h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Higgs Boson - A652664
Author: Mammuthus Primigenius - U173551

Power and politics in the world of high energy physics.

I started writing this nearly a year ago, and sometimes wondered if I would finish it before the Higgs was discovered.

Fascinating This sort of thing has interested me, probably since the first time I saw a Horizon programme about sub-atomic particles.

This is an extremely well written entry, and (mostly) easy to follow. I especially like the bit about the room of politicians

There are parts of it where I might want to say 'could you explain that in a footnote', but I feel that those are all borderline, and one has to draw a line somewhere between explaining everything, and encouraging someone to find out for themselves. How many of us had parents who said "Go look in the dictionary" when we asked about a word we didn't understand? Not me

I think "In doing so they had provided the experimental evidence needed to prove the electroweak theory. A theory which explains the electromagnetic force and weak nuclear force as two manifestations of a single electroweak force." should be one sentence with a hyphen where the full stop is. Same thing with "Although no evidence for the Higgs has been found it is still far more likely than not that it does exist. Its mass is simply at the top end of the allowed range.", although perhaps a semicolon in this instance rather than a full stop.

Well done

Very well entry, I don't know what could be improved.

However -- I hope they don't find it!

Oh, Mammuthus is back




And with a vengeance, I must say

Seems like a good entry, easy to follow without much prior knowledge. Well done! In this sentence:

"Others predict the existence of several bosons, each with a different electrical charge."

Do you really mean electrical charge? You probably do, but I can see this causing chaos. If particles that have no existance other than to give mass had an electrical charge, wouldn't it confuse everything? A bit like a gravition having a mass. I am probably talking nonsense, but...

Blood 'n' sand. Very good, and I always hated physics.

Wow, everyone seems to like it

Gosho - I merged the sentences you suggested.
Tango - I do mean electrical charge, you may get a neutral higgs boson, and charged higgs bosons, maybe even doubly charged higgs bosons.

So, if these bosons are everywhere, a) why don't they repel eachother and b) why don't they attract/repel all other (charged) matter?

I guess you have equal numbers of positive and negatively charged higgses, so the effects cancel each other out and the higgs field is neutral.

That was the only solution I could come up with. Makes sense I guess.

Thanks.

Well, unless there are any particle physicists out there who can dispute any of the content, I reckon this one's all systems go

I'll second that. Great article.

Tango

Not much to add except my general praise

I wish most pop-physics authors could write as well as you.

B

A truely informative entry, thanks.

Perhaps you could elaborate why "the interesting property of having a non zero value in its lowest energy state (in empty space)." is indeed so interesting. Took me a while to find the answer. Of course it's also good to encourage people to start looking themselves, but I just thought this sentence assumed a little too much knowledge on the reader's part.

Then in your Epilogue you state that "not discovering the Higgs would be an even more interesting discovery than discovering it"
This is untrue, since not discovering it would result in continuing uncertainty regarding its existence. I would replace this with something like "proving that the Higgs does not exist would actually be just as valuable as proving that it does." or something along those lines.

Then a few minor typo's :

"Higgs trial" in the November 2 paragraph
"the Fermilab would now discoverY" below the November 8 paragraph
"close down date" should be "closedown date", I think (Epilogue)

Other than that, congrats on a great Entry

JAIB

Thanks for those points JAIB, I've corrected the entry. I added a footnote on the 'interesting property...' but I'm not sure if this is a good idea, explaining points like this can raise as more questions than are answered.


MP

I'm no scientist, and physics always bored me at school, but I found this an excellent read. The idea of people being attracted to Margaret Thatcher is a little disturbing but it illustrates the phenomenon you're describing very well. Great entry, surely on its way into the Edited Guide!

I like this too I can't actually add anything useful to the rest of the comments in PR so I'll leave it at this!

Not that my opinion counts for squat; and before you politely object to that apparent self-deprecation I'll advise you I haven't read the piece.
That said, I have to say the title alone is worthy of inclusion. Out of 20 entries currently listed on the front page of this Forum, it was the only title that attracted me. It's just too bad I read this thread first and discovered it was about molecules and stuff. I probably would have enjoyed it if this conversation hadn't scared me off with such high praise and enthusiastism for the scientific content.

~jwf~ (still quite-hairy ape)

Ok I read it ..well most of it; I got confused when a conclusion was drawn that the thing which does not exist 'is heavy'.
As the politicians have said, "Please don't try to explain the Physics to me because I haven't got a clue."

But I would, as a writer and word-lover, really like to have seen some explanation of the word 'boson', not the physics of it but the reasoning behind the origins of the word 'boson'. The Higgs part was very well covered, but any reference to the source of the the 'boson' bit was conspicuously absent.

Other than that I can't offer comment on the scientific content but I can now say I very much liked the writing style; it carried me forward through dense and heavy masses of unknown and theoretically dizzying space. At very light speeds.

~jwf~ (What's a boson?)

Well, according to Dictionary.com, a boson is: 'Any of a class of particles, such as the photon, pion, or alpha particle, that have zero or integral spin and obey statistical rules permitting any number of identical particles to occupy the same quantum state.'

Perhaps Mammuthus could explain that in a more accessible way?