Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[MattusMaximus]

I bolded the important bit. It's unequivocal. The mass of a body depends upon its energy content, not on its interaction with the Higgs field. The bottom line is that the Higgs boson contradicts Einstein and his E=mc². Scarey. Ask around and see if you can find out how the Higgs boson gets its mass. Make sure you mention that the only ingredients in the LHC are protons and the kinetic energy given to them as they were accelerated around the ring.

Thanks for providing the paper, but I do have a criticism...

Just because modern physicists do not yet have the answer to the question I hilighted above doesn't mean that your claims are correct. You seem to be making a combination argument from ignorance and false dilemma with much of what you're posting here. In addition, you seem to be implying that E=mc² isn't consistent with the theory behind the Higgs boson because... why? What, according to you, specifically makes one inconsistent with the other?

If you think that there is something to your ideas, then you must do more than attempt to tear down the Standard Model upon which the whole notion of the Higgs boson is based. You must provide positive evidence for your ideas.

So go do that. If there is something to your ideas then I'm sure you can get them published in a reputable physics journal. Better yet, illustrate the superiority of your ideas by conducting an experiment; you know, like the people who built the Standard Model have done.

ETA: Also, for all of your fawning over Einstein, you should realize that later in his career he was wrong on a lot of stuff. For example, he never fully accepted quantum physics and kept trying to unify gravitation with electromagnetism, a futile effort which led nowhere. That's just an aside, but a relevant one given your apparent devotion to the man.

 

[Reality Check]

Farsight, Is the Higgs mechanism a relativistic quantum field theory

Go check it out.

That is dumb - gio check out the anoiuncement of the discovery of the Higgs boson from peoloe who know more than this than you and me !

does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy content?[/url] That's where Einstein said "The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content".

Now where does the energy (E) come from according to Einstein?

Don't bother me with trivia, RC.

It is not trivia, Farsight: It is pointing out the stupidity of stating that a relativistic quantum field theory is not consistent with relativity (i.e. E=mc²).

So you do now what relativistic (sort of) means. In this context it means a theory that is based on special relativity. It includes E=mc² and thus can bever contradict E=mc² .

But maybe you are ignorant about the Higgs mechanism being a relativistic quantum field theory so:

Farsight, Is the Higgs mechanism a relativistic quantum field theory?
First pointed out 1 November 2012

If you mean that the Higgs mechanism violates E=mc² then you are wrong. The Higgs mechanism is a relativistic quantum field theory. It includes E=mc².

 

[Kwalish Kid]

All: If anybody wants me to talk to them again, they can apologise for calling me a crackpot. I'm the one who's with Einstein here. Call me a crackpot, and you're calling Einstein a crackpot. It's that simple. Just as this resistance to change-in-motion thing is that simple a child can understand it. And yet here we are on a skeptics forum and people cling to things they don't understand instead. The irony is delicious. It's why I like this place so much. LOL. And so to bed.

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for Rule 12.

 

[sol invictus]

Seriously, this has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have seen you post. You honestly don't realize that the p in E=pc is not the momentum vector, but the magnitude of the momentum vector? This is basic algebra here. You can't set a scalar quantity equal to a vector quantity.

Farsight doesn't know enough math to balance a checkbook, let alone understand "advanced" concepts like vectors.

Farsight: If I'm wrong, prove it. Write an equation showing how the Higgs mechanism in a Lorentz invariant field theory like the standard model is inconsistent with E=mc², an equation that is true by definition in Lorentz invariant theories.

 

[Farsight]

Sorry I couldn't talk yesterday guys, I was tied up.

Have a look at the New Scientist article Particle headache: Why the Higgs could spell disaster. You have to be able to login to read it I'm afraid, but here's a fair-use 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.

Here's another one.

The only way to do that while retaining a semblance of theoretical dignity, says Altarelli, is to invoke a conspiracy brought about by a suitable new symmetry of nature.

