Much excitement today as the clever boys and girls at CERN announce they have found a new boson, and they are pretty sure it belong to Professor Higgs.
Expect general apathy. After all, it’s not a shiny new widget that we can buy, or a Z-list personality whose marriage and almost immediate divorce we can follow in the Daily Mail. It’s a boson, and if we really understood what a boson was and how it operates we would be sat in a laboratory doing clever sums and making out with lab assistants called Felicity (I have a somewhat skewed perspective of an academic life).
Of course there will be the inevitable documentaries on what it all means; featuring very few facts that we can grasp, accompanied by computer generated graphics of galaxies exploding as a small compensation for us being so stupid. Personally, I will look forward the Dr. Brian Cox show. Not only does he stir my homoerotic tendencies, he is also bloody good at explaining stuff without appearing to be dumbing things down too much; even though from his perspective he is talking to brain-damaged toddlers. He also has a great production team. I remember an episode of “Wonders of the Universe” where he spends half the show walking around an abandoned prison in Rio. This initially seemed like a massive waster of someone’s money; until he used it to explain the creation of elements in a dying star, and finished off the story with the star/prison being blown up. Genius storytelling.
But bugger the apathy. Even attempting to wrap our inadequately evolved brains around the magnificence and complexity of the universe is enough to trigger awe. I am talking real awe here, not the awe as in “awesome” when your waiter applauds your dessert choice. And the people who dedicate their lives to researching this stuff? They exemplify all that is admirable in the human spirit (unless they are only in it for the lab assistants).
Fortunately for you gentle reader, you do not have to wait for the offerings from the established media to further your understanding of the Higgs Boson (shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in there somewhere? Genuinej, please advise). At vast personal expense (mainly threats), I have arranged for our own, our very own, Camberley to provide an explanation.
When I first met Camberley he was, like me, a fairly junior accountant. When I last met Camberley we had both clambered over the bodies of the dead and reached “Finance Director” status; except I had the honour of being FD for a teeny tiny offshoot of the empire, and he was the FD of the chemicals sector which gave him considerably more seniority, and cash. But my teeny tiny offshoot was based in Bangkok, and he worked in London, so I won.
The difference in our career trajectories, and indeed our basic intelligence, is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that I left school at seventeen with a handful of O levels and a pocket full of scruffy dreams (none of which were realised), and Camberley knocked off a doctorate in nuclear physics (spin theory if I recall) before even looking at a set of books. So, who better than Camberley, sorry, Doctor Camberley to give us some perspective on today’s announcement:
The Higgs Boson for laymen.
That is what Spike asked me to write about given today’s announcement from CERN. He obviously thinks I know a lot more than do. But anyway here we go.
Once upon a time a man named Higgs said “Why do particles have mass? I know; I will say that all particles have mass because of something called a Higgs Boson that can only be detected with a multi-trillion dollar machine and an army of physicists. That should keep the buggers busy for decade or so.” And so it came to pass.
I must say this has been one of the longest ever confirmations in history, and even now they are not sure. They saw hints of the particle some months ago. How can you have a hint of a particle? Now while some of them are cracking open bottles of champagne others are saying, and I quote:
“Formal confirmation of the discovery is expected within months, though it could take several years for scientists to work out whether they have found the simplest kind of Higgs particle that theories predict, or part of a more complex picture…one of a larger family of Higgs bosons.”
So now there maybe other kinds of Higgs (someone clever than me will have to work out how to pluralise that word, or better still develop a collective noun for a group Higgsis – see, I said it needed someone clever than me).
It was all so different when I was at school. We knew what gave things mass, it was something called stuff. Lead had more stuff in it than air and so was heavier, simple.
What else has changed in that time? It used to be that the universe started as a Big Bang, everything was expanding, but because of gravity it all would eventually start contracting to end in a Big Crunch. Oops, it seems the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. Explain that then. “I know” said the scientists, “it is cause by something called Dark Energy which will require the total GDP of all the countries in the world for the whole of human civilization to find. That should keep the buggers busy for … ever.”
To sumarise the little bit of what I gather is current scientific thinking:
• String Theory (apparently the theory of everything) says we live in a 9 dimensional world, except some think it might be 11 or is it 5?).
• After the Big Bang the universe rapidly expanded (called inflation), that is, space itself got bigger so that some things that were near each other suddenly were millions of miles apart – without any of them moving.
• Actually no say some others, the Big Bang did not happen in one place it happened everywhere at once and that our 4 dimensional (??) universe is actually a surface on a 5 dimensions object and our surface collided with another surface of this object and that was the Big Bang.
• Well possibly not say others. Our 4 dimensional universe is possibly (?) a holographic representation from a 3 dimensional thing (my word).
• Don’t worry about it say others, there are an infinite number of universes and we just happen to be in one of them. Oh and by the way quantum mechanics says that time can run backwards.
Is you brain hurting yet? Would you trust these people to run your banks? I would say “yes” to the first and “can’t be worse than what we have now to the second”.
Thank you Doctor Camberley, and please give my regards to your charming wife Felicity (I rest my case).
So there you are, perfectly clear to me now; although even eleven dimensions is not enough to explain she who must be obeyed’s shoe collection. But I fear there may be some of you who may still be confused; and for you I have prepared a simplified explanation.
Consider this photo:
On the left, an orange, representing the vastness of our known universe.
On the right, clearly marked as containing “orange juice with pulp”, representing the current sum of human knowledge regarding the known universe.
And what, I can hear you asking, is the fundamental difference between these two? Well, that would be the Higgs Boson.
