Posted on 06/09/2003 6:11:13 AM PDT by andy224
Yes, when an oddly privileged few are permitted to poop in the punchbowl (including the supposed no-no of reposting their own deleted harassing posts), some people will leave the party of their own accord. I'll anticipate a counter-argument and say that allowing such conditions to continue is purely a management decision. Still, it bites really bad.
I'm not a physicist, but you do sound like a pretty reasonable scientist, to me, to use this phrase.
Good question.
Here we have to distinguish between real and virtual particles. Real Higgs bosons decay almost immediately, but the Higgs field is composed of virtual Higgs bosons. There are two reasons why virtual Higgs bosons don't decay in the sense that real ones do: 1) they don't exist long enough, and 2) there isn't enough energy available to create the decay products of a Higgs.
Virtual particles are hard to visualize. On the one hand, they aren't "really there", in the sense that there isn't enough energy available for them to exist, and they can't be manipulated like a real particle. On the other hand, they "really exist", in the sense that they do exhibit a subtle--or even a strong--influence on whatever physics is taking place.
The canonical visualization centers on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It states that the uncertainty in energy times the uncertainty in time is intrinsically greater than some tiny quantity. One implication is that you can "borrow" an arbitrary amount of energy from the vacuum, provided you "pay it back" in a brief enough time that the inequality is satisfied. The more energy you borrow, the faster you have to pay it back, but as long as the HUP is respected, you won't violate any conservation laws. Since, in physics, whatever is possible is compulsory, the vacuum is therefore a boiling sea of every possible type of particle popping briefly in and out of existence.
If "mechanistic" is cool, science used to be cooler before "Quantum" got added in front of "Mechanics."
No, I don't like adjectives connected with my name in discussions either. But after receiving incoming and firing warning shots, I also may release a fusillade.
How fast?
From the level of vulgarity, we might assume it is the editorial staff at Popular Science.
Well the point that I hope would be learned by now is that one should not assume "Aha! there's fundamental mass (matter)!" when all that is indicated is energy and process in a system.
I suppose that jumping the gun in that way would be called "Materialistc Fundamentalism" ....or is that "Fundamentalist Materialism?"
Isn't that what you'd call it?
BTW, the ancient Hebrews had a very interesting word for this kind of thing, which is translated into our word, "glory," It tends to be noticed as light, for example, but the root word is "weight." Maybe those folks knew something about QM... or something?
Until they hit something that is painted black.
No argument here. I'm still fuming that the mods let their (ALS and conservababeJen)crap go on for so long then just summarily pulled the thread out from under us.
I didn't know Right Wing Professor very well, but he sounded like a decent Conservative scientist. He will be missed.
In memory of Right Wing Professor. BTTT!!!!
Maybe because mathematics was invented by humans to be a notational representation of agreed-on human logic, and human logic is far from perfect.
Not at all. There doesn't have to be a Higgs particle; it's just that the data we have strongly suggest that it exists, and it is mathematically the simplest answer to a number of questions. If the Higgs boson does not exist, something very interesting and obvious happens at LHC energies. A gigantic resonance (known as a "techni-rho") appears at energies less than about 1 TeV, caused by a very strong interaction between the W-bosons. And if there is no Higgs and no techni-rho...
but even once found cannot be seen. Hmmm....
It depends what you mean by "seen". Z bosons cannot be "seen", but the fact that they decay in our detectors means that they can be sensed with the right goggles, and that they possess reality in exactly the same sense as rocks and trees. I can't see songs, either; is my belief that they exist a matter of faith?
(OK, now you try composing a sentence with "stuff stuff is is.")
How heavy?
'... but just what the "stuff" stuff is is a puzzle.'
Would help if my own sentence was grammatical.
"Stuff, stuff,
'Is' is,
Oh, what a relief it is!"
(Picture Bill Clinton singing this while boinking an intern...)
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