Ask a physicist anything. (8)

[Lillen]

AC/DC Don't know what it is all about!
AC/DC Have no clue what so ever!
AC/DC Being stupid!
AC/DC Are not even good
AC/DC Being poorly gifted
AC/DC being silly
AC/DC Can not do anything right.


That's the iq test i follow. How am i doing?

 

[Zippy the Wonderslug]

Please go to minute 9:00 of the following video.

Dynamo Magician Impossible Season 2 Episode 1 part 1 - YouTube

What possible chemical agent could explain such an effect on glass like this?

Thanks.

 

[Doveaman]

Apparently, they found something that has no mass at all.

More bizarrely, it also gives everything else mass...

How can something with no mass give everything mass since it has no mass to give?

I can't see how such an argument can be persuasive.

Is it a miracle of God?

 

[RaiseTheDead]

How can something with no mass give everything mass since it has no mass to give?

Is this "the new" how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

 

[mzungu]

How can something with no mass give everything mass since it has no mass to give?

I can't see how such an argument can be persuasive.

Is it a miracle of God?

Then you disagree with Genesis

 

[renewed21]

Is it now settled that the universe is is expanding and will continue to expand in a non-linear manner?

 

[mzungu]

Is it now settled that the universe is is expanding and will continue to expand in a non-linear manner?

No; But we are getting there!

 

[Naraoia]

Those weak bosons won't leave me alone... Why does the weak force get two different bosons? It's not fair

Hey, Wiccan, where art thou? This burning question is charring holes through my skull!

AC/DC Don't know what it is all about!
AC/DC Have no clue what so ever!
AC/DC Being stupid!
AC/DC Are not even good
AC/DC Being poorly gifted
AC/DC being silly
AC/DC Can not do anything right.


That's the iq test i follow. How am i doing?

Oh, come on, it was all a joke! For the record, I'm not a huge fan of AC/DC either. One song is fun, but more than one in a row, and you stop being able to tell one from the other. A whole album, and your brain degenerates into "the biggest balls of them all"

Kansas. Jethro Tull. Things that have poetry and ideas and melodies, y'know. That's more my kind of music (Also, Ian Anderson playing the flute on one leg is too stylish for this world.)

Then again, I also like Metallica in small doses. Which, with the exception of Nothing Else Matters and Unforgiven, is pretty much the antithesis of ideas and melodies.

How can something with no mass give everything mass since it has no mass to give?

The Higgs does have mass. The reason they needed the LHC to get a glimpse of it is that creating massive particles takes a huge amount of energy. At least that's my understanding, but the particle they found is definitely very, very heavy.

But I'm pretty sure it doesn't give mass by giving it away. It's kinda like love. You give some to that poor fella on the street, it's not like you now have less to give

 

[RaiseTheDead]

Kansas. Jethro Tull. Things that have poetry and ideas and melodies, y'know. That's more my kind of music (Also, Ian Anderson playing the flute on one leg is too stylish for this world.)

Then again, I also like Metallica in small doses. Which, with the exception of Nothing Else Matters and Unforgiven, is pretty much the antithesis of ideas and melodies.

But I'm pretty sure it doesn't give mass by giving it away. It's kinda like love. You give some to that poor fella on the street, it's not like you now have less to give

What's this? Since when are scientists allowed to have good taste in music, AND understand the power of love?

 

[Tinker Grey]

I used to be a huge Kansas fan. I gotta say though that I recently listened to a best-of album and found their "poetry" hugely pretentious ... the stuff that teenagers write when they want to sound sophisticated.

But ... It still rocked.

 

[Doveaman]

What's this? Since when are scientists allowed to have good taste in music, AND understand the power of love?

Who said scientists aren't spiritual?

 

[renewed21]

But I'm pretty sure it doesn't give mass by giving it away. It's kinda like love. You give some to that poor fella on the street, it's not like you now have less to give

So let me understand, the Higgs boson is just like herpes.

 

[mzungu]

Who said scientists aren't spiritual?

That's so sweet of you.....