You will probably see the same example being used on a special edition of Horizon (except they will unnecessarily blow up the orange at the end of the show); just remember you saw it here first.
You’re welcome.
Comments 🔗
2012-07-04| Sid says“On the left, an orange, representing the vastness of our known universe.
On the left, clearly marked as containing “orange juice with pulp”, representing the current sum of human knowledge regarding the known universe.”
So are you trying to say that both the orange and the bottle exist in a parallel (left handed) universe?
2012-07-04| Spike saysAlmost certainly. (thanks)
2012-07-04| genuinej saysPlease can you turn the bottle round so we can see where it is clearly marked “orange juice with pulp”, as it’s not clear from this side and we can’t be expected just to take your word for it.
2012-07-04| Spike saysIt’s Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in action!
2012-07-04| genuinej saysIs it bollocks! I think you are confusing Heisenberg with Max Plancks or, worse, his brother Thikastu.
2012-07-04| Spike saysOK, I turned the bottle round.
2012-07-05| Barry saysIt might be very clever and maybe in decades we’ll all reap the benefit when they work out how to use the knowledge they’re gaining. But couldn’t the billions they’re spending be put to better use, like feeding starving kids in Africa or trying to find ways to make that toilet of a continent sustainable? Like the billions also being spent on sending spaceships to Saturn and beyond. I mean, first things first. But the human race doesn’t run on logic.
2012-07-05| Spike saysHave to disagree. Africa is in the mess it is in due to some of the baser human instincts that drive greed, selfishness and corruption. Throwing money at the place just feeds the problem. Searching for truths about the universe in which we find ourselves is, in my little mind, a noble human endeavour and we can’t do too much of it. Nothing about Africa makes me feel good to be human. This does: http://youtu.be/Ki_Af_o9Q9s Should you wish more cash to throw at perceived noble causes, then maybe the continually shrinking NASA budget of around $18 billion is not the best source. Instead may I suggest the every increasing and far less noble US “defence” spending which vomits more than $680 billion annually.
2012-07-05| Pete saysObviously both sides clearly state the same then - นํ้าส้มผสมเนี้อนํ้าส้ม - that orangey writing on top of the exploding orange bits.
2012-07-05| Clive saysSpike,
Sorry in advance for taking all this way too seriously….
Being interested in this overall story, I’ve read quite a few of the now published articles on the discovery of the Higgs. My short-answer analysis would be that 99% of the people writing on this topic don’t have a clue, even when they claim otherwise. I am definitely in the 99%…
The bit that really got me confused has been the continued reference to the Higgs boson as a particle, because for some reason my brain then insists on imagining this tiny, tiny, tiny spherical thing, in orbit around other spherical things, all within an atom.
But if I understand it correctly:-
What we’re actually talking about here is the Higgs field, which, in the Sir Alec Guiness “Star Wars” sense is literally an “energy field that binds the universe together”. People talk about Higgs giving things mass, but mass is actually the measure of an object’s inertia. The more it resists movement, the more mass it has. The boffins are now saying that intertia is actually a measure of how much something resists being moved through the Higgs field.
Well, okay… but what’s a Higgs boson then?
My best attempt at understanding this would be to say that the boson is actually like a little tiny measurable output from the interaction between the Higgs field and the “real” particles within an atom. Some particles do interfere with the Higgs field and thus have mass. Others [i.e. neutrinos] do not, and are thus said to be mass-less. Another description would be ‘inerference free’ in that they do not interfere with the Higgs field.
The Higgs is short-lived in the same way that sparks from a flint are short-lived - they are both the ‘violent’ side effects of a high-energy interaction that’s going on.
Personally, I think the scientist most deserving of the next research grant is the one who, when asked what all this means, says, “I dunno… but pretty cool, huh?”
In other news… got the 45mm f1.8. Sweet. Except the hood doesn’t fit. What’s with that? Next is going to be either the 7-14 f4.0, or the 100-300… I can’t decide.
2012-07-05| Spike saysPretty much exactly my orange analogy then… Can’t help you with the lens. I have both, perhaps you should too? If I was only allowed to take one for an outing it would be the 7-14mm; exceptional clarity and a funky view on the world.
2012-07-05| Camberley saysClive,
I too am in the 99% and my knowledge of quantum mechanics is old and very rusty but there are a few things I think it worth mentioning. There is really no such thing as a particle, just a probability function that something is somewhere, the neutrino apparently does have mass (I recall being taught that if it didn’t would travel at the speed of light) actually this is going to get very complicated very quickly. I recommend a book: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. A great introduction to string theory, or at least it was when I read it years ago. There may be better books available now
2012-07-05| Spike says“There may be better books available now”.
Fifty Shades of Grey". Apparently. Although that covers more rope theory than string theory.
2012-07-05| TheSon saysThe Elegant Universe is a fantastic book and I too can hugely recommend it. You don’t need a PhD in nuclear physics to comprehend and be awestruck by the concepts presented, too.
2012-07-05| TheSon saysSpot on, Clive.
2012-07-05| TheSon saysLogic? pfft. Fine, here, I’ll get you some cash to solve Africa - if we (the UK, that is) don’t host the Olympics (£12b) and halve our defence budget (£47b in 2012), you can have 30 billion pounds to do .. whatever it is you think will fix Africa (I would suggest a ground invasion to begin clearing out the warlords, but dealers choice) and we will still have change left over to build 2 spare LHCs on our own (£2.7b total; actual cost to UK: ~£500m in contribution to build, ~£100m a year to run/take part) or 3 Curiosity probes and send them to Mars.
2012-07-05| Jan saysthanks all now clear as , oh what is that word, Oh yes MUD but about your wifes shoe collection………..