RING LEADER: An aerial view of the LHC shows the location of its accelerator ring in yellow. The ring straddles the border between France and Switzerland.
Image: CERN/Maximilien Brice
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Gravity's Engines
We’ve long understood black holes to be the points at which the universe as we know it comes to an end. Often billions of times more massive than the Sun, they...
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There can be only one top-dog collider in physics, one ring-shaped machine to rule them all. Since late 2009, when the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, started up outside Geneva and quickly became the most powerful collider in history, particle physicists' eyes have been wandering steadily toward Europe and away from the U.S., where the Tevatron in Illinois had long held sway as the world's best.
The shift in power was neatly expressed in a pair of recent and apparently unrelated announcements from the laboratories that operate the two accelerators. First came the January 10 news from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), where the 6.3-kilometer particle racetrack of the Tevatron is housed, that the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) had decided against a proposed three-year extension of the collider. The storied Tevatron, which has racked up numerous discoveries since coming online in the 1980s, will now cease operations in September, it was announced. Three weeks later came an almost mirror-image statement from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), the laboratory for particle physics that operates the LHC, which occupies a ring 27 kilometers in circumference. Rather than shutting down the machine for upgrades and repairs in 2012 as had been scheduled, CERN now plans to operate the LHC through 2011 and 2012, mostly uninterrupted, in the hopes of finding new physics. The laboratory will then prepare the LHC for a period of higher-energy operation starting in 2014.
Both machines accelerate beams of elementary particles to nearly light speed, steering them around massive rings with superconducting magnets before smashing together opposing beams in head-on collisions. (As with automotive racetracks, larger collider rings have gentler curves that allow for more energetic motion.) The idea is that by sifting through the debris from these collisions, physicists can identify short-lived, exotic particles and probe the high-energy conditions that existed in the crucial first instants after the big bang.
The call to extend the LHC's run was not influenced by the decision to shutter the Tevatron, according to CERN spokesperson James Gillies. "The decision to run through 2012 was motivated by the good performance of the LHC last year pointing to the possibility of good physics by staying at this energy for two years of running," he says.
One distinct possibility is that the LHC's two major detectors might uncover—or disprove the existence of—the Higgs boson, a particle that is hypothesized to lend other particles their otherwise unexplained mass. "Combining the data from the two big, general-purpose experiments, ATLAS and CMS, you never know," says Duke University physicist Alfred Goshaw, who chairs the U.S. institutional board for the ATLAS collaboration. "There would be a very good possibility to observe or exclude the Higgs boson" across a wide range of possible masses for the particle, he says.
The high-profile Higgs search was the main draw for keeping the Tevatron running, says Fermilab physicist Dmitri Denisov, co-spokesperson for DZero, one of the two major Tevatron experiments. "With this extended three years of running and a low-mass Higgs boson where it's supposed to be, we would be able to see 3-sigma evidence for it," Denisov says. (A 3-sigma result refers to a greatly reduced likelihood of a statistical fluke.) Goshaw calls it a "scientific disappointment" that the physics community will not have both colliders in the hunt.
After all, if the Higgs proves to be near the lower end of its range of possible masses, as experiments indicate is likely, the Tevatron would have had a good shot at finding it—and maybe even beating the LHC to the punch. "It turns out the most difficult mass range for the LHC is the very low-mass Higgs," Goshaw says. At the energies reached in LHC collisions, the dominant decay products of a low-mass Higgs, namely a beauty quark and its antiparticle, are buried among beauty quarks and beauty antiquarks produced by other processes. So the LHC must turn to a less common and hence more data-intensive decay of the Higgs into photons.
The DoE cited a challenging fiscal climate in declining to keep the Tevatron running. "It was definitely a disappointment, as you can expect," Denisov says. "We really made in our view a very strong proposal—and not only in our view," he adds, noting that the extension request had received broad support from review committees and from the physics community at large. "But I don't think we should overplay negatives here. The Tevatron program has been extremely successful." And analysis of data gathered by the experiments there will continue for years after the collider itself is switched off, potentially leaving the door open for the outgoing giant of the physics world to deliver one last big score. "Even with data we will get by the end of this year, we will be able to exclude the Higgs if it doesn't exist," Denisov says.
