What is the LHC?

The http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/lhc-en.html is a high energy particle collider. It is designed to smash beams of particles (both atomic and sub-atomic particles), at very high energies, together. This collision cause the particles to split up. Scientists then anolyse the data and study the nature of sub-atomic particles.

What is the Higgs Boson?

Six scientists (including Peter Higgs) predicted the existence of this particle in 1964. It's a part of the puzzle in the Standard Model (also referred to as the Theory of Almost Everything)

A fraction of a second following the Big Bang the radiation congealed to give rise to the Higgs field. The Higgs Boson is responsible for this field. An elementary particle (not known to be made up of something smaller), the HB, essentially, gives mass to the objects in the observable universe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18707698

Any similar experiments in the past?

Yes. The Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP) and the Tevatron accelerator conducted searches for this particle.

What's all the fuss?

On July 4, 2012 the physicists at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) discovered a sub-atomic particle which is consistent with the Higgs Boson. There is no official confirmation that this new particle is the HB. http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/PR17.12E.html

What is all the talk about 5 sigma?

Physicists use a scale to determine certainity of their finding. It relies on calculating the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviations#Basic_examples Typically, a higher sigma number is required to establish relevance (convince the scientists) for a more unpredictable or "important" discovery.

Is this the end (of theoretical physics)?

No. We've barely scratched the surface. The HB will help us understand 4% of our observable universe. The remaining portion is composed of dark matter and dark energy, which we have yet to understand.

Useful Links

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/About-en.html
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/background/B09-Important_Higgs_terms_en.html (will help you better understand articles on HB)

Note: The previous thread was closed because the discussion deviated from the original topic to religion. Please avoid any discussion regarding religion. It is against the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/724862-forum-rules-and-general-information/

Didn't they also make neutrons travel faster than the speed of light? Oh, wait.

Let's be cynical for no reason!

I'm getting old, It's my right to be cynical....and miserable.

I came here hoping to find a link indicating that they'd finally found it!! I'll just have to keep on hoping.

This is very exciting stuff. I understand less than half of it, though this op is the most layman-friendly explanation I've seen thus far. I'm very curious to see the practical applications of this discovery (once/if it'll be officially confirmed), though I expect I'll have to wait a few decades for that.

Though I guess it is good that this has been pretty much confirmed what does it actually mean for modern science? I'm not well informed on this subject. Like can we expect some magical new technology to emerge as a result of these tests?

I've heard someone mention teleportation, which sounds as unlikely as it sounds awesome.

Don't expect your life to get any different. New technologies may arise from the insights gained by anolyzing and experimenting with the HIggs Boson, but we probably won't be alive for anything practical.

When we figure out what gives matter mass and how, we can start trying to figure out how to hopefully reduce the mass of matter in a controlled manner. Reducing the inertial mass of matter could make long-distance space travel much more simpler and easier to achieve because less energy would need to be wasted on propulsion. That is, of course, if we don't end up wasting as much or even more energy on reducing the inertial mass of the transported matter.


But anyway, I came here to drop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kXdSmAJeu4 off.

Thank you! That was great!

Yes, Vihart is great. She certainly gets my nerd-crush-approval.

Particle physics gives me a hadron.