back to article The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension

Now that all the fanfare over the sighting of a Higgs-like boson in the Large Hadron Collider has died down, CERN scientists have a few burning questions about the particle. The gigantic proton accelerator will be shut down this year, but physicist Paris Sphicas told The Register the boffins should be able to gather enough data …

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      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. BoldMan

          Re: re dinosaur head

          Here be Dragons! or Welshmen... not sure which is more scary!

      2. Sam 15

        "It's a dinosaur-like head. We're not yet sure whether it is the expected dinosaur head, or something more exotic like a dragon. We have to make some more measurements first."

        Probably drawn by somebody who spent ages on that platform waiting for the next train.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Well spotted... a dinosaur head in profile, wearing sunglasses. On the wall on the left of the first photo.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Large smelly animals

    Higgs Bison

  2. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
    Boffin

    Anisotropy

    I was reading the other day in New Scientist that there are actaully already signs of anisotropy in the particle's decay, which lend support to supersymmetry.

    Here

    The article is behind a paywall, but IIRC the general gist is that observations so far show more decays into pairs of photons and fewer into other particles (I think it was B-mesons) than expected for the Standard Model.

    1. Nigel 11

      Re: Anisotropy

      Not yet at enough sigmas to even justify calling it a hint. Well, that if the lines in the New Scientist graphic were the conventional length of one sigma. Hopefully they'll have a better idea before the CERN upgrade commences.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So we have the higgs field, which is what gives things mass, essentially defining them as things rather than just pretty lights, and the higgs boson which is the particle that transports the higgs field, which floods the universe and is everywhere, communicating this existence of mass...

    ... is it just me, or have they re-invented luminiferous aether?

    1. Julz

      No it's not just you, we have...

    2. Nigel 11

      No

      More like the non-luminiferous aether. Photons do not interact with the Higgs field, therefore remain massless, and consequentially can exist only by travelling at the speed of light. Photons (and maybe gravitons, if they exist) are the only things which do NOT disturb the Higgs field.

  4. Silverburn
    Happy

    In the lab one day..

    Boffin 1: Ok, I divided this with this...and I've got a 3 left over.

    Boffin 2: Hmmm. Long division wasn't my forte either.

    B1: If I publish this, I'll look like a muppet who can't divide.

    B2: I know - just pretend it's the sign of an "extra dimension". I've got a few sums that don't work either which I can bury in there too.

    B1: But won't someone check our workings?

    B2: Pfft. They're as good at long division as we are. Plus they don't have their own LHC to compare results to either.

    B1: ..and it'll give us an excuse for the grant extension!

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: In the lab one day..

      Are you thinking what I'm thinking B1?

      I think I am B2!

  5. Neo2012

    False claims in the post

    The post claims that all particles except spin zero are known,so what about spin2-graviton?Why couldn't this be a chargless,masless,spin2 particle as graviton as spin can be known only after decay?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sliders

    I loved that show, although the episode where they jumped into the 'sex dimension' was lacking in some detail ;-)

    1. Euripides Pants
      Coat

      Re: Sliders

      Couldn't stand the show after I found out it really wasn't about a pan-dimensional White Castle.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slider_(sandwich)

  7. thomas k.
    Holmes

    mirror universe = bleeding obvious?

    As a non-scientific type person - would that make me a noboff? - it's always struck me, in regards to the question of our universe's missing anti-matter, that the bleeding obvious answer would be a mirror anti-matter universe existing in parallel with our own.

  8. Richard Scratcher
    Paris Hilton

    If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

    The latest results from the LHC have confirmed my long-held theory about QED, the standard model and supersymmetry, namely that I'll never be able to understand them no matter how many simple analogies these so-called boffins come up with to try to explain things.

    It's like trying to teach a caveman to play scrabble.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

      It's simple. Quantum effects are just exchanges. It's not a wave or a particle. It's just an exchange of information (or energy).

      The Higgs exchanges the information or energy of mass in this case. A nice little Youtube video is here...

      http://youtu.be/3_RhISgoXUs

      (I had a mental block on QM and wave/particle stuff until I saw this video. :P )

      1. Richard Scratcher
        Unhappy

        Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

        I was with you up to "It's simple".

    2. daniel1980

      Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

      It's my opinion that even those most intimately familiar with these theories and the experiments don't understand them. At least not in the way you're trying to.

      The thing is that when you get this deep into it, you can't explain or understand it in terms of familiar, everyday examples and analogies and if you try to then you get an imperfect picture which breaks down very quickly, leaving you more confused than when you started.

      I think one of the finest (and most essential) talents of physicists is the ability to just trust the numbers without needing to 'understand' them in the traditional sense. In the end I think that's what all of this is - a bunch of numbers and equations. The numbers and the equations work (and work very well) but they don't do you and me much good.

      That's not, in any way, to lessen the achievements of this field - quite the contrary. Humans just aren't equipped to understand these things 'properly' so we do what we can which is to understand the sub-atomic universe through mathematics. It's a spectacular testament that, even faced with an impossible task (the understanding of reality on a fundamental level,) these scientists persist anyway and in doing so, advance our knowledge and quality of life.