 

[Farsight]

Farsight doesn't know enough math to balance a checkbook, let alone understand "advanced" concepts like vectors.

LOL, I've got maths A level, I did more maths at university when I did a Computer Science degree, and I've done maths tutoring up to A-level.

Farsight: If I'm wrong, prove it. Write an equation showing how the Higgs mechanism in a Lorentz invariant field theory like the standard model is inconsistent with E=mc², an equation that is true by definition in Lorentz invariant theories.

No, I'm not wasting my time boring everybody to death pandering to your attempt to distract attention away from the evidence and the logic.

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Moderated content removed.

I've reported your post. Do try to talk physics instead of being abusive.

 

[Tubbythin]

LOL, I've got maths A level, I did more maths at university when I did a Computer Science degree, and I've done maths tutoring up to A-level.

Poor tutees. If their own tutor doesn't understand the difference between a vector and a scalar they are going to struggle.

No, I'm not wasting my time boring everybody to death pandering to your attempt to distract attention away from the evidence and the logic.

So you're not even going to remotely try and justify your claims.

 

[Farsight]

None of the above is equivalent to saying that the inertia of the body doesn't depend on its energy content, as has been repeatedly explained to you.

Yes it is. It says the inertia of a body depends on the Higgs mechanism when that body is a "fundamental particle" such as an electron.

I'm not "conflating" anything. And you did not answer the question. Yes or no: Does the 10MeV electron still have a mass of 0.511MeV/c^2?

Yes and no. The answer is yes when you separate the total energy into kinetic energy and rest mass and say "mass is rest mass". The answer is no when you say "mass is relativistic mass which is the total energy".

If your answer is "no", then you are not using the word "mass" to refer to rest mass. If your answer is "yes", then it is clearly not true that what you are calling "mass" is a measure of the energy content of the 10MeV electron. You can't have it both ways, regardless of what you think Einstein "liked".

I can have it both ways when I point out the ambiguity surrounding the word mass. Don't try this sort of thing on me Stimpson, I'm way too smart for it.

So now you are amending your claim that "mass is a measure of the energy content of a body" to be "mass is a measure of the energy content of a body if it is at rest"?

Wake up Stimpson, go and read Einstein's paper. He said "The mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content". Those are his exact words. It isn't my claim you're trying to shoot down, it's Einstein's.

And if so, why go on about whether mass should refer to relativistic or rest mass at all, when for particles at rest they are exactly the same thing? Why are you so obsessed with purely semantic issues like this? What difference does any of this make to anything?

I'm not going on about relativistic mass or rest mass, nor am I obsessed with purely semantic issues, I'm telling you what Einstien said and how the Higgs mechanism contradicts it. But even though you cannot explain the Higgs mechanism, you will not accept what Einstein said. You call it my claim instead.

The fact remains that the Higgs mechanism does not claim that any particle at rest will have a mass m and an energy E such that E is not equal to mc^2, so you are simply wrong when you say that it violates E=mc^2, or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle does not depend on its energy content or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle is not a measure of its energy content.

I'm not "simply wrong". Einstein said radiation conveys inertia. So after pair production the electron has obtained its inertia from the photon that made it, not from the Higgs mechanism. It's that simple Stimpson. Now go and read that Einstein paper.

 

[Tubbythin]

Sorry I couldn't talk yesterday guys, I was tied up.

Have a look at the New Scientist article Particle headache: Why the Higgs could spell disaster. You have to be able to login to read it I'm afraid, but here's a fair-use 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.

Here's another one.

The only way to do that while retaining a semblance of theoretical dignity, says Altarelli, is to invoke a conspiracy brought about by a suitable new symmetry of nature.

You do realise that that article does not dispute that the Higgs was observed?

 

[Tubbythin]

Yes it is. It says the inertia of a body depends on the Higgs mechanism when that body is a "fundamental particle" such as an electron.

There is no inconsistency.

