Scientists Looking for the Force Finally Put CERN's Large Hadron Collider to Good Use

[sir.real]

Most physicists believe that there must be a Higgs field that pervades all space; the Higgs particle would be the carrier of the field and would interact with other particles, sort of the way a Jedi knight in Star Wars is the carrier of the "force." The Higgs is a crucial part of the standard model of particle physics--but no one's ever found it.

In theory, when physicists turn on the tons of machinery inside the Akira-like LHC 17-mile-long ring in 2008, they will be able to produce the Higgs boson. Observing it could confirm many physicist predictions and "missing links" in the Standard Model, which is a physics theory that aims to describe how elementary particles interact with each other. It's either that or destroy the planet. We can go either way (actually, although it was a joke, CERN just wrote back saying that they don't want to destroy the planet. Thankfully, Jeff Vader doesn't work there.)

The existence of the Higgs particle, also called the God Particle, has only been predicted so far. It was first proposed by University of Edinburgh physicist Peter Higgs in 1965, after coming from a walk on the mountains. If confirmed by the LHC, it could bring scientists closer to the Grand Unified Theory, "which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces."

The Force can also explain why the fourth, gravity, is weak compared to the other three: electromagnetism, strong force, and weak force. I guess the strong force is the good one and the weak force is really the Dark Side. I don't know. I'm lost now, so I'm just going to list other of the cool stuff that the LHC will produce: strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles.

source with collider pictures: http://gizmodo.com/359532/scientists-looking-for-the-force-finally-put-cerns-large-hadron-collider-to-good-use

[spherex]

i love that youre into this stuff. im interested in seeing where gravitons can go when atoms are directly smashed. but in turn if gravitons can move in between dimensions, that alone could change our planet drastically. sparticles are strong forces, and radiation is a weak force. recent studies have shown that gravity, what we once speculated as a weak force, could be as great a force as electromagnetism. the strong force is the strong nuclear force that acts like a glue holding nucleus of every atom together binding protons to neutrons. the weak force, allows nuetrons to turn into protons giving off radiation in the process. but gravity is overshadowed by these equations until elementary quantum mechanics is introduced. the messenger photon interacting with both forces is what was creating gravity on a plank scale.

i heard recently that a student in berlin united einsteins theory of relativity with quantum physics

[mikemcgrath]

not to mention creating anti-mater which would solve the worlds energy crisis and put an end to all the pollutant creating coal burning, ect... :)

[sir.real]

i heard recently that a student in berlin united einsteins theory of relativity with quantum physics


the last claim I heard on that subject was the string theory. there's a great nova pbs mini-series on the subject of 'this elegant universe'. you can watch it here. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html) but, i'm thinking that there have been further developments and a shift towards a more generally acceptable 'unified theory'. haven't checked into the new ways structure much yet.

[mike p]

String theory sort of explains why gravity seems weak compared to everything else.

There is a new atom smasher(not Xan) being built I think in Switzerland to help better explain string theory and/or m theory.

[Subvert]

I'll admit that I have no specific knowledge of Higgs or whatever, however the large hadron collider will certainly be phenomenal, but there is significant work being done in the US that is working toward answering a lot of the questions that this thing is working on too. Surprisingly, it has been happening more cheaply, but also faster than this big ass thing. I'm just remembering things I was reading about late last summer/early fall. I also wish the US had a big supercollider, but whatever.

All this shit is amazing, and it's a good feeling to be living through times like this where questions like this are likely to be answered.

[Subvert]

String theory sort of explains why gravity seems weak compared to everything else.


I finally let Nova give me a little bit of schooling about string theory (which to my impression is mainly just a bunch of weird math). Seeing that introduced me to something called something like the "brane" theory, as in membranes, which is related to string theory that sounds plausable, but I suspect that the universe is pretty fucked up weird no matter what we think we know about it.

That Nova thing really intrigued me too about why gravity is so weak compared to what we might think it should be mathematically compared to the other forces.

And Lucas deserves no credit other than from inventing the words. Just like Gibson and cyberspace.

[Subvert]

the last claim I heard on that subject was the string theory. there's a great nova pbs mini-series on the subject of 'this elegant universe'. you can watch it here. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html) but, i'm thinking that there have been further developments and a shift towards a more generally acceptable 'unified theory'. haven't checked into the new ways structure much yet.

I don't have the impression that there is a large scale popular shift towards one uniformed theory, but maybe I've missed something. There may be one magical string theory that merges all string theories, but that's a long way from merging with newtonian physics.

[spherex]

string theory can explain alot, however testing string theory is complicated, so many scientists divide the "quantum science" people from "string theorists". That NOVA 3part video is awesome none-the-less. it was one of my first videos like that.

the brane theory is really cool, almost says that the big bang was just a collission of 2 thoughts, and that it may still even be colliding to this day, and extra dimensions could be right next to us, we just cant see them, but gravity can

[mikemcgrath]

dudes, we are all just figments of bob ross's imagination.

[mike p]

I finally let Nova give me a little bit of schooling about string theory (which to my impression is mainly just a bunch of weird math). Seeing that introduced me to something called something like the "brane" theory, as in membranes, which is related to string theory that sounds plausable, but I suspect that the universe is pretty fucked up weird no matter what we think we know about it.

That Nova thing really intrigued me too about why gravity is so weak compared to what we might think it should be mathematically compared to the other forces.

And Lucas deserves no credit other than from inventing the words. Just like Gibson and cyberspace.
brane theory is known as m theory. String theory suggests that gravity being the strongest force we know, seems weak. We defy it every day. The reason they think that is would be that gravity goes between different dimensions, strings and membranes.

In an atom smasher gravity seems to go somewhere, but not know where. That's the hope with this new atom smasher that's being built will show us what actually happens.