      SO I suppose the upshot is to just not worry - no one understands these things in that way - if they did then they could explain it to the rest of us without having to use long strings of otherwise unintelligible words. Like this from the wikipedia article on something to do with String Theory:

      "These conditions imply that the first integral Chern class c1(M) of M vanishes, but the converse is not true. The simplest examples where this happens are hyperelliptic surfaces, finite quotients of a complex torus of complex dimension 2, which have vanishing first integral Chern class but the canonical bundle is not trivial."

      That's a part of a description of a mathematical concept (a 'Calabi–Yau manifold') used as a part of string theory and is in itself something that is impossible to visualise and with no acceptable real-world analogies. The fact that such a concept even exists and its mathematics understood and in use it as mind boggling and impressive to me as (theoretical) object itself.

      1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

        "The thing is that when you get this deep into it, you can't explain or understand it in terms of familiar, everyday examples and analogies"

        Indeed - a mathematician friend once tried to begin an explanation for some system with: "Imagine a 2D space. Now a 3D space. OK? Now imagine an N-dimensional space where N is greater than ..."

        We try our best to explain science stuff; it's often a fun challenge to squeeze a complex subject into one sentence. But that's for lunchtime reading, not all-night study.

        C.

        1. Nigel 11
          Boffin

          Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

          Non-scientists often ask for a simplified, non-mathematical explanation. What they don't understand is that the two adjectives are mutually contradictory. Mathematics is the simplest language we've got for describing how the universe works.

          And no, we don't know why. Maybe God is a mathematician.

      2. Peter Mc Aulay

        Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

        Just goes to show that to a serious mathematician, "familiar and everyday" does not mean what it does to you and me...

      3. John 62

        Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

        I'm reading flatland at the minute. Just got to the bit where the square explains to his grandson the relation between mathematics and geometry for 2D and the grandson asks if anything can be raised to the third. And I've seen Marcus De Sotoy's TV programme twice now where he tries to explain the hypercube in the Grande Arche in Paris, but I'm still not quite getting it.

  9. Bigpatc
    Mushroom

    BFG

    I am ready with my BFG to kick some trans-dimensional butt. Any cacodemons sighted yet?

    SD

    1. Marty
      Alien

      Re: BFG

      i for one welcome our new trans-dimensional cacodemon overlords !!!

  10. anadish

    SM to FM

    SM is in trouble but till we can built all kinds of imaginable scaled up colliders, we can ward off the trouble by hope. Can we ever hope to get an FM -- the Full Model?

  11. jonathan keith
    Paris Hilton

    Paris!

    She's working at CERN too now? Is there no end to her talents?

  12. Mark Harburn

    This sounds a lot like...

    The force....

  13. IHateWearingATie
    Go

    And this thread is why...

    ... I love The Register...

    Mixture of obscure Si-fi references, degree level comments and random burbling, all mixed together.

    All we need now is amanfrommars to comment and the thread will be complete

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    On the flip side

    What are the odds that someone will use the recently derived Higgs data to fix their version of the Standard Model, correct all those pesky infinities and end up with an equation that among other things leads to a method of building a device that jumps dimensions?

    AC/DC

    (most likely to be based on rotating magnetic fields interacting with a pair of counterrotating superconducting disks, with an accelerometer to tune the resulting gravitomagnetic interaction so it stabilises)

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As a warning to all eastern members:

    "How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper

    http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1127343?ln=en

    https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spin_(public_relations)#Techniques

    "The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic labor prices in different countries. The total cost is X (with a western equivalent value of Y) [where Y>X]

    source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report

    ISBN: 9290831693 http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264

    cheap eastern labour. dead-end carrier path.

  16. AceRimmer1980
    Thumb Up

    In another dimension?

    With voyeuristic intention?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDKo7pTwIwA

  17. daniel1980

    Sliders...

    ...had Kari Wurher. If you can find a reality better than that then be my guest.

  18. Britt Johnston

    Slightly related question

    Isn't it important to track the particles' fate in detail, to pay and reclaim VAT every time they cross the French/Swiss border? Some of these particles are quite expensive.

  19. Marino

    How could the scientist possibly find the "higgs", as the velocity of the traveling particles is not 100% of light?

    So the absolute total energy needed to produce, is already behind the eight ball?

    And are they also forgetting the energy it takes the person/s to "see/find" the particle into the equation?

    To get 100% of the results you first need 100% of the forces involved and not CLOSE TO.

    ABSOLUTE ENERGY equals INPUT, OUTPUT and USAGE (A.E.I.O.U) or another way to put it E/m=c2.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re. Slightly related question

    Ssh, don't tell ConDem that, they will invent a "Quark Tax" or something similar to extract more money from the pockets of us poor taxpayers.

    Its bad enough with "Envirowhiner taxes" aka petrol and diesel excise duty, rumour has it that the sale of electric vehicles has been reduced in the EU thanks to the Battery Directive making the resale of used packs illegal as they now have to be recycled at a designated company.

  21. Marino

    A.E.I.O.U

    Let me please explain my self in the formula E/m=c2.

    The ENERGY is DIVIDED THROUGH the MATTER.

    And by the way, the total number of humans on the planet have now reached the toatal age of the universe (or very close to, so soon "will come of age"). To explain further, the combined total of hiumans (energy to forn YOU) and the total percieved age of the universe is equal. (utilizing the inner and outer enegy) so utilizing man produced physics all energy is exhausted, (besides the individaials perception).

  22. Marino

    A.E.I.O.U

    I the silly sausage have to corret mysel, it needs "101" to produce,100%.

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