This is interesting, whose are these?", and after reading them I discover they're mine. Is that happening to you? Are you discovering your own ideas in file cabinets, forgetting whose they are, assuming they're well-known physics insights, and citing them?

All electromagnetic waves share the same action h, which has the dimensionality of momentum x distance. You can see a trace of it in pictures of the electromagentic spectrum. All the waves are the same height.

Literally LOL. That "trace" represents an electromagnetic field magnitude, not a distance. The field can assume any magnitude whatsoever, and its units are volts-per-meter. When someone wants to draw a cartoon of an electromagnetic field, they draw an arbitrary sine wave and change the height until the cartoon is pretty. It has nothing to do with physics.

And: if you're hoping that the field magnitude magically works out to be a constant after you quantize photon energies? Like, "each photon, no matter the wavelength, always has the same (something proportional to field)?" Nope, that's not true either.

 

[JDC]

 

[Perpetual Student]

Oh well, if not educational, Farsight pretend physics can be somewhat entertaining.

 

[lpetrich]

Farsight has also talked about returning to the original Maxwell about electromagnetism and his equations, as opposed to Oliver Heaviside's more-common version of them and other such supposed corruptions. We need to get back to the original revelation, a theologian's sort of argument.

However, science does not work that way. We don't use Sir Isaac Newton's original way of working with his laws of motion and law of gravity. Instead, we use later developments like vectors, Lagrangians, and Hamiltonians. Late in his life, astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar wrote a detailed commentary on Newton's Principia, explaining Newton's results in modern language: 1996JHA....27..353S Page 355


I've also found the blog entry by Lubos Motl that I'd earlier referred to: The Reference Frame: Why the Standard Model isn't the whole story Despite some gratuitous insults near the beginning, it's overall good.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Farsight has also talked about returning to the original Maxwell about electromagnetism and his equations, as opposed to Oliver Heaviside's more-common version of them and other such supposed corruptions. We need to get back to the original revelation, a theologian's sort of argument.

I'm in a group reading over Maxwell's original works. It doesn't look like there is any mathematical differences, other than the fact that Maxwell had to write out curls and divergences in full because they were not yet invented to shorten the work of those following his equations. Not finished yet, though.

However, science does not work that way. We don't use Sir Isaac Newton's original way of working with his laws of motion and law of gravity. Instead, we use later developments like vectors, Lagrangians, and Hamiltonians. Late in his life, astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar wrote a detailed commentary on Newton's Principia, explaining Newton's results in modern language: 1996JHA....27..353S Page 355

I've got that sitting on my shelf, unread, so I'll have to take a look. The new translation of the Principia has a little primer on translating to modern physics too, IIRC.

I've also found the blog entry by Lubos Motl <snip>

You really should find a better link. There has to be a less sexist explanation of the state of the field out there.

 

[lpetrich]

I'm in a group reading over Maxwell's original works. It doesn't look like there is any mathematical differences, other than the fact that Maxwell had to write out curls and divergences in full because they were not yet invented to shorten the work of those following his equations. Not finished yet, though.

Reminds me that an alternative to vectors that was popular back then was quaternions. Seems like a way of restating 3-vector operations, however.

(Lubos Motl on the SM...)

You really should find a better link. There has to be a less sexist explanation of the state of the field out there.

Yes, that analogy he makes.

 

[lpetrich]

I've found some alternatives to Lubos Motl's blog entry. Wikipedia, of course: Physics beyond the Standard Model^WP, nontechnical but a bit sketchy, and lots of very technical sorts of documents.

Beyond the Standard Model - no math

why do we need susy? - not much much, and it has some nice graphs of how the gauge coupling "constants" converge at high energies. In the plain Standard Model, they do not converge very well, while in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, they converge very closely around 10¹⁶ GeV.

The Standard Model and its Problems, by Chris Quigg - lots of math

PDF page 10 has the masses of the particles. The dark symbol is the particle's mass measured at its mass scale, the light symbol that mass measured at GUT scales. The tau and the bottom are close at GUT scales, as one would expect from GUT mass unification.

SM validity in the graph on page 67 - with the observed putative Higgs mass of 125 GeV, there'll be trouble around 10^7 GeV.

Discussion of Standard-Model problems starts on page 72.

Physics Beyond the Standard Model - even more math

 

[Farsight]

You should note the insanity of implying that an electron is 2 photons...