Ruling out the Higgs boson's existence would throw a quantum wrench into the smoothly churning gears of the standard model of particle physics, a description of the physical world that has survived decades of intense experimental scrutiny. Regardless of what happens in the Higgs chase, Goshaw notes that the LHC has the potential to crack open similarly new realms in our understanding of the universe. "There are so many other attractive theories that we could very easily break into—dark matter, supersymmetry, black hole production," he says. "The Higgs is sort of the highlight, but if we don't discover anything, that would be absolutely incredible."
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27 Comments
Add CommentI believe Higgs Particle does not exist. I believe gravity is the opposite of Dark Energy. Gravity pulls , Dark Energy expands. As I knox, energy is not made of partices it is same with gravity. I think we should look for another way to explain what gravity is and what makes stuff stuff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the Dunning-Kruger Effect reference, folks. I read the Wikipedia article on it and a lightbulb went off. It explains sooooo much! It is the root of all facepalms!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe velocity imparted to protons in LHC experiments is also not mediated by particles. Its kinetic energy is dissipated in the collision of opposed particle beams, as would be an externalized field of potential energy confining particles, allowing their contained material energy to disintegrate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat external kinetic energy produces the self-propagation of wave state material energy and where does it go when waves manifest as particles? Physically reconfigured and internally directed, it could be the potential energy of mass.
IMO, the particle selection function attributed to the Higgs field could have been produced by the density function of the early universe. Emitted material energy could neither be reabsorbed nor propagated in the extremely dense initial universe, producing high frequency particle manifestations of matter, encompassed by constraining, internally directed kinetic/potential energy of mass. As density diminished, matter more frequently manifested as self-propagating energy waves were emitted.
IMO, mass and gravitation are not characteristic properties of matter but its external interaction with spacetime. The localized potential energy of aggregated mass produces the external localized contraction of the kinetic energy otherwise producing universal spacetime expansion.
In this view, gravitation is a localized external field of mass directed kinetic energy imparting velocity to matter.
In this view there is no particle mediated material energy of mass: no Higgs boson, no Higgs field. The confining potential energy of mass is dissipated along with the kinetic energy imparted to matter by particle colliders.
So much for the administration's support of science and technology. How is the USA to compete globally when there is no support for the tools that make it possible? What is the attraction for talented scientists or encouragement of young minds? I suppose there are other means, but I am afraid these sort of decisions and priorities send the opposite of Obama's recent carefully crafted message. Promises, promises. Change with no change - it sounds a bit like a particle physics problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI spoke to a friend's sister in the early 2000s (now a senior Atlas scientist) about the following work suggesting the origin of mass is in the quantum vacuum:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://calphysics.org
The work was funded also by NASA HQ. I did not mention this, but her response (and the response of her CERN physicist husband) was one of ridicule---without so much as looking at the peer-reviewed papers or the website. They religiously pointed to the Higgs as the most likely source. My feeling is that in the end, the Higgs Boson will go bust, and everyone will finally be forced to look at this kind of research. And Dr. Haisch and his people may very well win a Nobel Peace prize.
Very interesting. Wikipedia says that Peter Higgs' second 1964 paper initially describing the Higgs Mechanism was rejected by Physics Letters, a European physics journal edited at CERN, - the editors of Physics Letters felt that it was "of no obvious relevance to physics."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn your http://calphysics.org/mass.html link, Schroedinger's "zitterbewegung" (quivering motion) discussed under "REST MASS" may explained by the conception described in my previous comment (above).
If the identified types of particles of matter fluctuate, each at a specific frequency between wave and particle states and wave state kinetic propagation energy is manifested as particle state mass/potential energy, the interval duration or probability of manifestation in particle-mass state, in conjunction with particle rest rate spin, determines the seemingly randomly directed wave state propagation, or quivering motion.
In other words, 'particles' alternately manifest as directionally propagating waves and stationary spinning massive particles - each effectively 'wiggling' around. The exception is the zero rest mass photon which does not manifest as a particle (unless its momentum is finally absorbed): as a result it continuously propagates in the direction of its initial emission.