I'm not "simply wrong". Einstein said radiation conveys inertia. So after pair production the electron has obtained its inertia from the photon that made it, not from the Higgs mechanism. It's that simple Stimpson. Now go and read that Einstein paper.

Sigh. The amount of the photons energy that goes in to the rest mass of the electron is determined by the electrons' interaction with the Higgs field. That energy has to come from somewhere: it comes from the energy of the photon - 511 keV of kinetic energy is converted in to 511 keV of rest mass energy (aka 511 keV/c² of mass). This picture is entirely consistent with everything Einstein said in his paper you love so much.

 

[Farsight]

Thanks for providing the paper, but I do have a criticism... Just because modern physicists do not yet have the answer to the question I hilighted above doesn't mean that your claims are correct. You seem to be making a combination argument from ignorance and false dilemma with much of what you're posting here.

It isn't some argument from ignorance and false dilemma. My physics knowledge far exceeds that of other posters here. The ignorance is theirs, not mine. And see my post 505 above the reality of the dilemma.

In addition, you seem to be implying that E=mc² isn't consistent with the theory behind the Higgs boson because... why? What, according to you, specifically makes one inconsistent with the other?

It's the other way around. The Higgs mechanism isn't consistent with E=mc² because it ignores the symmetry between momentum and inertia. Both are resistance-to-change-in-motion, one for a wave propapagating linearly at c, one for a standing wave which whilst still propagating at c, is going this → way and that ← way at c and so appears to have no relative motion with respect to you. And see atomic orbitals on wiki. Note the line that reads "The electrons do not orbit the nucleus in the sense of a planet orbiting the sun, but instead exist as standing waves." Electrons exist as standing waves even when they aren't in an orbital. The wave motion isn't as simple as going this → way and that ← way at c, but the same principle applies.

If you think that there is something to your ideas, then you must do more than attempt to tear down the Standard Model upon which the whole notion of the Higgs boson is based. You must provide positive evidence for your ideas.

I'm not trying to tear down the standard model, I'm trying to get it out of a hole. Again see post 505 above.

So go do that. If there is something to your ideas then I'm sure you can get them published in a reputable physics journal. Better yet, illustrate the superiority of your ideas by conducting an experiment; you know, like the people who built the Standard Model have done.

I'm not some "my theory" guy. I'll talk to people instead.

ETA: Also, for all of your fawning over Einstein, you should realize that later in his career he was wrong on a lot of stuff. For example, he never fully accepted quantum physics and kept trying to unify gravitation with electromagnetism, a futile effort which led nowhere. That's just an aside, but a relevant one given your apparent devotion to the man.

Don't dismiss Einstein with an allegation that I'm fawning. I'm pointing out what the guy said. Face up to it. And he did accept quantum physics. He was in on the ground floor of quantum physics. What he didn't accept was the "mystic" Copenhagen interpretation, which is now a busted flush.

 

[Tubbythin]

It isn't some argument from ignorance and false dilemma. My physics knowledge far exceeds that of other posters here.

No it doesn't. You don't understand the difference between a vector and a scalar. I think that probably puts you at the bottom of the pile of people commenting on this thread.

The ignorance is theirs, not mine. And see my post 505 above the reality of the dilemma.

Post 505 is a link to an article which at no point supports your claims about the Higgs boson and Einstein.

It's the other way around. The Higgs mechanism isn't consistent with E=mc² because it ignores the symmetry between momentum and inertia.

No. No it doesn't. You've been asked to show this mathematically repeatedly and you've refused repeatedly.

Both are resistance-to-change-in-motion, one for a wave propapagating linearly at c, one for a standing wave which whilst still propagating at c, is going this → way and that ← way at c and so appears to have no relative motion with respect to you. And see atomic orbitals on wiki. Note the line that reads "The electrons do not orbit the nucleus in the sense of a planet orbiting the sun, but instead exist as standing waves." Electrons exist as standing waves even when they aren't in an orbital. The wave motion isn't as simple as going this → way and that ← way at c, but the same principle applies.

