Now before y'all go popping the champagne, it ISN'T the Higgs Boson. Now that we've got that out of the way, a friend of mine forwarded this to me and I figured the science-y types on Bit would get a kick out of it. Enjoy.
Seems like they have found the Higgs Boson now. http://news.sky.com/story/955802/higgs-boson-scientists-believe-in-god-particle
It's certanily a new particle - 5 sigma leaves no question, it's just making sure that it's actually a Higgs rather than some random baryon resonance. Exciting stuff indeed - this is one of those days that I'll remember for years - remember where you were when they confirmed the Higgs observations?
They've confirmed it as a Higgs-like boson with certainty of 5-sigma. I work at the best place on the planet. Although goodness knows why ATLAS and Fabiola Gianotti insist on using Comic sans
I wish you didn't put it that way. Sitting on the loo at the moment reading this on my phone. This is one occasion I'll never forget now.
I work on the Computing side making sure that the data coming in is valid and can be accessed and is kept and also R&D(work in the building that brought you the Web). We have a throughput of 1PB/s coming from the detectors and keep 9GB/s of that. So it's not exactly minor amounts.
Likewise. They're still being extremely evasive though and it seems like their first plan of action after the discovery is to turn it off for a bit lol
Well they're extending this run for a few months for more datas before they shut down for a couple of years but yes, no one's actually said "This is the HB", just we've discovered a new particle that displays the characteristics of the HB. Although there's a lot of "Well, now we've discovered the HB.... erm, a Higgs like particle".
I think they're convinced that it's the Higgs, but you can't say that until the data is rock solid and peer-reviewed for errors. Otherwise it's a huge egg-on-face moment in front of the whole world's media. Remember that experiment that said those neutrinos were travelling >c? That was a small whoopsie compared to what this would be. Houndofhell: You have pretty much the coolest job I've heard of since talking to postgrads etc working out there on the sciency bits.
Valid point, can you imagine the backlash after going hugely public if this turned out to be a massive error. Prof. Heuer just summed it up quite nicely I think in response to a Channel 4 question: "It's fulfils the properties expected for the Higgs as far as the requirements for the standard model are concerned." (or words to that effect, I forget the exact wording) It seems that they're almost completely certain that it fulfils the requirements for the HB in the standard model BUT have a lot of work to fully explore any other properties the new particle has and what implications and/or new avenues of research they might have. At least that's how I'm hearing it. EDIT: Completely OT but I have to say, Heuer is a funny guy lol
If this is confirmed we will have proof that the urban spaceman actually exists and was not a figment of the bonzo dog doo dah bands imagination,(Sorry couldnt resist)lol., Seriously though If this is confirmed it will have a huge impact on science
True. They stated that they can say, with a probability of 5 sigma that a new boson has been discovered. If they apply their current data to their prediction of the properties of the Higgs the probability drops to "only" 4.9 sigma. Which, as far as I'm conserned at least, is close enough. Sifting through more data seems likely to confirm that this is indeed the Higgs.