To hopefully make the 'quivering' motion of particles completely clear: they linearly propagate as massless waves; become stationary as spinning masses; repeat with the new spin determined directionality. The net effect is perhaps best described as as 'wiggling' particles of manifestation-frequency determined mass.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI feel some embarrassed sympathy for ajmasseur after reading robert schmidt's strictures. Like the former, I have the deepest interest, a la layman, in these issues but, as the latter, I think a tad harshly, says I am ignorant and unlikely to have even the capacity, let alone the opportunity to acquire the knowledge. Are we always to be left as uninvolved and largely uncomprehending sub-spectators as this incredible and oh-so-important debate rolls out? I use that description because it seems that crucial issues are at stake, around the very facts of what makes 'what' what it is. How important is it that we do understand? or is it as case of don't worry our pretty (vacant) heads about it? It is rather deflating to be asked to stay quiet, in effect, when people like us are asking to be told, without being patronised, what the hell it all means. Popular science maybe needs to become more popular, by its exponents becoming more determined to do what it takes to bring us on board. We are not stupid - why would we want to read SA if we were? Nor is it an appeal to self-interest that we will support the funding of these incredible endeavours. It is a plea that in this realm, which for many of us is at the most exciting and cutting edge of human knowledge, we are brought on board a lot more. I know that explaining a lot of this is hard because of the mathematics and physics involved but those involved might care to think a bit more about whether we're worth it. Frankly I'd rather get into a book or a documentary that helped me in this than almost anything else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately the dunning-kruger effect fails with logic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheoretical prediction -> experimental evidence -> fail
Theoretical prediction -> experimental evidence -> Success
The theoretical scientist being the same cannot be both events therefore the dunning-kruger effect is a contradiction.
Whether someone says they are good or bad is a relative scale that is not REAL. For instance if you take 0 to mean knowing nothing and 10 to me knows everything, for one thing no one can ever reach 10 until youve lived for the entire length of the universe. So again the premise is fail.
Anyone using the dunning-kruger effect is someone who has the education level tending more to 0 than 10.
I personally dont believe in the higgs particle and see gravity as consequence of the amalgamation of all the qualities of the particle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the end however they or I will be right. The problem at the moment is either of us can be.
Mass is the more fundamental physical quantity than energy so the Higgs boson(s) are not in existence. The Einstein spacetime, which has mass density not equal to zero, is the carrier of the photons (they are the massless particles). To detect the components of the Einstein spacetime (i.e. the non-rotating binary systems of neutrinos) we must measure mass with accuracy in approximation 10^-67 kg. Within the General Theory of Relativity, we apply the tensor calculus and then we obtain results consistent with observational facts. On the other hand, tensor is the generalization of scalar and vector. It leads to conclusion that tensor field should consist of mutually interacting scalar field (the Newtonian spacetime) and vector field (the Einstein spacetime). Such interaction I described within the Everlasting Theory. There are two spacetimes! Mass we can define within the properties of the Newtonian spacetime. Mass is in proportion to the total volume of the Newtonian spacetime components a particle consists of. The components are the faster-than-light particles. This spacetime is the more fundamental spacetime than the Einstein spacetime.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn your explanation you mention "particles" as waves and as mass, what do they refer to? What constitues a particle? When you add energy to a particle it resists but energy can be increased.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI made no such claim. Since there is no demonstrable theory of quantum mass my suggestions are potentially as viable as anyone else's. While I have no expertise in physics, I am an expert information systems analyst - I do not require your approval to express my thoughts. Your assessment of these suggestions is worthless. Seriously, if you have some specific objections feel free to express them, if you can possibly contribute something of any value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClosing Tevatron, LHC pushing on to find Higgs- Does this mean that Sheldon Cooper will need to go to Europe to continue his research?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJT- I personally always enjoy your posts.
Jan- You are not only right, but another argument can be made that we, the people, deserve to know what WE are paying for.
In browsing the http://calphysics.org site referenced by trelayne, I do find some complimentary conceptions to my own expressed above, although theirs are much more formally expressed. I do find some fundamental distinctions: they seem to regard external spacetime as the source of an inertial force, whereas I consider it to be the source of gravity's kinetic energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, the collective potential energy of mass aggregated by (typical spherically symmetric) massive objects radially contracts external spacetime just as linear velocity linearly contracts external spacetime.
