Higgs Boson Discovered?!

[lpetrich]

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

OK. Let's see what different theories predict about the Higgs-particle spectrum.

What | 0+ | 0- | +-1
Unbroken Standard Model | 1 | 1 | 1
Eaten by Z and W+- | 0 | 1 | 1
Low-energy SM | 1 | 0 | 0
Low-energy MSSM | 2 | 1 | 1
Low-energy NMSSM | 3 | 2 | 1

CP-even neutral: 0+
CP-odd neutral: 0-
Charged: +- 1
MSSM = Minimal SUpersymmetric Standard Model
NMSSM = Next to MSSM

There's an interesting curiosity about the MSSM Higgs masses. A parameter they depend on is m(A), and if it's greater than about 200 GeV, then the particles "decouple". One of them, a neutral CP-even one, stays around 100 GeV and acts much like the SM Higgs particle, especially if m(A) is large. The others get masses close to m(A).

It's that light one that was most likely recently discovered. I can't find any LHC limits on heavy MSSM Higgses, however.

Higgs Theory and Phenomenology in the Standard Model and MSSM
The NMSSM Higgs sector

BTW, First three-year LHC running period reaches a conclusion | CERN press office starting a 2-year shutdown.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Here's a nice example of dishonest cherry-picking...

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".

Note the word I've highlighted.

For future reference, let's continue the sentence Farsight truncated, and let's quote the following sentence of the article Farsight was quoting, and let's highlight that important word a few more times:

, resulting in the same phase shift for both fields in each mathematical operation.

From the viewpoint of an electromagnetic wave traveling forward, the electric field might be oscillating up and down, while the magnetic field oscillates right and left; but this picture can be rotated with the electric field oscillating right and left and the magnetic field oscillating down and up.

Enjoy the moment as Farsight argues with the Wikipedia article he had just quoted:

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.

Yet Farsight's own authority refers to them as fields, for good reason: They're fields.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

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.

It's funny that you bring that up, since you brought it up as a way to distract us from the real problem you have in dealing with spin: photon-photon systems cannot have the right spin to match your theory.

The theological part is dismissing references to Maxwell / Einstein / Minkowski etc as "quote mining" along with dismissing references to hard factual scientific evidence.

But given that you, by your own admission, cannot actually follow the hard science written by these authors, all you can possibly do is quote mine.

 

[lpetrich]

Seems like Farsight has been extracting Great Meaning out of the 3+1 form of Maxwell's equations, and not the general-covariant form, the one where space and time dimensions are treated alike. The g-mu-nu that he sometimes mentions, that's the metric of space-time in general-covariant form.


Now to what one finds for Grand Unified Theories. It's rather remarkable that one can get all the elementary fermions into a few GUT multiplets without a lot of extra particles. The gauge and Higgs particles do get some additional ones, however, particles that can cause proton and bound-neutron decay. From proton-decay experimental bounds, these additional particles must have GUT-scale masses.

First, the gauge symmetries that are already a part of existing theories.

Macroscopic: U(1)_EM
EM = electromagnetic

Low-energy Standard Model: SU(3)_C * U(1)_EM
C = quantum chromodynamic (QCD)
Hidden by color confinement for length scales greater than about 10^(-15) m

Unbroken Standard Model: SU(3)_C * SU(2)_L * U(1)_Y
L = weak isospin
Y = weak hypercharge
Electroweak symmetry breaking: the last two get reduced to U(1)_EM


The simplest GUT that unifies the gauge fields is Georgi-Glashow SU(5). It does so at the price of adding gauge and Higgs particles that can cause proton decay. However, the elementary fermions do not get additional particles; all the SM ones can fit into 2 multiplets per generation, with right-handed neutrinos being a third one.

The next one up is Fritzsch-Minkowski-Georgi SO(10). It adds more gauge particles, but it unifies the Higgs particles into one multiplet with no extra particles relative to SU(5). Likewise, it unifies all the elementary fermions into one multiplet per generation, with only right-handed neutrinos added.

SO(10) breaks down into SU(5) * U(1)_B-L
B-L = (baryon number) - (lepton number)

From there, the next one up is E6, which breaks into SO(10) * U(1). It can unify the elementary fermions and the Higgs particles into one multiplet, with an additional Higgs singlet and two of the three sets of Higgs particles being forced up to GUT energies by symmetry breaking.

