What are the implications of CERN's discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle?

I think it is a massive deal, probably not for us, but for the next generation.

I could be wrong, but the way I see it, this is a big step towards humans controlling matter in a way that has never been done before. I am thinking along the lines of Star Trek replicators.

With this discovery, the work on the genome, the work on nano materials and quantim physics, makes me think that this is a major step towards humans controlling atoms and all things small as we have been controlling wood and stone for the past few thousand years.

Just imagine, if in the future humans become able to neutralise the higgs particle within matter, they can make objects completely massless, potentially enabling close to or even faster than light travel.
But anyway, a big hurray for Europe’s scientific supremacy.

The thing I don’t get about all of this is if it takes years of research and insane amounts of money to get a blip on a sensor for an instant, how much harder is it going to be to actually study these things and learn about their properties and how they work? I’m glad they’ve done it—don’t get me wrong.

@gorillapaws
According to wiki, the entire project was only about 8 billion €.
That is just a bit more than half of NASA’s annual budget and 1/70th of the colonial annual defence spending.
The LHC is dirt cheap, by comparison.

@ragingloli you’ll find no arguments from me against converting defense spending into funding research. But 8 billion is a lot of money when compared to other scientific research projects. I’m not saying it’s a mistake, but a lot of cancer research could be done, or HIV, or alternative energy, or ways to reverse global warming, etc (and it’s true the Higgs may end up playing a role in those solutions). I do wonder how many orders of magnitude of resources it will take though for researchers to get an “understanding” of the Higgs.

Well, most other research does not need the kind of technical equipment that particle physics does.

@gorillapaws I think that one must consider the potential applications when weighing against the cost of research.
I look forward to the reports of continued discoveries. I feel we may have just crossed a threshold into a whole new realm of understanding.

For the average person, nothing. For theoretical physics, it’s everything. I say “Wow”. I just wish they didn’t call it the “God Particle.” Because it’s not.

It increases our understanding of the Universe. That is good enough for me. I have not heard any knowledgeable person suggest any practical uses. The thing is only around for a billionth of billionth of a second.

It all seems very mysterious. How can mass come from a single particle? If the Higgs particle is the source of mass, how can it weigh more than other particles?

This may be of interest to people like me who have only a basic understanding of particle physics. Any development in this field is quite literally life-changing, but discovering proof of the particle that gives mass to all other particles is phenomenal.

If all it did was confirm the validity of the Standard Model, that would be huge in the field. But to take up @gorillapaws objection, advances in understanding of particle physics may hold the only available key to the survival of the human species. We are going to have to leave Earth. In another billion years or so, the Sun will have consumed enough of its fuel that the habitable zone will move beyond Earth and our surface water will all evaporate. In under 8 billion years, the Sun will shrink back down to a relatively cold dwarf star. So even if the solar winds and reduction in solar mass save Earth from being swallowed into the solar corona in its Red Giant stage, life on Earth will be impossible. And there is a strong possibility some cataclysm like the one that wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago will strike Earth far before any of that. If we’re going to leave Earth, we are going to need to master particle physics. And who knows what energy sources that mastery will unlock?

A lot of the practical applications from particle physics is not from the particles themselves, but the technology that is required to find them. It is possible that the Higgs boson, like antimatter and tau-neutrinos, may be almost completely useless, at least for a very long time. However, building the LHC required many technologies that had hardly been invented yet, which have applications outside of physics.

They had to use 1,740 massive superconducting magnets and an incredible amount of superconducting cable. Some other technological advancements include being able to dig a cavern large enough to hold a 12 story building. They had to create some of the most powerful magnets ever made, with a field 100,000 times more powerful than the Earth’s. In order to create the 73,000 microchips needed for the detectors, they had to create a new method of assembly. A 7,000-tonne detector had to be lowered down a shaft with as little as 10 cm of clearance on either side.

All of these have applications in other engineering projects. Having figured out how to build the LHC, people now know how to build other stuff too. One benefit is that the payoff is relatively quick: we don’t have to wait until somebody figures out a use for the Higgs boson.

@PhiNotPi Excellent point. Today we take for granted a plethora of technology such as small, powerful computers; cell phones; materials science advances and much more that grew out of figuring out how to put a man on the moon. So to claim that the space program was a huge waste of money because moon rocks are of no real value to mankind would be to make a drastic and dangerous error in assessing what drives technology ahead. Many trillions of dollars in GDP are directly tied to the billions invested in that research.

@ETpro I wouldn’t necessarily call it an objection. I do think it was worth doing. I just think it’s also useful to consider the opportunity costs of such a project, what other research could have been done with those resources: both human and financial. Maybe the current setup is sufficient to learn all we need to know about how the Higgs works, but from my lay understanding, it seems like that will be difficult to do for something that’s only detectable for such an infinitesimally brief duration.

With regards to the survival of the species argument. It might be argued that we have much more immediate concerns in this regard with the threats of global climate change (or possibly asteroid impacts). The Higgs may end up being the key to this problem as well, but I suspect most top scientists in the fields related to solving the global climate change problem have projects they feel might address these challenges more directly than the particle physics approach (just a hunch).