While General Relativity describes this a an analytical system of dimensional coordinates, I suggest that this represents a physical contraction of kinetic energy permeating spacetime. It is this locally contracted, mass directed kinetic energy that imparts velocity to material objects within this external energy field.
I'm not referring to any dark energy thought to accelerate expansion, but the initial energy released during the inception of the universe that produced all subsequent expansion of spacetime.
One source at the Calphysics site (http://calphysics.org/articles/chown2007.html) explains that:
"By some weird cosmic conspiracy, the effect of inertia and the effect of gravity compensate for each other perfectly. Consequently, all bodies falling under gravity pick up speed at exactly the same rate, no matter what their mass."
However, this phenomena can be most easily explained by an external kinetic energy field proportional to an object's potential energy of mass, generally directed to its center of mass.
Considering two small bodies of different masses, for example a bowling ball and a marble, dropped from the same distance from the Earth's center of mass, they fall at the same velocity because they are subjected to the identical kinetic energy of the Earth's external gravitational field.
Actually, the bowling ball and marble each have their own external field of mass directed proportional kinetic energy, but its effects are negligible in this standard example.
In the case where larger objects are involved, such as the Earth and its moon, the external gravitational fields of both objects are significant. In these cases, their external fields of mass directed proportional kinetic energy are directed in opposition to each other. As a result, for example, the presence of the moon over oceans produces tidal flows, since the moon's opposingly directed velocity reduces the local effectiveness of Earth's mass directed gravitational velocity.
I presume you were referring to my comments?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I understand, quantum mechanics considers particle/wave duality to mean that any specific 'particle' is at once both a particle and a wave: which state is manifested to an observer is determined by set of characteristics are detected: the position of a particle, for example. Particles are considered to exhibit the 'wiggling' motion I referred to while waves are considered to be linearly self propagating. I suggest referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle/wave_duality
I suggest that particle waves state manifestations are determined by a particular oscillation frequency that then determines effective mass quantity and particle motions. A similar conception is also discussed under "Origin of the de Broglie wavelength" at:
http://calphysics.org/mass.html
As I describe, the mass of a stationary particle state manifestation of material energy is a centrally directed reconfiguration of kinetic wave state linear propagation energy, producing a self-opposingly directed form of potential energy.
To the extent that matter manifests in its particle state, the application of external kinetic energy will not produce motion: it will be absorbed by the self opposed potential energy of mass. To the extent that matter manifests in its wave state, that application of kinetic energy will produce acceleration.
I hope this helps explain somewhat...
For only a million dollar (or less) they can construct a Monopole HV Generator, to be used as a particle generator that can outperform Europe's ring. (patent 4,o95,162)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe curious thing about paricles is that according to e=mc2 formula they cannot be accelerated beyond the speed of light,where their mass becomes too heavy for earthly existence. However, the waves can reach that point in this mortal world. I cannot explain how particles came into existence in the first place out of cosmic energy soup, and neither can the physicists in the LHC experiment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I understand, the speed of light limit is independent of E=mc**2, which is the equation for converting mass and velocity into energy. A simple reciprocal form is m=E/c**2, implying that mass can be produced by decelerating energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is the premise of the big bang theory: that mass could be produced (and necessarily associated with matter) from an initial release of unified energy (combining the four forces associated with matter); that its rapidly diminishing thermal density produce a still exceedingly dense initial quark–gluon particle plasma.
I'm not aware of any proposal for the initial physical production of material mass other than the unconfirmed Higgs Mechanism, but I attempt to suggest an alternative general process in comment #3. Without a useful model for the production of mass and its association with matter the big bang theory is incomplete.
Only zero rest mass particles can attain the speed of light, and their perpetual wave state self propagation characteristic generally produces continuous motion at the speed of light unless obstructed by material deflection or absorption.
I explain that the potential energy configuration of particle state mass absorbs applied kinetic energy to the extent that matter manifests as particles, whereas the application of kinetic energy produces momentum to the extent that matter manifests as waves.
By the way, the characteristics of light and mass are presumed to be universal in nature and not subject to any limitations imposed by any mortal or immortal world.
