Neutrinos aren't cool. You know what's cool? Bosons.

[Hieronymus]

Not much news lately regarding those supposedly faster-than-light neutrinos, but there was some other big news in physics today - CERN announced that they've found tantalizing hints of the Higgs boson, one of the last undiscovered elements of the "Standard Model" of particle physics.  Finding the Higgs boson provides evidence for existence of the Higgs field, the thing that gives all objects mass.  Scientifically, this is important stuff.

Apparently, the results haven't quite reached statistical significance yet - that should take another year or so - but they're at a state where they're more likely to be right than wrong.

[BlackWatch]

Wow, really?! If science can prove the Higgs field exists it may change the way we think about the entire universe!

In terms of the faster-than-light neutrinos the same experiment was conducted again and the same results were found. So it seems that they can travel faster than the speed of light, but nobody knows how or why.

Exciting times for science for sure!

[SM]

I heard this explained via the Beeb this morning and it sounded a lot like the Force...

If this thing gives all object mass and a way could be found to control it, you could break the light barrier by changing the mass of an object to nothing rather than it become infinite.






Am I getting a bit ahead of things?

[deezelboy]

Yeah! 

If science can prove the Higgs field exists it may change the way we think about the entire universe!

Well, it's more like the opposite. If they find the Higgs boson, it's added confirmation that the way we think about the Universe is probably the right way.

But if they don't find it, it really will change the way we think about the Universe!

[BlackWatch]

You must be referring to dark matter and dark energy?

[SM]

Dark matter = The Colour Out of Space.

[deezelboy]

Dark energy = Davros' reality bomb.

You must be referring to dark matter and dark energy?

Nah.  The current way we think about how subatomic particles interact is defined by the Standard Model.  The Standard Model's really quite successful - all the particles the Standard Model predicts have been found, with the exception of the Higgs boson. Hence all the looking - if the Standard Model's correct, it should exist.

So if they don't find the Higgs boson in the range predicted by the Standard Model, we're in new territory (and the tests begin to find which of the competing theories, if any, provide a better model of particle interaction).  But if they do find it, everything's hunky-dory with the Standard Model for the while and the current dominant understanding of this area of physics doesn't change.

(Although it should be noted in relation to dark energy and dark matter that the Standard Model isn't so hot with either.)