MERGED: All about the HIGGS BOSON discovery and related topics

[cobraKing]

---

PARIS (AFP) - – The world's biggest atom smasher has scaled up in power even faster than hoped for and may soon unlock some of the universe's deepest secrets, scientists said Monday at a top physics conference.
After a shaky start and a 14-month delay, experiments at Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have in a few months replicated discoveries it took decades to complete at the rival Tevatron accelerator in the United States.
At this pace, the more powerful LHC could begin to deliver new insights into the fundamental nature of the cosmos within months, they said.
It may even put researchers on a discovery fast track for the elusive Higgs Boson, or 'God particle'.
Already in March, the 27-kilometre (16.8-mile) circular accelerator buried under the French-Swiss border set records for smashing protons fired in beams approaching the speed of light.
"It is barely four months since the first collisions with this machine at high energy levels, and we have increased the collision rates by more than a factor of 1,000," said Rolf Heur, director of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), which operates the LHC.
Scientists sift through the wreckage of the sub-atomic crashes for new particles.
"The experiments show that the LHC is ready to see new physics -- if there is a new physics," he told AFP at a International Conference on High Energy Physics in Paris running to July 28.
One goal of the massive 3.9-billion-euro (5.2-billion-dollar) machine is to affirm or disprove the so-called Standard Model.
Experiments at the Tevatron's Fermilab in the US have found most of the tiny and ephemeral matter predicted to exist by the theory, including a family of particles called quarks.
The heaviest among them, known as the "top quark," is so fleeting that it only exists for a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second before turning into something else.
In its brief period of operation, the LHC has already zeroed in on the top quark, isolating a handful of candidate particles.
"The scientific community thought it would take one, maybe two years to get to this level, but it happened in three months," said Guy Wormser, a top French physicist and chairman of the conference.
The only fundamental particle predicted by the Model yet to be observed is the Higgs Boson, but only the LHC may be powerful enough to detect it, scientists say.
So far, CERN has cranked the cathedral-sized machine up to energy levels of 7.0 trillion (tera) electronvolts (TeV), more than three times the level attained by any other accelerator.
It is aiming to trigger collisions at 14 TeV -- equivalent to 99.99 percent of the speed of light -- in the cryogenically-cooled machine after 2011.
At full throttle, the collisions should create powerful but microscopic bursts of energy that mimic conditions close to the Big Bang.
"The LHC should give us results on the Higgs Boson in 2014 or 2015," Wormser told AFP. "If it has a big mass, it could be at the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012."
If the European collider does uncover the God particle, physicists would be confronted with another problem, he said.
"We'll need a new tool to study it in detail. We should think ahead, because it will take 20 years to build and cost 10 billion euros," he Wormser told AFP.
But even if validated, the Standard Model only accounts for about five percent of energy and matter in the Universe.
Dark matter and dark energy are thought to make up the rest, but have yet to be detected.
"In a few months, LHC will search for dark matter particles, which make up about 25 percent of the mass of the galaxies," said Wormser.

[fackerr]

na saag..........

[brandnewbien]

hapit na jd mo 1000 ang post. weeeeee

[cobraKing]

na saag diay ni sir..cge ipa transfer lng unya ni sa mods..

[observer]

What could be more interesting than finding out what went on infinitesimal microseconds from the Big Bang? Is there really a 'God' particle (the Higgs Boson), which is thought to be responsible for giving subatomic particles their mass and without which there would be no gravity...no universe. Or what about Dark Matter? or Dark Energy? That's what the folks at CERN are trying/hoping to find out.

Here's the latest off the press on this topic: God particle may have been glimpsed, scientists at CERN reveal. Read all about it!

One may think it's a waste of money and resources trying to smash protons (and in the future, lead ions) in order to create little "big bangs". Well, it's not. The technology that's been employed in this field of research has spawned the very same technologies we're using today: the World Wide Web (believe it or not), PET SCAN used in hospitals (the "P" in PET stands for Positron, the antimatter to electron which was discovered in these particle colliders), Cloud Computing (although this hasn't caught on yet)...and in the future, GRID computing.

If you want to get up to speed about what scientists have been doing at CERN, visit their Youtube channel: CERNTV.

[rodsky]

CERN: No Higgs boson yet, but strong hints that it exists | ExtremeTech

"CERN: No Higgs Boson yet, but strong hints that it exists."

-RODION

[Reginald]

‘God particle’ coming into focus

I'm almost certain they'll theorize that there's something smaller than the Higgs Boson once them folks at CERN finally conclude that it exists (which they try to do by observing the effects of the yet-to-be-proven-real particle). Then they would have to create something a lot bigger than the LHD to prove it (translated: a lot more expensive).

I appreciate the never ending search of Man for answers to the unknown but I just wish they'd put a lot more money in fixing social problems (famine, poverty and war) first before delving into the infinitely minute particles that make up the (un)known universe.

[neshem]

mao gyud ni una nakita gnha sa bbc news pag open..unsa kahay practical application ani?

[neshem]

‘God particle’ coming into focus

I'm almost certain they'll theorize that there's something smaller than the Higgs Boson once them folks at CERN finally conclude that it exists (which they try to do by observing the effects of the yet-to-be-proven-real particle). Then they would have to create something a lot bigger than the LHD to prove it (translated: a lot more expensive).

I appreciate the never ending search of Man for answers to the unknown but I just wish they'd put a lot more money in fixing social problems (famine, poverty and war) first before delving into the infinitely minute particles that make up the (un)known universe.

---if im not mistaken the Higgs Boson is the last particle of the Standard Model that has not been proven to exist, if they can "find" it then the model would be complete and well know why matter has mass.and maybe can use that to validate the possibility of string theory. so i think it will take "time" pa cguro for them to find something smaller (to get something bigger? )

--- +1 to fixing the social problem...basin before makita ang application sa maong study, wala na ta tanan

[rodsky]

‘God particle’ coming into focus

I'm almost certain they'll theorize that there's something smaller than the Higgs Boson once them folks at CERN finally conclude that it exists (which they try to do by observing the effects of the yet-to-be-proven-real particle). Then they would have to create something a lot bigger than the LHD to prove it (translated: a lot more expensive).

I appreciate the never ending search of Man for answers to the unknown but I just wish they'd put a lot more money in fixing social problems (famine, poverty and war) first before delving into the infinitely minute particles that make up the (un)known universe.

I don't think it requires a lot of money to "fix" social issues and problems--haven't you noticed that the effect is opposite gani--once money comes into the picture, the more corrupt of those who claim they are using such funds to alleviate poverty, famine and war, actually BENEFIT a lot from these activities. If people are SINCERE in solving these issues, there will be ways to solve them through political will alone--money will only attract the greedy middlemen.

-RODION