Geddoutofit. I've never said that. I referred you to Two Photon Physics which is "a branch of particle physics for the interactions between two photons" wherein electron-positron pair production occurs.

 

[Farsight]

This kind of insult is really quite rude, and is a professional insult directed at Iptr*.

It wasn't an insult, it was a put down in response to an insult. And it was in response to ben m.

You haven't provided any supporting references, except in a way that runs according to your own special pleadings.

I've given plenty, including electron diffraction which "refers to the wave nature of electrons. So when RC says There is a siimple physical reason why the Dirac equation treats the electron as a point particle, he's wrong. You can diffract them. They have a wave nature. They aren't point particles.
They

You didn't say anything about the spin issue, for instance, after your photon-photon interaction was charbroiled into extinction.

For example I've referred to the Einstein-de Haas effect which "demonstrates that spin angular momentum is indeed of the same nature as the angular momentum of rotating bodies as conceived in classical mechanics".

You simply engage in ad-hominem attacks. That looks more like malice than physics to me.

I give the references to support what I say. I don't see you giving any. You're the one engaging in ad-hominems, jj.

ETA: I see Reality Check has also pointed out one of the fatal flaws in your imagination.

No, he hasn't.

 

[godless dave]

I've given plenty, including electron diffraction which "refers to the wave nature of electrons. So when RC says There is a siimple physical reason why the Dirac equation treats the electron as a point particle, he's wrong. You can diffract them. They have a wave nature. They aren't point particles.

Nobody claimed they were point particles. RC said the Dirac equation treats electrons as point particles.

 

[Farsight]

That is NOT a literal space-time curvature, but a curvature-like quantity in the electromagnetic fields themselves.

It's a space curvature, not space-time curvature. It's easy to understand the difference via an analogy: imagine you're looking out over a flat calm ocean, when an oceanic swell wave comes along. The surface of the sea is curved where that wave is. That equates to space-curvature. As the wave passes you notice that it's following a curved path. That equates to space-time curvature. See the ABB50/25 programme and note the reference to curved space.

Farsight, you interpret those diagrams as literal-mindedly as a fundie interpreting the Bible. Those are *schematic* diagrams, and such diagrams are NOT intended to be literal pictures. When you see a line drawing of something, do you then act as if that line drawing is a photographic representation?

I'm not doing that at all. The people behaving like the fundies here are the guys like jj dismissing the scientific evidence I keep referring to.

More literal-mindedness, this time about the "displacement" in "displacement current".

It's a real displacement, lpetrich. Imagine space is a lattice, stand in it, and push upwards so that the horizontal lattice lines are curved. You've displaced the lattice. See wiki re the electromagnetic wave equation and in this section note this: "the curl operator on one side of these equations results in first-order spacial derivatives of the wave solution, while the time-derivative on the other side of the equations, which gives the other field, is first order in time". The sinusoidal electric wave you see in the pictures is the slope of the curvature, whilst the orthogonal magnetic wave is the rate-of-change of slope. NB: the "fields" referred to are E and B, which aren't actually fields, but instead denote the linear and rotational forces resulting from electromagnetic field interactions.

Farsight has also talked about returning to the original Maxwell about electromagnetism and his equations, as opposed to Oliver Heaviside's more-common version of them and other such supposed corruptions. We need to get back to the original revelation, a theologian's sort of argument.

There's absolutely nothing theological about reading the original Maxwell lpetrich. Or the original Einstein.

This is an article written for engineers to help them gain engineering intuition for practical EM field calculations. The curvature Hammond mentions is not part of the real-E&M, it's part of the maybe-this-helps-your-intution.

It isn't part of maybe this helps your intuition.

For example, a long solenoid is not really a pair of magnetic monopoles, but engineers are welcome to (and frequently do) pretend that it is.

Not engineers who've read Percy Hammond. They understand that a charged particle like an electron has an electromagnetic field which is associated with a curvature that diminishes with distance like this, and they understand what happens when you cut a solenoid in half. It isn't the engineers who pretend that magnetic monopoles exist, see wiki. Note that the CMP "flux tube" is akin to a solenoid.

Now can we get back on topic instead of me having to respond to carping naysayers trying to paint me as a theologian.

 

[lpetrich]

It's a space curvature, not space-time curvature.

Electromagnetism is neither space-time curvature nor space-without-time curvature.

I'm not doing that at all. The people behaving like the fundies here are the guys like jj dismissing the scientific evidence I keep referring to.