 

[Farsight]

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.

A field isn't something magical and mysterious that's something separate to space edd. It's a condition of space. Have a read of Einstein' s 1920 Leyden Address and his 1929 talk on the history of field theory. This NASA article on gravitomagnetism is worth reading too. It says spacetime instead of space, but you should nevertheless catch the drift of "Einstein was right again. There is a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity".

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

Maxwell said "light consists of transverse undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.” And when a light wave interacts with an electron, it makes it move. And as you know, both have a wave nature. They aren't billiard balls.

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

Light waves are transverse waves. Gravitational waves aren't. They're different, but not totally different. The coordinate speed of light varies in a non-inertial reference frame such as a gravitational field, and c=√(1/ε0 μ0). Personally I wonder if this is why LIGO hasn't detected gravitational waves. Like it's trying to measure length-change with a rubber ruler.

 

[Farsight]

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

You totally evaded and dismissed the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic dipole moment in your post #918.

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.

And now you're trying to play the maths card.

It's quote mining because those quotes are often out of their context and often misunderstood.

It's not "quote mining". They said what they actually said.

Also, why is it some sort of heinous crime against science to treat those gentlemen as something other than prophets of revealed truth?

It's nothing to do with "prophets". It's paying attention to what people like Einstein and Maxwell and Minkowski actually said, and to the hard scientific evidence that supports what they said. Sadly there are people in this world who peddle unsupported hypotheses and urge other people to disregard hard scientific evidence and what Einstein etc said.

 

[Farsight]

Really? You understand intrinsic spin? I'm skeptical.

Don't be. Intrinsic spin is intrinsic to something, and makes it what it is. For example, a tornado has intrinsic spin. Try taking the spin out of the tornado. What are you left with? A tornado? Nope.

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.

Snipe snipe snipe, retreat behind mathematics. Now go and look at the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic dipole moment. Do you think the electron's spin ½ is some kind of magic? Presumably so, since here you are advocating the point-particle electron. When godless dave said nobody claimed they were point particles, you kept schtum, didn't you? Seeing as point particles can't spin.

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

Don't bore us with ad-hominem trash. Talk about the scientific evidence. Talk about Einstein and Maxwell etc. Talk physics.

 

[ben m]

Don't be. Intrinsic spin is intrinsic to something, and makes it what it is.

Great, it's an argument by etymology! In German the term is Eigendrehimpulse.

For example, a tornado has intrinsic spin. Try taking the spin out of the tornado. What are you left with? A tornado? Nope.

Why would I expect a classical fluid-mechanics analogy to be relevant? Why would I expect this particular analogy to be relevant?

Snipe snipe snipe, retreat behind mathematics.

The Dirac Equation isn't a "retreat behind mathematics", it's an extremely rich source of (a) physical intuition and (b) actual correct experimental predictions.

Anyway, if you knew I was going to "retreat" there, why didn't you beat me to it? An argument that could find errors in the Dirac equation, or point out dualities which explain why Dirac's predictions work so well, would be a lot less crackpotty than a refusal to engage with it.

 

[Farsight]

OK. Let's see what different theories predict about the Higgs-particle spectrum.

What | 0+ | 0- | +-1
Unbroken Standard Model | 1 | 1 | 1
Eaten by Z and W+- | 0 | 1 | 1
Low-energy SM | 1 | 0 | 0
Low-energy MSSM | 2 | 1 | 1
Low-energy NMSSM | 3 | 2 | 1

CP-even neutral: 0+
CP-odd neutral: 0-
Charged: +- 1
MSSM = Minimal SUpersymmetric Standard Model
NMSSM = Next to MSSM

There's an interesting curiosity about the MSSM Higgs masses. A parameter they depend on is m(A), and if it's greater than about 200 GeV, then the particles "decouple". One of them, a neutral CP-even one, stays around 100 GeV and acts much like the SM Higgs particle, especially if m(A) is large. The others get masses close to m(A).

It's that light one that was most likely recently discovered. I can't find any LHC limits on heavy MSSM Higgses, however.