 

[Naraoia]

I used to be a huge Kansas fan. I gotta say though that I recently listened to a best-of album and found their "poetry" hugely pretentious ... the stuff that teenagers write when they want to sound sophisticated.

But ... It still rocked.

Isn't nearly all poetry "pretentious" without being inside the poet's head and feeling the real emotion behind it?

When I say poetry in music, I don't even necessarily mean the words. It's kinda hard to describe what I mean, and maybe poetry isn't even the right word for it But speaking of literal poetry, when 90% of songs are about wanting to have sex with someone in verses you could have written before you knew what sex was, "Dust in the Wind" is a major upgrade

</orthogonal derail>

So let me understand, the Higgs boson is just like herpes.

Thank you, that made me laugh so hard.

 

[Naraoia]

Who said scientists aren't spiritual?

Who said anything about spirituality?

 

[Doveaman]

The Higgs does have mass. The reason they needed the LHC to get a glimpse of it is that creating massive particles takes a huge amount of energy. At least that's my understanding, but the particle they found is definitely very, very heavy.

So are these other particles.

 

[Loudmouth]

So are these other particles.

Son Goku over at EvC forum had a great post on the Higgs.

Well we know there are two forces, the electromagnetic force and the weak force. The carrier of the electromagnetic being the photon and the carriers of the weak force being the two W bosons and the Z boson.

Since the W bosons carry electric charge we know that the two forces are related in some way. The idea arrived in the 70s was that this was because they were originally one force, the electroweak force.
Unfortunately if you write down the equations for the electroweak force, relativity and quantum mechanics demand everything should be massless. Which they obviously aren't.
The only possible way around this is to have something which breaks the symmetry associated with the electroweak force. According to the theory certain interactions even though they involve different numbers and species of particles have the same probability of occurring. This is the symmetry I'm speaking of.
Any mechanism which reduces the symmetry to a smaller set of symmetries will natural cause the force to split in two and give the W bosons and the Z boson their mass.
The mechanism has to involve a field with no spin, any other type of field would not only reduce the electroweak symmetries but also break relativity, which we know observationally to be false. This is the reason for the spin-0 condition.
If it had any weak isospin other than 1/2, then too much of the symmetry would be broken. Weak Isospin can be 0, 1/2 and 1. Weak Isospin-0 wouldn't break the symmetry and Weak Isospin-1 breaks it too much, leaving behind two electromagnetic forces rather than an electromagnetic force and a weak force
The Higgs can't have a mass too high due to quantum triviality. Basically if you put a mass higher than a certain value in the equations, all the interactions of the Higgs field with the other fields immediately become zero. Since it doesn't interact, then it can't break the symmetry, so it must be beneath that mass.
Its decays and interactions are naturally controlled by the rules of quantum field theory once the three properties above (spin-0, Weak Isospin-1/2 and low mass) are in place. No other decays are possible under quantum mechanics and relativity.
So:
(a) Spin-0 demanded by relativity
(b) Weak Isospin-1/2 demanded by observations (we don't have two electromagnetic forces)
(c) Low mass demanded by quantum triviality
(d) Interactions fixed by quantum mechanics and relativity.
So the Higgs has to look like this or quantum field theory would be wrong in some way. And now we've found a boson with exactly those properties.

IOW, the standard model predicted that we should find a particle with very specific characteristics at a given energy. That prediction has been tested and found to be accurate. This is extremely strong evidence that the standard model, which includes the Higgs, is correct.

 

[Doveaman]

Son Goku over at EvC forum had a great post on the Higgs.

IOW, the standard model predicted that we should find a particle with very specific characteristics at a given energy. That prediction has been tested and found to be accurate. This is extremely strong evidence that the standard model, which includes the Higgs, is correct.

Mr. Ian Low doesn't have your confidence.

 

[Loudmouth]

Mr. Ian Low doesn't have your confidence.

He would agree that the data collected so far is consistent with the Higgs, but is short of completely ruling out all other possibilities. The very fact that they did find the energy signatures they were looking for is a pretty big step in the direction of verifying the Higgs.

 

[renewed21]

What is a good source for a layman to learn about fundamental particles?