String Theory 'blog

Keywords: higgs, higgsboson

Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of 'God Particle'

12/06/2001 4:46:03 AM PST · by Darth Reagan · 134 replies · 1,022+ views
Reuters / Yahoo | December 5, 2001

Physicists Say Can Find No Sign of 'God Particle' LONDON (Reuters) -- After years of searching and months of sifting through data, scientists have still not found the elusive sub-atomic particle that could help to unravel the secrets of the universe, a science magazine said on Wednesday.The Higgs boson, the missing link which could explain why matter has mass and other fundamental laws of particle physics, is still missing -- and physicists fear it may not exist. -- -- It's more likely than not that there is no Higgs,'' John Swain, of Northeastern University in Boston, told New Scientist magazine.Scientists have been searching ...
New Step Underground in Universe Origins Quest (LHC)

06/04/2003 6:45:04 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 51 replies · 568+ views
Yahoo! Science | 6/4/03 | Robert Evans -- Reuters

GENEVA (Reuters) -- Europe's top particle physics research center has taken a major step in its plan to build the world's biggest "particle smasher" which it hopes will eventually unlock the secrets of the origins of the universe. On Wednesday it inaugurated a huge bottle-shaped vault which will house Atlas, an enormous detector of the micro-items of matter that make up life, the universe and everything. Atlas, standing as high as a four-story building and twice as long, will almost fill the cavern, cut into rock beneath meadowland straddling the Swiss-French border outside Geneva. The giant piece of machinery will...
'God particle' may have been seen

03/11/2004 4:45:23 AM PST · by Momaw Nadon · 123 replies · 732+ views
BBC News Online | Wednesday, 10 March, 2004 | By Paul Rincon

A scientist says one of the most sought after particles in physics -- the Higgs boson -- may have been found, but the evidence is still relatively weak. Peter Renton, of the University of Oxford, says the particle may have been detected by researchers at an atom-smashing facility in Switzerland. The Higgs boson explains why all other particles have mass and is fundamental to a complete understanding of matter. Dr Renton's assessment of the Higgs hunt is published in Nature magazine. "There's certainly evidence for something, whether it's the Higgs boson is questionable," Dr Renton, a particle physicist at Oxford,...
The God Particle and the Grid

04/03/2004 9:56:45 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 11 replies · 299+ views
Wired | April 2004 | Richard Martin

The physics lab that brought you the Web is reinventing the Internet. Get ready for the atom-smashing, supercomputing, 5-gigabits-per-second Grid Economy. 200 feet underground, a proton does 17-mile laps at nearly the speed of light. Guided by powerful magnets, it zooms through a narrow, circular tunnel that straddles the Switzerland-France border. Then a tiny adjustment in the magnetic field throws the proton into the path of another particle beam traveling just as fast in the opposite direction. Everything goes kerflooey.
Top Quark Measurements Give 'God Particle' New Lease on Life

06/10/2004 4:00:48 PM PDT · by PatrickHenry · 22 replies · 382+ views
University of Rochester | 09 June 2004 | Staff

Researchers from the University of Rochester have helped measure the elusive top quark with unparalleled precision, and the surprising results affect everything from the Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle," to the makeup of the dark matter that comprises 90 percent of the universe. The scientists developed a new method to analyze data from particle accelerator collisions at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory, which is far more accurate than previous methods and has the potential to change the dynamics of the Standard Model of particle physics. Details of the research are in today's issue of the journal Nature. "This is a...
Taking a chance on physics

08/27/2004 6:42:39 AM PDT · by PatrickHenry · 21 replies · 685+ views
PhysicsWeb | 25 August 2004 | Belle DumÃ©

What are the chances of physicists finding the Higgs boson at CERN or intelligent life on Titan by the end of the decade? Six-to-one for the Higgs and not very likely for life on Titan according to New Scientist magazine and bookmakers Ladbrokes, who have joined forces to offer the public the opportunity to gamble on a range of scientific projects. "Physics bets are not just the preserve of big names like Stephen Hawking," says Valerie Jamieson of New Scientist, "now everyone can join in". Last month Hawking, who is famous for placing bets on physics with colleagues and co-workers,...
The Mysteries of Mass

06/30/2005 8:58:05 AM PDT · by PatrickHenry · 81 replies · 2,303+ views
Scientific American | July 2005 (that issue) | Gordon Kane

Physicists are hunting for an elusive particle that would reveal the presence of a new kind of field that permeates all of reality. Finding that Higgs field will give us a more complete understanding about how the universe works. Most people think they know what mass is, but they understand only part of the story. For instance, an elephant is clearly bulkier and weighs more than an ant. Even in the absence of gravity, the elephant would have greater mass--it would be harder to push and set in motion. Obviously the elephant is more massive because it is made of...
Discovery Prospects at the Large Hadron Collider