Higgs Theory and Phenomenology in the Standard Model and MSSM
The NMSSM Higgs sector

BTW, First three-year LHC running period reaches a conclusion | CERN press office starting a 2-year shutdown.

Where is your none of the above? The big issue is that there's CERN physicists out there saying that the Higgs mechanism is the cuckoo in the nest of the standard model, only they're shouting in the wind whilst Higgs propaganda dooms the HEP community (and possibly the whole of theoretical physics) to a long slow harikiri. The public are unimpressed by billions spent on "the mystery of mass", which Einstein solved a hundred plus years ago, and is irrelevant to modern life in these days of energy issues. I know you root for physics, but I do too. How can I put this? Think about Brookhaven. People like you need the wake-up call before it's too late. Public and government want some results after decades of zilch. You're getting in the way. Bow before you break.

Clinger: I made it clear that 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. Pay attention to Minkowski:

"Then in the description of the field produced by the electron we see that the separation of the field into electric and magnetic force is a relative one with regard to the underlying time axis; the most perspicuous way of describing the two forces together is on a certain analogy with the wrench in mechanics, though the analogy is not complete".

That's my bolding, and this is from Space and Time which you can find on wikipedia. Scroll down about four-fifths through the article, this paragraph is opposite figures 3 and 4, though this translation says "force screw" instead of "wrench".

 

[lpetrich]

Have a read of Einstein' s 1920 Leyden Address and his 1929 talk on the history of field theory.

I don't see what is supposed to make Einstein's Leyden Address a revealed text.

This NASA article on gravitomagnetism is worth reading too. It says spacetime instead of space, but you should nevertheless catch the drift of "Einstein was right again. There is a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity".

An attempt to explain that effect in nontechnical terms. This sort of text-thumping would make a Bible-thumper proud.

Maxwell said "light consists of transverse undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena.”

Thumping again, treating Maxwell as an inspired prophet.

Light waves are transverse waves. Gravitational waves aren't.

Don't make me laugh. I *studied* general relativity, an I know for a fact that GR gravitiational waves are transverse. That's what you get when you solve the equations.

They're different, but not totally different. The coordinate speed of light varies in a non-inertial reference frame such as a gravitational field, and c=√(1/ε0 μ0).

A lot of units factors. Thumping that would make a scriptural percussionist proud. The local speed of light in a vacuum is officially defined as a constant. In fact, in theoretical work, it's often set equal to 1.

You totally evaded and dismissed the Einstein-de Haas effect and magnetic dipole moment in your post #918.

I don't deny either effect for a moment.

And now you're trying to play the maths card.

Yes, I have a whole deck of them.

It's not "quote mining". They said what they actually said.

A classic defense of quote mining.

It's nothing to do with "prophets". It's paying attention to what people like Einstein and Maxwell and Minkowski actually said,

Thus treating them as prophets.

and to the hard scientific evidence that supports what they said.

100% consistent with a unified space-time continuum, intrinsic spin, the Dirac theory of the electron, etc.

 

[Farsight]

...The simplest GUT that unifies the gauge fields is Georgi-Glashow SU(5). It does so at the price of adding gauge and Higgs particles that can cause proton decay...

Well protons don't decay so there you go. Back to the drawing board. Start by understanding what a field is, and that E and B aren't fields. It's the electromagnetic field. One field and two forces, linear and rotational because of the screw nature of the electromagnetic field. Then ask yourself this: in low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons, where does the strong force go? Oh, and the $64,000 dollar question is this: The strong force keeps a proton together. What keeps an electron together?

I'm a bit surprised you didn't want to talk about mass. Anyway, I'm off to bed.

 

[Reality Check]

Well protons don't decay so there you go.

Protons are not observed to decay so thre you are.

Back to the drawing board. Start by understanding what a field is, and that E and B aren't fields

Back to your high school sceince textbooks, Farsight.
E is an electric field.
B is a magnetic field.
They are components of an electromagnetic field.

What keeps an electron together?

Wow - what astounding ignorance, Farsight !
An electron is a fundamental particle. There is nothing inside it to come apart!

