Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Higgs Boson
- Thread starter dweezle3
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So, what does everyone think about the Higgs Boson announcement today by CERN? Were you guys expecting it? What kind of impact do you think it'll have? Discuss
Unless is allows me to be Odo, I have zero interest.
I'm not old enough to get that reference
Infidel!!!!
If Higgs Boson defines the shape of things in the Universe, then Odo, being a shapeshifter, is it's poster-child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odo_(Star_Trek)
Any evidence that supports the standard model is a good thing. The next discovery should be dark matter for further confirmation
Next step? Black holes created in labs..? Should be fun. The real faster than light issue is the one that interests a lot of the CERN folks though. Personally I don't think that paradigm will be altered by this research, but who knows?
You know everyone who's affiliated with CERN? Confidence like this should only be reserved for young earth creationists. You're not one of them, surely?
Anyway, it was great to see particle physicists getting so much media attention!
The scientific community has a very distinct division: those that practice and develop actual science, and those that perpetuate crackpot theories with no supporting evidence. And I actually do have a fair number of contacts at CERN, working there and all.
Faster-than-light travel is still the stuff of science fiction. Those that believe that it's possible are either religious, stupid, or a combination of both.
Thank you for that, I feel privileged to know someone so in sync with the scientific community. I will of course call my one friend at CERN (I know, a shade of your "fair number," but we can't all be so connected) to inform him that he is in fact a stupid and/or religious crackpot, and I'm sure that the news will have him resign summarily.
Please do. People, especially those that consider themselves scientists, should automatically be skeptical of crackpot theories like faster-than-light travel without supporting evidence i.e. data. There is zero data that indicates faster than light travel is possible.
Stephen Hawking on the Higgs discovery losing him $100
His smile at the end totally made my day.
I love how scientists actually prefer it when experiements don't go as expected because it's interesting and opens up more to learn. It's an attitude I wish were more contagious.
I won't pretend to understand even a sliver of what I heard from CERN about this but I am extremely excited to see what comes of it. Here is a bite-sized explanation about it.
His smile at the end totally made my day.
I love how scientists actually prefer it when experiements don't go as expected because it's interesting and opens up more to learn. It's an attitude I wish were more contagious.
I won't pretend to understand even a sliver of what I heard from CERN about this but I am extremely excited to see what comes of it. Here is a bite-sized explanation about it.
Actually, in many branches of physics, "crackpot theories" with no solid data is a part of the profession. Sorry, but lots of it is "theory", and some of the most important discoveries made in physics have been theories that one couldn't prove until much later.
So let physicists come up with their theories. A number of those far-out theories will be true.
There is a difference between a scientific theory and a crackpot theory. One is based on data or evidence, or inferences on what future data/evidence should reveal (for example, the Higgs boson) once a suitable test method or experiment can be developed. The other is based on wishful thinking and/or fantasy. Sometimes the distinction is difficult to grasp for non-scientists, and impossible for the media.
Also: http://youtu.be/-qzqIHj4uGI
While I would agree that it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light with any given mass, what about multi-dimensionality? Sure, you wouldn't be traveling faster than the SOL in your relative time-frame, but when (and if) you (can) re-enter the dimension at a point exponentially further than what light would have traveled in the time frame of the origin dimension, what happens then?
Also, since you say you work at CERN, might I ask what you do? No need to be overtly specific.
Yes, one is called a theory, the other is called an hypothesis. For a bunch of people discussing science, you people sure seem to be confused about the 2.
A theory is established after verifying an hypothesis through experimentation and thus having verifiable and observable evidence of a particular phenomenom.
Scientific method much folks ?
It's not that long ago that string theory was considered a crackpot idea. Now it's pretty much accepted as the basis of particle physics. People shouldn't be so keen to dismiss a hypothesis because the evidence for it isn't available YET. Who knows what future experiments will reveal as conundrums needing to be solved?