04/25/2006 7:21:47 AM PDT · by PatrickHenry · 32 replies · 631+ views
Brookhaven National Laboratory | 23 April 2006 | Staff (press release)

Will scientists ever find the elusive Higgs particle, the last of the fundamental particles predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics and postulated to play a major role in how fundamental particles get their masses? Are there undiscovered particles "beyond" those described by the Standard Model? Experiments expected to begin next year at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a new particle accelerator at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), will take up the search and explore other intriguing questions about matter in our universe. Ketevi Assamagan, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, has...
Physicists Find Tiny Particle With No Charge, Very Low Mass And Sub-nanosecond Lifetime

12/07/2006 6:00:02 PM PST · by annie laurie · 89 replies · 2,177+ views
ScienceDaily | December 7, 2006

After decades of intensive effort by both experimental and theoretical physicists worldwide, a tiny particle with no charge, a very low mass and a lifetime much shorter than a nanosecond, dubbed the "axion," has now been detected by the University at Buffalo physicist who first suggested its existence in a little-read paper as early as 1974. The finding caps nearly three decades of research both by Piyare Jain, Ph.D., UB professor emeritus in the Department of Physics and lead investigator on the research, who works independently -- an anomaly in the field -- and by large groups of well-funded physicists...
Desperately seeking the Higgs boson

01/15/2007 1:57:53 AM PST · by SunkenCiv · 4 replies · 316+ views
Manila Times | Sunday, January 14, 2007 | Rony V. Diaz

Particle physics is in the doldrums. Since 1974 it has not made any major advance except to add to the particle zoo and to tweak the Standard Model. String theory has claimed the attention many young physicists, eager for both fresh challenges and new intellectual adventures. But save for a daunting set of equations, string theory to this day is devoid of even a scintilla of direct observational evidence. For these reasons, a lot is riding on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that was completed last year and will begin full operation this year... It's the world's biggest particle accelerator...
No sign of the Higgs boson

04/10/2007 8:48:56 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies · 422+ views
New Scientist | December 5, 2001 (note the year) | Eugenie Samuel

From the masses and interactions of other particles that we know exist, physicists calculated that the Higgs is most likely to have a mass (or energy) of around 80 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). If particle accelerators smash particles together at that energy or higher, it should be possible to make one. This is what members of the Electroweak Working Group at CERN were doing for the 5 years until LEP (the Large Electron Positron Collider) closed down last year. Since then they've been sifting through the data they gathered--and found nothing. They rule out most possible masses for the Higgs, including the...
Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong

04/08/2007 8:55:49 AM PDT · by LibWhacker · 76 replies · 2,252+ views
Times Online | 4/8/07 | Jonathan Leake

A £2 billion project to answer some of the biggest mysteries of the universe has been delayed by months after scientists building it made basic errors in their mathematical calculations. The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing an evacuation. It means that 24 magnets located all around the 17-mile circular accelerator must now be stripped down and repaired or upgraded. The failure is a huge embarrassment for Fermilab, the American national...
Veteran physicist hopes secret of universe lies underground

04/07/2008 9:18:54 AM PDT · by Brilliant · 15 replies · 266+ views
AFP via Yahoo! | 04/07/08 | Patrick Baert

British scientist Peter Higgs, whose work is the cornerstone of modern physics, said Monday he is putting champagne on ice in the hope a new experiment confirms his theories on how the universe works. Higgs, a veteran professor at Edinburgh University, told journalists in a rare interview that he hopes a vast experiment in the tunnels deep underground the CERN laboratory on the Franco-Swiss border could finally prove the existence of an elusive and unstable particle to which he has lent his name. The so-called "Higgs Boson" has been dubbed the 'God Particle' because so many have searched for it...
Prof Peter Higgs interview: Smashing atoms at CERN and the hunt for the 'God' particle

04/08/2008 6:06:11 PM PDT · by bruinbirdman · 29 replies · 354+ views
The Telegraph | 4/8/2008 | Roger Highfield

The scientist who came up with a legendary particle that has haunted physicists for a generation said he was confident that a £4.4 billion quest to find if it really exists will pay off within a year. **Prof Peter Higgs profile **The Big Bang: atom-smashing could uncover truth **'Big Bang' machine could destroy the planet, says lawsuit There is a palpable rise in tension among scientists worldwide as they await the start in July of a vast new atom smasher at CERN, the international nuclear laboratory outside Geneva, which will radically reshape our view of the universe when it goes...
New atom-smasher could fill gaps in scientific knowledge -- or open a black hole

04/14/2008 5:29:17 PM PDT · by Flavius · 40 replies · 188+ views
ny times | 4/14/08 | John Johnson

