Scientists chasing a particle they believe may have played a vital role in creation of the universe indicated on Monday they were coming to accept it might not exist after all.
But they stressed that if the so-called Higgs boson turns out to have been a mirage, the way would be open for advances into territory dubbed “new physics” to try to answer one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.
[…]
Under what is known as the Standard Model of physics, the boson, which was named after British physicist Peter Higgs, is posited as having been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter just after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
But it’s way too soon to give up.
“There are many models out there; we simply need to be nudged in the right direction,” added Gagnon, an experimental physicist.
All we really need to know about models, we learned in climate science.
h/t Kevin
But the particle physicists actually try to test their theories, nor do they demand that we make destructive changes to entire world economy because the Higgs boson may or may not exist.
Climate Scientology . . . making predictions that don’t happen, forecasting only doom & gloom, inventing data, corrupting model outputs.
Now that is science worthy of ignoring.
All we really need to know about models, we learned in climate science.
Nuff said, you all lost my confidence.
There is a difference between algorythims and AL GORE ITHMS .
to quote chef ramsay
PISS OFF ALL OF YOU!!! lol
What Gord said.
High-energy physics is all about testable hypotheses.
(And not predictions of future events that just happen to need to be the same prediction every time, with a modified model after every failure…)
Sure, they need some very expensive apparatus to test them, but they do test them, and theories are abandoned if they don’t produce the results they predicted – and just as pleasingly, sometimes they work out, or reveal something novel in the process of testing.
If the Higg’s boson hasn’t been found, then the model needs to be modified to properly account for the data.
Climate Scientology, as Fred suggests, tries to ‘fit the data’ into the climate model, which of course is the reverse.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North
Reminds me of the search for magnetic monopoles.
All models are wrong. Some models are useful. Tested against reality, the current models of physics have turned out to be extraordinarily useful. That’s why your cell phone works.
Climate models have turned out to be utterly useless for anything other than lining the pockets of charlatans.
“There are many models out there; we simply need to be nudged in the right direction”.
LOLZ
I really don’t hold any opinion (nor should I) on the current state of physics research, but the quote was simply too funny to let pass.
Really? Because I have to say you disappoint. Unless you’re trying to illustrate, tongue in cheek wise, how what passes for climate science has soured the public on all science, I’d like you to reconsider.
We live in a world which could not exist without these imperfect but often close enough physics models.
What differentiates between the physicists and the climatologists is that the first group is trying to learn how the world works, while the second is going between trying to guess and trying to dictate.
Another way to look at it is that a physicist who is proven wrong can often leverage that to learn something useful. Think of it like diagnosing your computer for a fault: you check everything, make a guess based on evidence, and then see if addressing that does anything. If not, you check that off the list of possible problems, and move onto the next theory.
THAT is why the man said they need something to nudge them in the right direction. They’re looking for a lead on how the universe was made. That they learn they were wrong means they’re trying.
In physics research, when the data contradict the theory, the theory is wrong.
In climate research, when the data contradict the theory, the data are wrong.
Different types of models. The climate “models” are essentially computer simulations that rely on hypotheses and data to predict future climate states. The performance of the model (vis-a-vis actual climate) is not used to test or question the hypotheses–just to generate scary climate scenarios to attract attention and funding. Physics models are hypothesized constructs used to conceptualize reality that are designed and put forward as testable and falsifiable. The models help design experiments that yield useful information about reality. Good models help science advance and really good models have enough predictive accuracy to enable effective engineering.
This is tawdry, cheap and unbecoming to a smart libertarian blogger.
This is tawdry, cheap and unbecoming to a smart libertarian blogger.
“a vital role in creation of the universe” Perhaps by Higgs Boson, scientists mean a Creator who must not be named but if you were dyslexic you might call him doG.
Is an experimental physicist like an experimental car?
I recently saw a TV program on experimental work in physics being done in an abandoned mine in Sudbury, looking for some nanoparticles the name of which escapes me at the moment. The equipment was very involved and was costing millions to run and maintain; by the end of the program no one indicated whether or not they had ever detected these particles for all that effort.
All you really need to know about models, you learned from fashion shows.
Sorry, but that’s a bad analogy.
Tweet!!
15 yard penalty to Imethisguy for piling on.
Mike McCormick at August 23, 2011 4:02 PM
I am a dyslexic, and have a lot more colorfull name for THAT magician:-))))
Dennis at August 23, 2011 4:59 PM
the particle of which you speak has been proven to exist, and the japankneez have determind that this paricle is massive (has mass), problem is that “mass” has not been proven to exist:-))))
“All we really need to know about models, we learned in climate science. ”
What an absurd statement. You cannot possibly be comparing physics science models to climate(pseudo science) models are you? WTF
“I recently saw a TV program on experimental work in physics being done in an abandoned mine in Sudbury, looking for some nanoparticles the name of which escapes me at the moment. The equipment was very involved and was costing millions to run and maintain; by the end of the program no one indicated whether or not they had ever detected these particles for all that effort.”
Neutrinos, not “nano-particles”. And we first directly observed neutrinos back in the 1950’s – the first guys to do it even got a Nobel prize. But I’m sure it’s just a conspiracy by scientists to get more funding and impose their immoral ideology on us good conservative folk.
Yup. Those folks know their statistics, and can be pretty sure when
they haven’t seen something. And if an idea is wrong, it is wrong.
Re Dennis’s comment – the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is meant.
The existence of electron neutrinos was demonstrated in the 1950s as Alex says.
SNO demonstrated the existence of neutrino oscillations in solar neutrinos. It is a very considerable achievement.
The Creighton mine, in which SNO is located, is a working mine
BTW. That was essential for SNO to be affordable.
I dunno I am going to keep my crowbar handy just in case.
Kate: “I really don’t hold any opinion (nor should I) on the current state of physics research, but the quote was simply too funny to let pass.”
Al Gore: “I really don’t hold any opinion (nor should I) on the current state of climate research, but the boatload of money was simple not to let pass.”
The Higgs boson has not been excluded; rather, the recent excess of signal over background ‘noise’ over a range of hypothesized Higgs masses was shown to be a statistical phenomenon.
Further, the definitive exclusion of the Higgs *will* be new physics. Without the Higgs, spontaneous electroweak symmetry breaking falls apart, which contradicts a host of other experimental results. Further, something “Higgs-like” must regulate the gauge boson scattering at high energies.
Never, ever, ever look to mass media for even-close-to accurate reporting on anything that is remotely complicated. That includes you, SDA.
I thought “Higgs boson” was an officer on Higgs’ yacht?
When DC’s rockin’ don’t come a kockin’…