You what?

I'm not trying to tear down the standard model, I'm trying to get it out of a hole. Again see post 505 above.

What you are doing is from a position of utter ignorance (for example you don't understand vectors or the equation E=pc) claim that all the particle physicists in the world are wrong.

I'm not some "my theory" guy. I'll talk to people instead.

So rather than test your treasured theories against the rigours of peer review you are going to go on an internet forum and tell everyone that doesn't believe you that they are inferior to you. Well, if thats the life you want to lead that's up to you. In the real world real scientists are making real progress understanding how the real world really works. You;re missing out.

Don't dismiss Einstein with an allegation that I'm fawning.

He isn't dismissing Einstein. He's dismissing you.

I'm pointing out what the guy said. Face up to it.

You're pointing out things he said that do not support your claims and then saying that because of things he said that do not support your claims you must be correct and everyone else must be wrong.

And he did accept quantum physics. He was in on the ground floor of quantum physics. What he didn't accept was the "mystic" Copenhagen interpretation, which is now a busted flush.

You should read up on the EPR paradox and Bell's inequality.

 

[edd]

It isn't some argument from ignorance and false dilemma. My physics knowledge far exceeds that of other posters here. The ignorance is theirs, not mine.

Ouch. I suppose given what you did when you were justifiably called out on your scalar/vector error, I should dig out my A-level in physics.

 

[dafydd]

I've reported your post. Do try to talk physics instead of being abusive.

Ok. [SNIP]

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed personal comment

 

[steenkh]

Some times in this thread it has been said that all that has been found is a "bump" at about 125 GeV/c, but it really is much more than that: the "bump" is associated with a number of different predictions for the Higg's which is why it is so certain that it is the Higg's that has been found.

 

[Farsight]

Ouch. I suppose given what you did when you were justifiably called out on your scalar/vector error, I should dig out my A-level in physics.

I wasn't called out at all. The momentum of a 1kg cannonball coming at your face at 1000m/s doesn't change just because you turned your back on it. Ouch. Now please stick to what we're discussing and resist the urge to make a disparaging comment because you can't find fault with what I've said. Which is what Einstein said.

Some times in this thread it has been said that all that has been found is a "bump" at about 125 GeV/c, but it really is much more than that: the "bump" is associated with a number of different predictions for the Higg's which is why it is so certain that it is the Higg's that has been found.

It isn't steenkh. Read Matthew Chalmers' particle headache article in New Scientist. You have to login to read it. Here's a fair-use excerpt:

"So we are left with a particle that looks like the standard Higgs, but we can't quite prove it. And that leaves us facing an elephant in the accelerator tunnel: if it is the standard Higgs, how can it even be there in the first place?

The problem lies in the prediction of quantum theory, confirmed by experiments at CERN's previous mega-accelerator, the Large Electron Positron collider, that particles spontaneously absorb and emit "virtual" particles by borrowing energy from the vacuum. Because the Higgs boson itself gathers mass from everything it touches, these processes should make its mass balloon from the region of 100 GeV to 10^19 GeV. At this point, dubbed the Planck scale, the fundamental forces go berserk and gravity - the comparative weakling of them all - becomes as strong as all the others. The consequence is a high-stress universe filled with black holes and oddly warped space-time."

The article carries comments by Gian Guidice of CERN, who I've referred to previously on this thread. I'm afraid you've been paying too much attention to the ill-advised rah-rah publicity material, when what you should be doing is looking at what the CERN physicists are saying.

 

[edd]

I wasn't called out at all. The momentum of a 1kg cannonball coming at your face at 1000m/s doesn't change just because you turned your back on it. Ouch. Now please stick to what we're discussing and resist the urge to make a disparaging comment because you can't find fault with what I've said.