GENEVA -- Michelangelo L. Mangano, a respected particle physicist who helped discover the top quark in 1995, now spends most days trying to convince people that his new machine won't destroy the world. "If it were just crackpots, we could wave them away," the physicist said in an interview at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, CERN. "But some are real physicists."
Written in the skies: why quantum mechanics might be wrong

05/18/2008 10:40:38 PM PDT · by neverdem · 77 replies · 1,331+ views
Nature News | 15 May 2008 | Zeeya Merali

Observations of the cosmic microwave background might deal blow to theory. The background patterns of space could help us focus on quantum problems.NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team The question of whether quantum mechanics is correct could soon be settled by observing the sky -- and there are already tantalizing hints that the theory could be wrong. Antony Valentini, a physicist at Imperial College, London, wanted to devise a test that could separate quantum mechanics from one of its closest rivals -- a theory called bohmian mechanics. Despite being one of the most successful theories of physics, quantum mechanics...
Atom-smashing lab says experiment to start end-June [scofs at fear of black hole destroying Earth]

05/27/2008 12:53:48 PM PDT · by Brilliant · 32 replies · 295+ views
AP via Yahoo! | 5/27/08 | AFP

European particle physics laboratory CERN is set to launch its gigantic experiment which hopes to throw light on the origins of the universe within a month, the laboratory's head said Tuesday. If things go according to plan, the greatest experiment in the history of particle physics could unveil a sub-atomic component, the Higgs Boson, known as "the God Particle." The "Higgs," named after the eminent British physicist, Peter Higgs, who first proposed it in 1964, would fill a gaping hole in the benchmark theory for understanding the physical cosmos. Other work on the so-called Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could explain...
First particles injected into Large Hadron Collider atom smasher

08/21/2008 7:43:56 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 56 replies · 128+ views
Telegraph | 8/21/08 | Jad Marrouche

The first particles have been injected into the biggest atom smasher on the planet, marking the start of the countdown to probing the secrets of the universe. Scientists are pushing ahead with powering up the machine, shrugging off speculative fears that it could destroy all life on Earth by sucking it into a black hole. Starting up the biggest scientific experiment ever built is not as simple as flipping a switch.
Standard model gets right answer for proton, neutron masses

11/22/2008 10:22:32 PM PST · by neverdem · 20 replies · 1,652+ views
Science News | November 20th, 2008 | Ron Cowen

Correct calculation strengthens theory of quark-gluon interactions in nuclear particles When it comes to weighty matters, quarks and gluons rule the universe, a new study confirms. One of the largest computational efforts to calculate the masses of protons and neutrons shows that the standard model of particle physics predicts those masses with an uncertainty of less than 4 percent. Christian Hoelbling, affiliated with the Bergische UniverstÃ¤t Wuppertal in Germany, the EÃ¶tvÃ¶s University in Budapest and the CNRS in Marseille, France, and his colleagues report their findings in the Nov. 21 Science. Nearly all the mass of ordinary matter consists of...
LHC Might Not Be Back Online Until 2010 or Later (Large Hadron Collider)

12/01/2008 6:10:28 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 16 replies · 1,282+ views
Gizmodo | 12/1/08 | Mark Wilson

When the LHC first went down, it was believed that repairs could get the system up and running by April 2009. Then we saw repairs pushing the timeline back to summer 2009. But now, CERN has arrived at a fork in the road regarding LHC repairs. According to spokesperson James Gillies, the complicated repairs can be simplified into modest Plan A and Plan B approach. Plan A is a quick and dirty fix, getting the particle accelerator online as quickly as possible (late summer 2009) at the cost of operating at lower power. In this scenario, 3 of 8 pressure...
Race for 'God particle' heats up

02/17/2009 3:48:03 PM PST · by Anti-Bubba182 · 13 replies · 711+ views
BBC | 2-17-09 | James Morgan

Europe's particle physics lab, Cern, is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle", its US rival claims. The particle, whose existence has been predicted by theoreticians, would help to explain why matter has mass. Finding the Higgs is a major goal of Cern's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But the US Fermilab says the odds of its Tevatron accelerator detecting the famed particle first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best. Both machines hope to see evidence of the Higgs by colliding sub-atomic matter at very high speeds. If...
Physicists get closer to finding the 'God Particle'

03/13/2009 8:04:31 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 77 replies · 2,200+ views
AFP on Yahoo | 3/13/09 | AFP

CHICAGO (AFP) -- Physicists have come closer to finding the elusive "God Particle," which they hope could one day explain why particles have mass, the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday. Researchers at the Fermilab have managed to shrink the territory where the elusive Higgs Boson particle is expected to be found -- a discovery placing the American research institute ahead of its European rival in the race to discover one of the biggest prizes in physics. Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass. In 1964, a British physicist, Peter Higgs, came up with...
Single top quark detected

03/13/2009 9:49:17 PM PDT · by neverdem · 20 replies · 787+ views
Science News | March 10th, 2009 | Solmaz Barazesh

