Higgs Boson discovered

[NegaTsukasa]

That's just a name attached by media. It has no special meaning other than that it sounds important.

It is interesting how it has been nicknamed that though.

[Outrider]

That's just a name attached by media. It has no special meaning other than that it sounds important.

Actually, I just read an interesting tidbit earlier today:

Originally, the name came from the title of an article where it was instead referred to as 'the Goddamn Particle' because it was so Goddamn hard to locate.

The editors changed it to the less offensive 'God Particle.'

I certainly hope this is true, because I love it. (I think this is what Palle was referring to earlier in the thread?)

[Sinue_v2]

It is interesting how it has been nicknamed that though.

As I understand it, "God Particle" is shorthand for "Goddamned Particle" - a joke expressing how difficult it was to try to find it. Despite the loaded nickname, it's not any more or less important to the structure of the universe as any other force. Electromagnetism is just as important (if not moreso) to YOU, because that's what keeps all the atoms in your body connected to each other in these neat little chemical chains like hemoglobin and lipids and whatnot of which you are built. What of the Van der Waals force which holds all the chemical compounds you're made out of together in neat little crystaline arrangements which we call solids? Imagine if all of the chemicals in your body whirled around and dispersed like air molecules do? It's kind of like being vaporized, but without all the heat.

Gravity (which is a function of mass creating perturbations, wells, in spacetime) is actually the weakest of the fundamental forces.

Lastly, remembering that "God" is a job description... not a name. Christians, your god is named Yahweh (YHWH) or Jehovah (latinized). I know you're not supposed to say it, so keep calling him God or Elohim or whatever. Just remember that because the Higgs Boson is nicknamed the "God" particle, doesn't mean it has anything to do with Yahweh. At least, nothing more than it has to do with Zeus, Krishna, Thor, and Makemake.

the money spent on this coulda been put to better use.

The same could be said for all scientific endeavors before the practical application of the technology is derived. What's the point of spending money to test general relativity? Oh wait, you couldn't have GPS without knowing it. Even if the discovery itself doesn't yield any immediate return on investment, what of the benefits of the new tools and techniques which must be developed specifically for that endeavor, but find application in the general market... such as the satellite communication and advances in computer technology during the space race, or the advancement in robotics and imaging techniques which came from deep sea exploration that will soon allow us to mine the ocean floor for resources?

You realize that the particle detectors developed for use in the relativistic heavy ion collider were instrumental in the development of positron emission tomography, which has been invaluable in finding tumors, diagnosing schizophrenia, and in the testing and development of new drugs via isotopic labeling - allowing researchers to track the drug's dispersal in the body to see if it's actually doing what they want, or becoming concentrated in an organ at dangerous levels.

This was money well spent, IMO. Shame it wasn't spent in the US. Big science projects like this tend to attract academics who build the technologies, which create the markets which fuel our economy.

[Ketchup345]

I wonder if this is an opportune moment to remind everyone that America could have made this discovery almost 20 years ago had the SSC down in Texas not been shit-canned mid construction due to budget cuts. It was expected to accelerate particles at energies three times greater than what the LHC is capable of. Imagine what else we could have discovered with that monster. Still, the folks over at Fermilab in Illinois were fully confident that they would be able to discover the Higgs before the LHC if they could have upgraded the facilities. Instead, we shut that effort down in 2011 due to budget concerns.

But it IS apparently fully in the budget to skirt close to a forced default on the national debt over ideological pissing matches which resulted in the nation's credit rating being lowered.

Go America.

Reminds me a bit of this tweet by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

the money spent on this coulda been put to better use.

The thing is, with science, you could probably say that about many individual discoveries. But when you take a bunch of related individual discoveries and you could get something big and very important. Also, as Sinue pointed out, when aiming for huge goals like this, sometimes something you design for one scientific use can find its way into useful civilian uses.

[Palle]

(I think this is what Palle was referring to earlier in the thread?)

I just figured I was on everyone's block list since no one other than yourself bothered to read it.

[.Rusty.]

It is interesting how it has been nicknamed that though.

Not really 3 letter words that begin with G have a habit of turning people into idiots.

the money spent on this coulda been put to better use.

Yeah dude nothing good ever comes from trying to understand how the universe works.
Its not like CERN the people responsible for the LHC gave birth to the internet to help researchers share data.

[Randomness]

Not really 3 letter words that begin with G have a habit of turning people into idiots.



Yeah dude nothing good ever comes from trying to understand how the universe works.
Its not like CERN the people responsible for the LHC gave birth to the internet to help researchers share data.

ARPAnet. The department of defense has a fair amount of credit for that too, actually. You make it sound like CERN is the sole developer - which excludes the other players (ARPA, and US universities. Also wanting ways to quickly share data)

[.Rusty.]

Oh i didn't mean they was the sole developer. Just that they made the 1st first Web server so it is kinda the birth place of the internet.

And anyway most technological advances are built on top of already existing stuff. Like for the internet you need computers and a phone line network and to make them need to know how electricity works.
Nothing is invented in a vacuum which is why scientific research like the LHC is important.