ETA
So the $64,000 dollar question really becomes what basic physics do you understand, Farsight?
You do not now what an electric field is.
You do not know what a magnetic field is.
You do not know what an electron is.
You do not know what relativistic means in a relativistic quantum field theory like the Higgs mechanism.
You do not know what intrinsic spin means in QM as shown by your use of macroscopic spins as in tornadoes.

ETA2

Then ask yourself this: in low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons, where does the strong force go?

We shold ask ourselves a better question: What will be your next trivial question, derailing the thread?
There are no quarks after the annihilation so there is nothing to exert the strong force .
Likewise there is no EM force between an electron and a positron after they annihilate .
Likewise if the Sun were to magically vanish then there would be no gravitational force from the Sun !

 

[ben m]

Then ask yourself this: in low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons, where does the strong force go? Oh, and the $64,000 dollar question is this: The strong force keeps a proton together. What keeps an electron together?

Once again, it's the Farsight-style argument-by-insinuation.

"Look at this! Look at that! Betcha never asked yourself THAT before! Think about it and you'll agree with me on your own in no time."

Except---no we won't. You've been posting this for years and you know how unsuccessful it has been. Did you learn anything from those years of posts and responses?

A proton-antiproton pair is net neutral under QCD, and so are all the accessible final states. As far as I can tell this adequately answers your question---both philosophically, and intuitively, and (since QCD is a real field theory) testably. If you think there's something wrong here, you're going to have to address these details, not ask the same question again.

The proton is a composite particle containing three quarks, and we know what holds these quarks together. The quarks are fundamental. No known theory or experiment requires any substructure "held together" inside a quark. Electrons are also fundamental. No known theory or experiment requires any substructure "held together" inside an electron. That answers the question as far as I'm concerned, until someone points out a problem in these details, which you have (still) not done.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

A field isn't something magical and mysterious that's something separate to space edd. It's a condition of space. Have a read of Einstein' s 1920 Leyden Address and his 1929 talk on the history of field theory. This NASA article on gravitomagnetism is worth reading too. It says spacetime instead of space, but you should nevertheless catch the drift of "Einstein was right again. There is a space-time vortex around Earth, and its shape precisely matches the predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity".

Instead of quote-mining from a NASA press release (and a poor quote mine at that, since it does say "spacetime"), why not spend your time learning this science?

Snipe snipe snipe, retreat behind mathematics.

But these theories are mathematical theories. They are specially designed to be tested against very precise measurements. If you cannot do the math, then you cannot use the theory and you certainly can't talk about evidence for or against the theory.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Once again, it's the Farsight-style argument-by-insinuation.

"Look at this! Look at that! Betcha never asked yourself THAT before! Think about it and you'll agree with me on your own in no time."

...

How many times have we seen physics by quotations, pictures and analogy presented by those who do not understand that physics is based on mathematical models that have been validated through experimentation? I guess the math is either too time consuming or beyond their comprehension. In all the threads and in all the posts made by such people, a real scientific argument based on relevant equations is never to be seen. Why don't they see how transparently naive their bluster and pretend physics is to the rest of us?
I guess they must be too busy waggling their fingers in front of their faces trying to see what? Higgs bosons?

 

[lpetrich]

Where is your none of the above?

Why should I have had it?

The big issue is that there's CERN physicists out there saying that the Higgs mechanism is the cuckoo in the nest of the standard model, only they're shouting in the wind whilst Higgs propaganda dooms the HEP community (and possibly the whole of theoretical physics) to a long slow harikiri.

Problems with the Higgs particle are well-known to theoretical particle physicists, so it's not like you are revealing some great secret that they are keeping.

The public are unimpressed by billions spent on "the mystery of mass", which Einstein solved a hundred plus years ago,

He did not, and no amount of text-thumping can change that.

Clinger: I made it clear that 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.

News to me. Everybody in this business thinks that they are fields, even Maxwell and Einstein and Minkowski and others whom you are treating as prophets of revealed truth.

Pay attention to Minkowski:

Thumping snipped. He was trying to explain something in nontechnical terms, not reveal some great truth that the equations cannot supply.

 

[lpetrich]

Well protons don't decay so there you go.

So if we cannot observe something with present-day technology, it does not exist?