No to Black Holes
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe truth is that no forces of nature can be limitless. There cannot be extreme unlimited conditions of nature that can exist and still be stable, it will blowup sooner or later. Why should a BH singularity if it exists be stable and then regard the BB singularity was not stable? Well that is a double standard for singularities. Any way I have concluded that the force of gravity can be extremely strong but is limited, I call it the G force boundary, which will safely eliminate the possibility of the existence of singularities of any kind(see cosmicdarkmatter).
To my knowledge the simplest test to detect black holes( if they exist) is to base it on the good old concept of the bending of star light around a massive body. And in this case if that massive body is a BH we should see a halo of back ground stars projected all around the alleged BH position because of the extreme light bending close to the event horizon. Every star on one side of the BH should produce an image on the other side of the BH. Some of the star light approaching directly the BH will be absorbed and some of the star light skimming tangentially near to the event horizon will be severely deflected many degrees, even 360 degrees or even orbit multiple times before heading out.
This means a BH will swing round the light from every other star in the foreground or background of the sky to be seen from any direction that we observe. Literally the BH must appear to out shine any other bright star in the sky if they exist. Specially the SMBH that is alleged to exist at the center of many galaxies is surrounded by all the stars of the galaxy and therefore should shine brightly. If the BH is far away it should at least shine like a bright star, if it is close by to discern a small angular disc then we should see a black spot in the middle of the apparent bright object. Black holes are not dark after all. It is just that we have so far not observed such objects in the sky.
Tissa Perera
No to Higgs
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no need for a mechanism for mass such as Higgs. Einstein said, where there is energy there is mass(E=mc^2), period. The basic stable matter particles are the electron, proton and the neutron(inside the atom). All other unstable particels are resonances of these stable particles and is not relevant as far as gravity is concerned, as a matter of fact the proton and neutron(within an atom) is all that matters for mass to create gravity. I believe that these particles are tiny strings that vibrate with a fundamental plus harmonics according to a frequency shell structure(similar but not exactly as in string theory). Vibration is energy and energy in turn is what gives mass. Correspondingly I have derived the mass mechanism and how these fundamental string couples to space-time to create gravity.
As a 30+ year physics teacher (High School) I shudder each time I read the phrase "I believe"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople that is a religious term, not a scientific one, since it presumes certainty. The only thing I am certain of is that I know nothing, and will never ever know anything "for sure."
The only being that could have certain knowledge would be a supreme being, a god and I strongly suspect I am not that. I also strongly suspect there is no such being either, but being a finite human I can not imagine a way of being in that position.
I believe nothing, I suspect many things, I have evidence for many things, I have read of evidence for many things but none of that gives me the right to say I know it, unless I am wrong of course.
This is a deep part of the philosophy of science.
As far as it appears to me, the questions, the quest for understanding (always I suspect in part), is IMO the glory of being human, of being conscious, unless perhaps there is a "Matrix" (this idea simply adds one more layer of uncertainty, although it is hardly worth considering unless someone out there has the red pill)
So it appears that those who say "I believe" are suffering from that very human trait "hubris"
My appeal here is to speak with the humility of not knowing (for sure) but wonder at the great ideas and the even greater questions.
Descartes said "I think therefore I am" but can we even know that? What is I? What is consciousness? What does it mean for our consciousness to look at our consciousness?
Let us leave certainty to those who believe they have revealed wisdom and knowledge from some deity and be scientists, professional or not.
go back to school, junior
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgo back to school, junior
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisabsolute gibberish, youve never been to school, a clever con
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou disgust me! get out of here !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBefore finding the accurate mass of Higgs boson,we need to find the mass of Curie particle which is interrelated to all subatomic particles. We do not know the Curie particle. About Curie particle,written in my book Complete Unified Theory ( pages- 424, 1998). If we want to know the creation of the universe at the beginning,need to find the mass of particle 1.65 Tev. Otherwise, we cant sure about it. I am requesting to all scientists those who are working in this field, try to find the mass 1.65 Tev positively.This value is almost 13 times lager than 126.5 Gev which near the Higgs boson mass.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComplete Unified Theory is single theory. We can solve our thinking from the particle to the universe by using this theory. Do not through a stone in the dark please. Any one may contact to me on the subject Complete Unified Theory which is the dream of science.
Nirmalendu Das
Email: nirmalgopa@gmail.com