Same techniques could be used to detect theoretical particles like the Higgs boson Physicists have identified the production of the elusive single top quark, two research teams report. Previously top quarks have been observed only when produced in pairs, as when they were initially discovered 14 years ago at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. Now, researchers using Fermilab's two detectors announced March 9 that they have detected single top quarks. The techniques used to find the singleton quarks could help to identify other rare particles, such as the Higgs boson, the scientists say. "What a discovery," comments...
A lighter Higgs makes particle hunt harder

03/13/2009 10:04:07 PM PDT · by neverdem · 22 replies · 760+ views
Nature News | 13 March 2009 | Eric Hand

Longer search promised after physicists exclude heavy masses for the 'God particle'. The Higgs boson particle may be lighter -- and the race to find it tougher -- than particle physicists had hoped, according to the latest results from the Tevatron particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.Fermilab is still hunting the Higgs boson.Fermilab On 13 March, scientists there announced that they had ruled out a crucial part of the hunting ground for the 'God particle', thought to confer mass on all other matter.The results suggest that the Higgs boson is not a relatively high-mass particle,...
Midnight in the Garden of My Hate Mail

04/08/2009 4:16:13 PM PDT · by Captain Kirk · 18 replies · 1,355+ views
Liberty and Power at the History News Network | April 8, 2009 | Robert Higgs

I was the guest on C-SPAN's "In Depth" program on Sunday, April 5. Afterward, the volume of my e-mail messages rose substantially as people wrote to me to express their opinion of my performance or to ask me questions. Although many of these messages sent approbation, for which I am grateful, others, like most of the people who called in during the program, were less than complimentary. I had a foreboding that one of these messages might contain, shall we say, a bit of denunciation when I saw that its subject line read "You're a fucking STUPID and VAPID." In...
Hadron Collider physicist Adlene Hicheur charged with terrorism

10/12/2009 9:52:25 PM PDT · by bruinbirdman · 66 replies · 4,963+ views
The Times | 10/13/2009 | Charles Bremner and Adam Sage in Paris

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre near Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge last night after investigators said that he offered to work with the North African branch of al-Qaeda. AdlÃ¨ne Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged internet contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The physicist, who works at the giant atomic collider at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which straddles Swiss and French territory, told the Islamic group that he was interested in committing an...
Brilliant Physicists Claim the Failure of the Super Collider May Have Been Ordained by God

10/16/2009 12:34:29 AM PDT · by bogusname · 22 replies · 1,437+ views
BCN | Oct 16, 2009 | Teresa Neumann

Two physicists speculate God -- or "time agents from the future" -- shut it down to keep them from discovering the God Particle. REPORTER'S NOTE: I've come across a lot of quirky articles in publishing intriguing news, but this rates up there with the most odd of all. What is odd, is that two such brilliant scientists would publicly proclaim their hypothesis that God not only exists, but interevened in their scientific endeavors. Wow. Not only that, but the addendum -- that it could have been God OR "time agents from the future" -- made me wonder. If these men were schooled in the divine supernatural, they may...
Large Hadron Collider rival Tevatron 'has found Higgs boson'

07/12/2010 4:13:37 PM PDT · by TaraP · 87 replies
Telegraph | June 12th, 2010 | Tom Chivers

Rumours are emerging from the rival to the Large Hadron Collider that the Higgs boson, or so-called "God particle", has been found. Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua, has said in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, that the Higgs has been discovered. The Tevatron, the huge particle accelerator at Fermi -- the most powerful in the world after the LHC -- is expected to be retired when the CERN accelerator becomes fully operational, but may have struck a final blow before it becomes obsolete....
Large Hadron Collider Rival Tevatron 'Has Found Higgs boson', say Rumours

07/13/2010 5:25:48 AM PDT · by lbryce · 92 replies
Telegraph | July 12, 2010 | Tom Chivers

Tommaso Dorigo, a physicist at the University of Padua, has said in his blog that there has been talk coming out of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, that the Higgs has been discovered. The Tevatron, the huge particle accelerator at Fermi -- the most powerful in the world after the LHC -- is expected to be retired when the CERN accelerator becomes fully operational, but may have struck a final blow before it becomes obsolete. If one form of the rumour is to be believed -- and Prof Dorigo is extremely circumspect about it -- then it...
Higgs boson discovery rumours false, say Tevatron scientists (ARG!)

07/13/2010 10:02:44 AM PDT · by Psycho_Bunny · 9 replies
Telegraph.co.uk | 13 Jul 2010 | Tom Chivers

Rumours that the Higgs boson -- sometimes called the 'God particle' -- has been detected by the Tevatron particle accelerator have been denied. A spokesman for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory told the Telegraph: "The rumour of evidence for the Higgs boson is just that: a rumour, with no factual basis. "Beyond that, we don't comment on rumours."

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