Evidence 100% consistent with the theories that you reject, like space-time unity, intrinsic spin, charged elementary fermions as Dirac fields, etc.

("displacement current")

It's a real displacement, lpetrich.

It is NOT, and no amount of quote-mining can change that. You ought to try to understand the mathematics rather than act as if quote-mining can substitute for doing so.

There's absolutely nothing theological about reading the original Maxwell lpetrich. Or the original Einstein.

The theological part is the implication that what they originally proposed was some revealed truth, that we have departed from it, and that we ought to return to it. Science does not work that way, and for VERY good reason.

 

[Farsight]

I don't reject those theories, I understand them. I understand things like intrinsic spin. It isn't something magic and mysterious. The electron doesn't have its magnetic moment for nothing. Don't dismiss the Einstein de-Haas effect.

When a seismic wave runs through the Earth, the Earth waves. It is displaced. When an ocean wave runs through water, the water waves. It is displaced. When an electromagnetic wave runs through space, space waves. It is displaced.

The theological part is dismissing references to Maxwell / Einstein / Minkowski etc as "quote mining" along with dismissing references to hard factual scientific evidence. Because it doesn't fit with what you think you know. Creationists behave just like that when you show them fossils, strata, carbon dating, etc. That's not evidence they say, then they dish out some kind of ad-hominem insult to essentially say this man cannot be trusted, disregard everything he says, listen to me instead.

Now can we try to talk about the Higgs boson please? If that's too limiting for you, let's talk about mass.

 

[edd]

When a seismic wave runs through the Earth, the Earth waves. It is displaced. When an ocean wave runs through water, the water waves. It is displaced. When an electromagnetic wave runs through space, space waves. It is displaced.

Do you really not see what you've done there?
Let me fix it for you: when an electromagnetic wave runs through the electromagnetic field the electromagnetic field waves.

Even then you're stretching it too far to say the field would be displaced.

Plus if space were doing the waving it'd be a gravitational wave. And be quite different.

 

[lpetrich]

I don't reject those theories, I understand them. I understand things like intrinsic spin. It isn't something magic and mysterious. The electron doesn't have its magnetic moment for nothing. Don't dismiss the Einstein de-Haas effect.

All of which are 100% consistent with quantum-mechanical intrinsic spin. Farsight, why don't you try to work through the calculation of the Dirac value of the magnetic moment? It's calculated using the Dirac-field hypothesis, not the circling-photon hypothesis.

When a seismic wave runs through the Earth, the Earth waves. It is displaced. When an ocean wave runs through water, the water waves. It is displaced. When an electromagnetic wave runs through space, space waves. It is displaced.

False analogy, another favorite sort of "reasoning" for theologians.

The theological part is dismissing references to Maxwell / Einstein / Minkowski etc as "quote mining"

It's quote mining because those quotes are often out of their context and often misunderstood. Also, why is it some sort of heinous crime against science to treat those gentlemen as something other than prophets of revealed truth?

along with dismissing references to hard factual scientific evidence.

Show me where I am supposed to have done that and explain why that is supposed to be the case.

 

[ben m]

I don't reject those theories, I understand them. I understand things like intrinsic spin. It isn't something magic and mysterious.

Really? You understand intrinsic spin? I'm skeptical. In the past, whenever you've said "I understand X", you've proceeded to spout great heaps of misunderstanding. Want to prove that? If I had told my graduate oral-exam committee "I understand intrinsic spin", they would have made me solve Peskin and Schroder problems on the blackboard. Peskin & Schroeder problem 3.1 is a good one.

 

[ben m]

Creationists behave just like that when you show them fossils, strata, carbon dating, etc. That's not evidence they say, then they dish out some kind of ad-hominem insult to essentially say this man cannot be trusted, disregard everything he says, listen to me instead.

Evolutionist: Let's talk about <neat recent discovery>

Creationist: How can you claim <discovery> is right when evolution is wrong? Look, here's a picture of a flagellum from my web page. And here's a Nature News article which mentions flagella and E. coli. That's evidence that ID is right.

Evolutionist: That's not evidence.

Creationist. Also, here's a quote from Deuteronomy. Here's a picture of a flagellum again. Here's proof that 2+2=5. Here's a Wikipedia link to the flagellum. That proves 2+2=5.

Evolutionist: This creationist is a moron. He has nothing to say about <discovery> and is simply repeating his worn-out ID nonsense. Please stop letting him disrupt the thread and let's talk about <discovery> again.

Creationist: <complains>