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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (12942)	12/6/2001 8:50:45 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

edit: No sign of "God" particles No sign of the Higgs boson 19:00 05 December 01 Eugenie Samuel The legendary particle that physicists thought explained why matter has mass probably does not exist. So say researchers who have spent a year analysing data from the LEP accelerator at the CERN nuclear physics lab near Geneva. The elusive Higgs boson is so central to the standard model - the theory on which physicists base their whole understanding of matter - that it has been dubbed the "God particle". If there is no Higgs, they will be left totally unable to explain mass. The standard model explains the collection of fundamental particles that make up matter, including muons, electrons, neutrinos and quarks. In the 1960s, researchers successfully worked out how these particles interact and bind together via the strong and weak nuclear forces. But that didn't explain why the particles also have mass, until Peter Higgs at Edinburgh University suggested space is filled with a heavy, treacly substance - now called the Higgs field - which gives particles their mass by dragging on them through a mediator called the Higgs boson. His work triggered a 30-year quest to find the Higgs. 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. Botched calculations 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 ones considered most likely (see Graph). "It's more likely than not that there is no Higgs," says working group member John Swain of Northeastern University in Boston. For many it's a big disappointment, because last year researchers from another group at LEP claimed they had found the Higgs (New Scientist, 9 September 2000, p 4). Their announcement came shortly before LEP was due to close, and it won them one month's extra time on LEP. But they later admitted to having botched their calculations in the heat of the moment. Their mistake was to assume too low a level of background noise as the experiment's energy was ratcheted up, so that they took scattered particles that were actually background as signs of the Higgs. Now the calcuations have been reworked, members of the Electroweak Working Group say there was no sign of a Higgs at energies up to 115 GeV, well past the 80 GeV where it would be expected. That only leaves around 30 per cent of possibilities. It's existence is looking "less and less likely", says Steve Reucroft, also of Northeastern University. "We've eliminated most of the hunting area," confirms Neil Calder at CERN. Improbable energy This isn't the first bad news for the standard model. In February, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York ruffled feathers by saying that the magnetic moment of the muon was different to the predicted value. But the latest blow is more serious. The non-appearance of a key particle would signal the end of large parts of the standard model. Not everyone is too bothered, yet. Frank Wilczek, a particle physics theorist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that you could take the LEP results as evidence that the Higgs must be sitting at an improbably high energy. He says he'll start to get uncomfortable if the Higgs doesn't show up by about 130 GeV. "Then I would have a good long think," he says. Swain says he'd bet large amounts of money that the Higgs doesn't exist. But he still thinks it's important for CERN to push on with building its Large Hadron Collider, which is scheduled to start smashing particles at even higher energies in 2007. "It's not until you've ruled out more than 99 per cent of values that everyone will be convinced," he says. No viable theory For example David Plane, head of LEP's OPAL experiment, is still certain that the Higgs will eventually be found. "It's just at a higher energy than we're sensitive to." The problem for physicists is that without the Higgs particle they don't have a viable theory of matter. "There is nothing remotely as plausible or compelling to replace it," says Wilczek. Supersymmetry, which predicts every particle is paired with a heavier partner, is a popular idea. But LEP's results are even worse news for this theory, as it predicts several Higgs particles. The lightest one would have turned up at even lower energies, and couldn't exist above 130 GeV. For physicists who have spent years trying to find the Higgs, admitting it could be fantasy is a huge and difficult step. But Swain is ready to get over the disappointment and move on. "You search for the truth, and the truth is whatever it is," he says. newscientist.com Oh well, another scientific theory bites the dust, back to the bible I guess <g>

To: maceng2 who wrote (12942)	12/6/2001 10:02:01 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Think about some simple laws in Physics for example. Yeah, why not think about them. The laws of thermodynamics say that energy cannot be created or destroyed, just changed. This means that the Universe has always existed, and cannot be destroyed. Not much need for a bearded old Jew in a white robe to create the Universe, is there.

To: maceng2 who wrote (12942)	12/6/2001 12:23:39 PM
From: FaultLine	Respond to of 281500

Baloney and more baloney. and your response is very Off Topic by comparison PB. Think about it... --k

To: maceng2 who wrote (12942)	12/6/2001 1:26:58 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<For a start many religions call it it gender neutral, which, if I'm allowed a guess, may be accurate. Other religions are geared for normal peoples perception of matters.> I meant the actual male person who claimed to be the Prophet [and for whom profit was often the primary issue - getting the girls and getting to wear the best clothes being the next]. For example Mr Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Karl Marx, Jim Jones, David Koresh, Osama and all the other wannabe alpha males - who was it running the trip to Hale-Bopp? The followers of these people usually end up in grim situations, killing other people who are not true believers, being killed by other people fighting back, or killing themselves. At least it's evolutionarily self-limiting, as are all defective consequences of mutant DNA. Sure, Christianity is fairly tame these days, provided you comply with the religious edicts, or you get put in gaol, and killed if you resist while asserting your freedom - if you want to call that tame. It's tamer than the lack of choice that Osama offers [sneak attack and destruction] if you don't comply and even if you do [plenty of Moslem collateral damage in WTC]. So, if I have to have an alpha male singing the praises of his wacko beliefs, I suppose I'll take GeorgeW, who at least is hemmed in by elections and a constitution which can't be torn up too casually, even to catch terrorists. But I won't be in Nirvana when GeorgeW is undisputed world heavyweight champion. US foreign policy is essentially a crusade and GeorgeW got it right first time, though he was alleged to have mis-spoke. The world is either with the USA or against it according to GeorgeW's weird theory of existence. That means they are the centre of the universe, the boss and everyone else on earth can just damn well do as they are told or get a bullet through their head. While Christianity isn't compulsory, those who believe the same wacko stuff as GeorgeW will get the money and power [not to mention the girls that Bill C didn't get]. Any aliens who don't go along with it will be tried and executed by a military tribunal 60% majority. Well, I guess I'd better convert to the one true belief and worship at the shrine of GeorgeW. Those Crusaders sure do have big guns! Mq PS: When the various versions of the bible were written, it was always done by people. Nobody was wandering around in the desert one day and found a tome sitting there with "Merry Christmas, with love from God" written on it [and if they did, they should have been a bit suspicious]. It's the word of the people who wrote it. Now MY words are the true words of wassup; you can take it to the bank. I have got a direct hotline to the big-time. Take it on faith.] <When the good Lord created the earth and the heavens in six days, I did not see a scientific definition of "day" in the bible. Maybe the perception of the peoples in the intended audience 2k+ years ago were not familier with time dilation, geological ages, numbers bigger then a few thousand head of sheep etc.> That's because they were living a much more rustic life and they wrote it based on what was going on around them at the time.