Protons are not observed to decay, but their decay is predicted by most Grand Unified Theories. Theories including Georgi-Glashow SU(5) and its supersets, like SO(10) and E6.

The current experimental lower limit is around 10³⁰ - 10³² years, and it's getting close to what one expects from a GUT energy scale of about 10¹⁶ GeV. That's what one finds from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model extrapolated up to GUT energies.

Let's see what one can discover with this argument, looking back to past decades and centuries.

The 1970's: the W and Z particles don't exist.
The mid to late 1960's: quarks don't exist.
The 19th cy. and early 20th cy.: atoms don't exist.
Around 1870: the chemical elements eka-boron, eka-aluminum, eka-manganese, and eka-silicon don't exist. They were eventually discovered as scandium, gallium, technetium, and germanium.
Around 1700: gravity doesn't exist.
Etc.

Then ask yourself this: in low-energy proton-antiproton annihilation to gamma photons, where does the strong force go?

It disappears. There is no law of conservation of strong force.

Furthermore, the most likely result of nucleon-antinucleon annihilation is pions, not a pair of photons, and no amount of diagram-thumping can change that.

Oh, and the $64,000 dollar question is this: The strong force keeps a proton together. What keeps an electron together?

An electron isn't held together by anything. It's a Dirac field, and it's much like a photon field.

I'm a bit surprised you didn't want to talk about mass.

What was I supposed to say?

Anyway, I'm off to bed.

What an argument.

 

[lpetrich]

How many times have we seen physics by quotations, pictures and analogy presented by those who do not understand that physics is based on mathematical models that have been validated through experimentation? I guess the math is either too time consuming or beyond their comprehension.

I recall from elsewhere that Farsight has claimed something like this: math cannot be primary because one must define the terms that one uses in it.

But math can be interpreted as a language, even if it's rather unlike natural languages.

Furthermore, let's consider the people that Farsight has treated as prophets of inspired truth, the likes of Newton and Maxwell and Einstein and Minkowski and Feynman. They have used math rather heavily, and their more important results are all rather heavily math-dependent.

 

[xtifr]

How many times have we seen physics by quotations, pictures and analogy presented by those who do not understand that physics is based on mathematical models that have been validated through experimentation? I guess the math is either too time consuming or beyond their comprehension.

I recall from elsewhere that Farsight has claimed something like this: math cannot be primary because one must define the terms that one uses in it.

Well, of course. It's important to dismiss something you don't understand if you're afraid it might contradict your elaborately constructed mountains of nonsense.

But math can be interpreted as a language, even if it's rather unlike natural languages.

Less inconsistent, less illogical, and less prone to ambiguity. Otherwise, yes, it has all the elements of language. Just ask Turing.

Still, when your maths are limited to about what one might expect of a reasonably competent high-school student, this may not be obvious. Farsight may simply fail to understand just how expressive mathematics can be. But I think it's more likely that he insists on trying to interpret everything through natural language simply as a defense mechanism. "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." Unfortunately for him, easy comprehensibility does not seem to be a requirement for natural law.

 

[Perpetual Student]

Well, of course. It's important to dismiss something you don't understand if you're afraid it might contradict your elaborately constructed mountains of nonsense.


Less inconsistent, less illogical, and less prone to ambiguity. Otherwise, yes, it has all the elements of language. Just ask Turing.

Still, when your maths are limited to about what one might expect of a reasonably competent high-school student, this may not be obvious. Farsight may simply fail to understand just how expressive mathematics can be. But I think it's more likely that he insists on trying to interpret everything through natural language simply as a defense mechanism. "I don't understand it, therefore it's wrong." Unfortunately for him, easy comprehensibility does not seem to be a requirement for natural law.

F = ma is an easily understood and is an intuitively satisfying mathematical expression. Even Δt' = Δtγ is quite intuitive once one gets the drift of SR. High school algebra is more than adequate to handle these two important concepts and one could use ordinary language to describe them. But when confronted with the Higgs paper discussed at length in this thread, one must have studied quantum field theory, understand Lagrangian densities, gauge transformations and much more in some detail. That's when words, analogies, and pretty pictures fail the physics pretender, the evidence of which has been amply demonstrated here.