I certainly find fault with

When you insist that one has negative momentum, countering the positive momentum of the other, E=pc or E=hf and p=hf/c then forces you to claim that E is negative.

and plenty else.
(edit: Oh and of course it doesn't physically change when I turn my back. We have perfectly sensible ways to handle the coordinate transformation I might choose to apply when I face the other way - it doesn't change the fact that momentum is a vector whose components can quite validly be declared to be negative in a given coordinate system)

I'm still baffled that you think we have a problem with relativity and the Higgs together.

You say your photon in a box has acquired a mass. Yes - by virtue of the confinement of the box, the interaction of the photon with the box, the combined system has done that.
The Higgs field when interacting with the massless particles that will ultimately be observed as an electron does something at least partially analogous, and we get a massive electron as the particle we see.

Of course it isn't a self-interacting photon. It's a massless electron interacting with the Higgs field.

I simply don't see why you have a problem with it and think it disagrees with relativity.

 

[Tubbythin]

The article carries comments by Gian Guidice of CERN, who I've referred to previously on this thread. I'm afraid you've been paying too much attention to the ill-advised rah-rah publicity material, when what you should be doing is looking at what the CERN physicists are saying.

The CERN physicists are saying we've found the Higgs boson. You are saying we haven't. Paying attention to them seems like a really good idea to me.

 

[Stimpson J. Cat]

None of the above is equivalent to saying that the inertia of the body doesn't depend on its energy content, as has been repeatedly explained to you.

Yes it is. It says the inertia of a body depends on the Higgs mechanism when that body is a "fundamental particle" such as an electron.

No it doesn't. It says that the rest mass of a body depends on the Higgs mechanism when that body is one of a certain type of fundamental particle (those that interact with the Higgs field).

A 1MeV photon and a 1MeV electron both have exactly the same inertia. So clearly the inertia of a particle does not depend on the Higgs mechanism. Again, this amounts to you conflating rest mass with inertial mass. The rest mass of a particle is not proportional to its inertia unless that particle is at rest.

At best, you could say that the inertia of a particle at rest depends on the Higgs mechanism. But that doesn't contradict the fact that it depends on the energy of the particle, because of course the energy of a particle at rest depends on the Higgs mechanism.

If A depends on B, and B depends on C, then A may depend on C. Claiming that "A depends on C" contradicts "A depends on B" in such cases simply makes no sense.

The fact remains that the Higgs mechanism does not claim that any particle at rest will have a mass m and an energy E such that E is not equal to mc^2, so you are simply wrong when you say that it violates E=mc^2, or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle does not depend on its energy content or that the Higgs mechanism claims that the mass of a particle is not a measure of its energy content.

I'm not "simply wrong". Einstein said radiation conveys inertia. So after pair production the electron has obtained its inertia from the photon that made it, not from the Higgs mechanism. It's that simple Stimpson. Now go and read that Einstein paper.

No, it is not that simple. Because once again you are misrepresenting what the Higgs mechanism actually claims.

Yes, the combined inertia of the electron positron pair is exactly equal to the combined inertia of the two photons that produced them. This is clear from conservation of energy and the fact that the total inertial of a system is proportional to the total energy of the system.

But since the Higgs mechanism does not claim that the total inertia of the electron positron pair won't be equal to the total inertia of the two photons, you are dead wrong in claiming that the Higgs mechanism somehow contradicts this.

Your specific wording is interesting, though. The electron does not "obtain its inertia from the Higgs mechanism". The Higgs mechanism does not give any particle inertia. A particle with 1MeV of total energy will always have 1MeV/c^2 of inertial mass regardless of how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field. So the inertia of a 1MeV particle is the same regardless of how strongly it interacts with the Higgs field. All the Higgs mechanism does is determine how much of a particle's total energy will be in the form of rest energy, and thus how much of its total inertial mass will be in the form of rest mass.

