Physics nerds: Higgs boson found?

[KrazyHorse]

Given the large production cross-sections they would need, I would have to guess that IF this signal is real, it's a coloured particle. But you can't have a 4th generation of quarks under any reasonable symmetry group structure. So what the ****?

Anyway, I've been trying to hold off thinking about this too much. I don't want to jinx it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Krill
*shrug* I didn't expect such an institute to be so lax, is all.

I've been stopped once and asked for my badge the whole time I've been here. My badge consists of a printed sheet of paper which says my name and then has a CERN logo on it.

[Krill]

Stupid Euros...

[KrazyHorse]

It's the one thing I appreciate. The immigration guy at the airport waved me through with a glance at my passport from a distance of 5 feet. There was no customs guy. I just walked through a door that said "nothing to declare".

Though I was stopped by a security guard on my way out of the reception dinner because I was still eating a piece of cheese. They were very strict about finishing it before I left. Getting access to the multibillion dollar experiment on the other hand should pose no significant problem.

[Ecthy]

1. Krazythreadi

2. KH is the new IntgrSpin!!!

don't you feel responsible for the danger you guys might blow up the universe??!!oneeleven

[KrazyHorse]

If we do, you won't feel a thing. I can promise you that much.

[Ecthy]

That's the funny part of thinking about it.

[Odin]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

That's why particle physicists, and the EU member states that have spent Nepal's annual GDP to build this accelerator, are hoping that no one, in Chicago or Switzerland, finds the Higgs. The future of high-energy physics lies with the small chance that the standard model is wrong, and something exotic happens at LHC energies. Something, I hope, that will help us understand the why questions that the standard model leaves wide open.

This is blatantly false. If it was the Higgs then its discovery via this signal opens up an enormous host of other questions to be answered. The LHC will be perfectly poised to answer them.

The author has not a clue...

Most science journalists are morons, FACT!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
It's the one thing I appreciate. The immigration guy at the airport waved me through with a glance at my passport from a distance of 5 feet. There was no customs guy. I just walked through a door that said "nothing to declare".

Canadian passport. Nothing interesting there.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
By the way, there is far too much made of CERN/Fermilab "rivalry". Most of the people working on one have also worked on the other...

QFT. My best friend's dad worked at both places, and I met a lot of others who had also. That was a really cool thing about living in Batavia. I really miss that experience.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
(this post brought to you from the Meyrin CERN campus)

I'll be going down into the LHC tunnels tomorrow to look at the equipment. It won't make any sense to me, as I'm merely a theorist, but it ought to make for some nice pictures. I'll post them if anybody's interested.

I wanna see pics!

[notyoueither]

It could be like physics porn. Shots of the ***** entering the tunnel that one assumes would be closely guarded, but in this case seems to be open to all comers...

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by MRT144


I wanna see pics!

Me too, plus your impressions on a machine which is likely the largest and most complex machine ever made for doing almost nothing except welcoming very selected tourists like KH.
I have also a very amateurish question : how you will be protected from the coldness of the ring when walking in the tunnel?

[KrazyHorse]

The ring isn't cold yet. Only one section (out of 8) has been chilled, and they're bringing that one back up to room temp for repairs, IIRC (it takes 2-4 weeks to cool each section and 2-4 weeks to warm each section)

Also, even when cooled, the cryostat (cold part) will only be like a meter or a meter and a half across. It will be heavily insulated. The tunnel is like 3-4 meters across. I don't think there would be a problem even if the whole ring was down to operating temp.

[Jon Miller]

I have been inside the Tevatron, would love to be inside the LHC.

Even if the Higgs is right where it is expected to be, and behaves in ways it is suspected to, there are supersymmetric partners that many theorists think are in that range (the LHC range).

We already have evidence for physics beyond the standard model with Neutrino mass.

Jon Miller