I guess I’ll be more satisfied when we figure out how these subatomic particles really work, instead of merely trying to confirm/deny their predicted existence (not to say this isn’t an important first step).

@gorillapaws It is not possible to know the opportunity cost of basic research. Opportunity cost makes sense in an applied research evaluation, but not in basic research. Back when the Greek philosophers first began pondering what matter consists of, could they have weighed the value of molecular biology, medicine, materials science, energy production, and on and on against the threat of nuclear Armageddon?

Unfortunately, it simply is not possible to figure out how things work till you figure out that they exist. But simply confirming that the standard model is accurate, while useful and satisfying, is an incredibly small reward compared to all the possible benefits that will come from understanding the Higgs field.

@ETpro You can still total the costs (although as you say we have no way of calculating all of the potential benefits), and project what alternative research could be done with equivalent resources (still hard to do, but less difficult in the case of applied research, as you point out).

@gorillapaws You can’t compare basic research opportunity costs against those of applied research because the very consideration of opportunity cost calls for cost/benefit analysis, and in the case of basic research it is impossible to even make a SWAG at payoff. Consider this, though. Suppose that back when we believed that the Earth was flat, and that all matter was composed of earth, wind, fire and water we had decided to forego any further basic research until it was clear why it should be funded. Where would we be today? I know full well I’d be dead, because I have lived for more than twice the average life expectancy of humans of that day.

@ETpro I don’t fully buy that. I realize it’s hard to compare the two, but it would be impossible to prioritize funding and resources if there weren’t some way for scientists to objectively evaluate these projects relative to each other. Again, I can’t state this point any more clearly, I’m not rejecting the importance of basic research. Clearly the optimal path is a mix of both types of research, and deciding when any particular project gets priority over another involves many shades of grey.

@gorillapaws It isn’t just hard to compare the two, it is impossible. You cannot run a cost/benefit analysis on something with no clue what the benefits might be. To get * anywhere* you have to split resources between both basic and applied research.

I can’t state my disagreement any more clearly either. I pointed out why this particular basic research, if successful, may well hold the key to future human survival. If that isn’t reason enough to fund it, I can’t provide any more compelling case.

@ragingloli – Well, we should not forget that dozens of top-notch American scientists contributed to the success of CERN’s experiment as well. I just finished reading Lisa Randall’s book Knocking on Heaven’s Door. She’s involved as well. I wonder about her comments on the particular energy signature of 125.3 GeV.

@gorillapaws – Well, without the Iraq war and that money used for space travel, we’d probably sent people to Mars and the Jovian moons… I’d call the money for the Iraq war insane.

@mattbrowne I couldn’t agree more. Although I would have preferred if we hadn’t gone into massive debt in the first place.

@Rarebear – Totally agree about the inappropriate nickname. This applies to the ToE as well, because everything is more than the E in the acronym. However, without the inappropriate term ‘God particle’ a lot of people would see CERN as an even greater waste of money. The term at least conveys the idea that CERN’s search is about something huge.

@LostInParadise – The top quark with its mass of about 173 GeV weights more than this newly found particle.

@mattbrowne is there any way of knowing at this point if it’s possible that the Higgs could itself be made of even more basic particles?

@ETpro – I actually believe that before another billion years humanity will have the technology to alter the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, i.e. push it out further, keeping it in the habitable zone. That seems easier than fast interstellar travel, but harder than slow interstellar travel.

I came across this, which shows that there is still a lot for physicists to figure out. From a practical point of view, the Standard Model, when combined with relativity, has been very successful. From a theoretical point of view, it is still incomplete.

@gorillapaws At last we hit a point of strong agreement. A Trillion Dollars invested in the Iraq War to remove the one Middle-Eastern dictator who was actually a counter to Iran’s growing Shiite influence. We added massively to the US National Debt and the hatred that most Muslims hold for us so we could massively complicate Israel’s continued defense. Sheer idiocy—but that is what a nation gets when they select a near idiot as their appointed leader then actually listen to him on matters of foreign policy.

@mattbrowne My best guess is you are likely right that powering spaceship Earth may be more closely within reach than any feasible form of interstellar travel. Star-Trek like space travel will not happen until some technology for Warp Drive is achieved, and the Electron Volts required to warp space would make CERN look like a tiny battery powered device in relation to all the energy our Sun has released in the last 4.8.billion years. We can’t rely on that habitable zone forever, though. When the sun finally consumes all its fusion-able fuel and collapses into its own gravity well, this solar system will drop to near absolute zero. It will be a dark and unwelcoming place for life as we currently know it.

@LostInParadise That’s a great link. Thanks. I found this article meant to help science teachers field student questions on why finding the Higgs Field is so important to the study of particle physics—which itself is so vital to an understanding of how things in the Universe actually work. I love the Heinlein quote the author uses in building his case.

Here’s a video aimed at explaining the excitement about the Higgs Field for those who aren’t particle physicists.

Thanks @ETpro !

OK, last word on the LHC and the Higgs Jigs.