It would be like if I gave my Niece $100, and her mother made her put $80 in her savings acount and keep $20 as cash. I, not her mother, gave her the $100. The fact that her mother determined how much of that is in her savings account does not change that. The total money she has is still $100, just as the total energy (and thus the total inertia) of the electron and positron is the full energy/inertia "given" to them by the two photons. Her mother just determined how that money would be distributed between her savings and checking accounts, just as the Higgs mechanism determines how the energy/inertia will be distributed between rest-energy and kinetic-energy.

You can argue that it is incorrect to say that her mother determined that she would have $100, and you would be absolutely correct. Likewise, you can claim that the Higgs mechanism is not what gives the electron-positron pair their inertia in pair production. And again you would be absolutely correct. What is incorrect is the assertion that anybody is actually claiming that the Higgs mechanism does give particles their inertia. It does not. The Higgs mechanism does not provide inertia to particles. It just influences the rest mass of certain particles.

But as you have been forced to acknowledge, rest mass is not the same as inertia. A 10MeV electron has 10MeV/c^2 of inertia, but only 0.511MeV/c^2 of rest mass. Also, the Higgs mechanism does not provide the rest energy (which the rest mass is a measure of). That energy still has to come from somewhere else. The Higgs mechanism just determines how much of the particle's energy will be allocated to rest energy.

If you think that Higgs theory claims that the Higgs mechanism somehow provides the rest energy of particles, or that it results in the total inertia of a particle not being proportional to its total energy, then you have simply misunderstood what the Higgs theory actually says.

That said, I doubt very much that you actually know anything about the Higgs theory beyond various qualitative descriptions you have read about it on the web. If you had actually read (and understood) any of the actual science behind it, you would not be making such obvious misstatements about it.

 

[Roboramma]

The fact that it's possible to convert energy from one form to another doesn't mean that it had "hidden kinetic energy" all along, it simply means that energy is conserved

It does Robo. When you drop the book, its kinetic energy doesn't appear because of some kind of spring mechanism.

I didn't suggest that it appeared by some kind of spring mechanism: the book gets kinetic energy due to it's interaction with the gravitational field of the earth

Have a look around at "potential energy is kinetic energy".

You know that's a link to a google search, right? If you have a point to make, make it, if you have reference supporting the statement "potential energy is kinetic energy" just reference it

Or work it through with a photon in a gedanken box. The massless photon adds mass to the system, and like Susskind, we say the box itself has negligible mass which we can safely ignore.

Okay

When you raise the box up to the shelf, you add more energy to that system. Take two identical boxes, one on the floor and one on the shelf, and open them. Each is a radiating body losing mass, and you find that more kinetic energy is delivered by the upper photon.

Yes, and why is that? Because as it leaves the box the one coming out of the lower box either has to climb higher out of a gravity well before delivering it's energy to your detector, or falls less far into it: either way that extra energy is energy that comes not from kinetic energy that the photon had while in the box, but energy it gains from it's interaction with the gravitational field

When it was in the box you couldn't see this extra kinetic energy, and called it potential energy. But all you ever had in the box was photon kinetic energy. Use the wave nature of matter to step up from a photon-in-a-box to a book.

I could see it just fine: I can see where the box is in the gravitational field and calculate it's energy because of that

Now, regarding a book on a shelf, I've got two books, A and B, each weighing one kg, one (A) is on the floor, the other (B) is on a shelf one meter above the floor Both are stationary with respect to the floor

Here's what I get for the kinetic energy of both of them:
E_kinetic = mv²/2
= (1kg)(0m/s)²/2
= 0 Joules

Here's what I get for their respective potential energy relative to the floor:
E_(A)potential= mgh
=(1kg)(10m/s²)(0 m)
= 0 joules

E_(B)potential= mgh
=(1kg)(10m/s²)(1 m)
= 10 joules

Perhaps you could show me the calculation where B's kinetic energy is 10 joules, or something else other than 0?