Higgs Boson...Err What ?

When it comes to particle physics. I am not the sharpest bullet in the rifle...

So July 4 the 2012..The Higgs Boson has been identified, Just one small question presents, What is a Higgs Boson Particle?

So to help me and anyone else who needs a hand to get their head around what all the fuss is about a Higgs Boson. I found the following analagy most helpful;

Imagine looking down from a balcony in a ballroom, watching a cocktail party below. When just plain folks try to go from one end of the room to the other, they can walk through easily, with no resistance from the party crowd. But when a celebrity shows up, other partygoers press around him/her so tightly that he/she can hardly move ... and once he/she moves, the crowd moves with him in such a way that the whole group is harder to stop.

The partygoers are like Higgs bosons, the just plain folks are like massless particles, and The Celebrity is like a massive Z boson.

Now having been furnished with this understanding, I will leave it in your hands to decide on exactly what relevance or impact if any, this discovery has on Spirituality

It is suggestive to me at least, that sans physicality, both before and after life as we experience it in Human form, we are perhaps a bit Higgs bonish ourselves.

Like I said though, It really is up to you to decide whether science and spirituality can come together in this matter.

[Internal Queries]

so a "celebrity particle" accumulates mass/energy by attracting "ordinary particles"?

So far so good. Sticking with the analogy don't we have to ask ourselves what the attraction force is that let's ordinary folks cluster around celebrities? Does that not bring us back to square one?

[Internal Queries]

Originally Posted by Rin

So far so good. Sticking with the analogy don't we have to ask ourselves what the attraction force is that let's ordinary folks cluster around celebrities? Does that not bring us back to square one?

charisma?

[Silver]

Originally Posted by Rin

So far so good. Sticking with the analogy don't we have to ask ourselves what the attraction force is that let's ordinary folks cluster around celebrities? Does that not bring us back to square one?

Yeah, very good question to pose, Rin.


.....Ups! I see IQ already has an 'answer' - kuhl, heh...

Originally Posted by Internal Queries

so a "celebrity particle" accumulates mass/energy by attracting "ordinary particles"?

Apparently, though the celebrity Particle is thought of as a Z Boson .

Originally Posted by Rin

So far so good. Sticking with the analogy don't we have to ask ourselves what the attraction force is that let's ordinary folks cluster around celebrities? Does that not bring us back to square one?

Yes Unless it's a Naturally occurring phenomena within the Z Boson that works a bit like Magnetism, After all the Z Boson err Celebrity is born When an electron and a positron collide, they annihilate to a virtual particle,
either a photon or a Z boson. Photons ofcourse having to do with Light where as Z Bosons are the progenitors, when combined with the Higgs Boson , of Mass...

I'd thought I was beginning to get a handle on this until you two started

More education required for me methinks , but it's going to have to be in simple laymans language, otherwise what is I am sure one of the most important discoveries of our times is going to slip right over my head, and the heads of a fare few others.

If this turns out to be the elusive Higgs, this will certainly be a huge step towards unravelling some of the mysteries of our Universe... a huge step... not the final answer (the standard model will still be incomplete)... but a huge (massive) step. Naturally, the 'discovery' of the Higgs will ultimately lead to even more questions... but, wow... I don't even know what to say... just thinking about the possibilities... electroweak force, supersymmetry, the origin of mass... what an exciting time to be alive.

"The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe."

"We know it is a new boson. But we still have to prove definitively that it is the one that Higgs predicted."

"It's a boson:" Higgs quest bears new particle


They still need to prove that this particle is the one predicted by the Standard Model... they could have (finally) 'found' the Higgs, or they might have found something else, maybe something even more elusive. But, it looks as though it just might be the Higgs Boson, as predicted by the Standard Model... I'm keeping my fingers crossed, for sure.

The nickname 'The God Particle' came about (unwittingly) after a book authored by (physicist) Leon Lederman... he actually wanted to call it the 'goddamn particle' because it is so elusive.

What great news to start the day

[norseman]

Dont forget that all the questions could be, and probably were, asked about neutrons and sub-atomic particles - the end of that line of theory were nuclear power and weapons. Who knows what will come out of Higgs-Bosun.

I have long time been in my heart , hopeful that science can one day confirm what spirituality infers. The schism has long held, but discoveries like this might , when viewed in a certain light , bee seen to be working towards healing the schism between science and spirituality.. Now all I have to figure out is whether the soul is comprised of particles,

Just a thought,but have they really observed it, or is it,s exsistance just been postulated,in order that a nice neat answer,to an awkward question,can be published in scientific journals. I am reminded of the "fact" that other planets have been "discovered" simply by observing that distant stars appear to wobble ,due to the so called gravitational pull of attendant planets, this is all unproven hypothesis