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12:02 AM

@DavidZaslavsky Yes, made it an easy ready, I read the blog before it. I know enough physics to mostly follow you although must admit teh specific implications of some things are not clear to me.

David Zaslavsky

12:56 AM

@Kortuk For what it's worth, it's not all clear to me either

Kortuk

1:10 AM

@DavidZaslavsky Ha, I refuse to believe that.

2 hours later…

Manishearth

3:03 AM

@david echoing Kortuk, your blog was much more useful than anything else at the time.. There wasn't a press release that I could find, and all the news sites were on their standard "Crazy Physicists find God particle!!!!!!111" mode (and weren't saying anything new). Your post(s) were the only resource that I explained it properly ^.^

David Zaslavsky

@Manishearth hey, cool! Thanks :-)

Manishearth

David Zaslavsky

The press release was posted just after the ATLAS presentation started, and it included a couple of plots, but otherwise not much detail.

Manishearth

Hmm, I couldn't find it at the time (plus I'm too lazy to dig for it :p)

I'll look for it later

David Zaslavsky

Yeah, you didn't miss much. I found links on Twitter

hm, well here's one: press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2012/… but that's not the one I was thinking of

that has basically nothing

Manishearth

3:08 AM

Yeah, that doesn't really talk about the results

David Zaslavsky

Maybe this one? I can't really remember which page I was looking at at the time

And this from CMS

oh well, anyway: after a little while you learn to basically ignore what the news outlets and most big websites are saying.

Manishearth

Btw, synonym higgs and higgs-boson, please

David Zaslavsky

ooh, good call, will do

Manishearth

A whole lot of Higgs questions lately. To be expected :)

Unfortunately, quite a few are from the popsci view :\

David Zaslavsky

Yeah, well, most of them aren't terrible.

Manishearth

3:14 AM

Yep

David Zaslavsky

can't really complain about having a chance to be part of all the excitement

Manishearth

Yeah :)

Btw, I am right in saying that Higgs explains inertial mass, while the graviton explains gravitational mass, right?

David Zaslavsky

uh.... hm. The two kinds of mass are supposed to be exactly the same, so anything that explains one explains the other.

actually, wait, I lied :-P

"gravitational mass" should actually be "gravitational energy" since it's energy that couples to gravity.

and pressure, and stress, and momentum

So come to think of it, I guess you're right. Except that I would advise being very careful before saying "gravitational mass."

although, come to think of it, energy gives things inertia as well... so I'm really not sure :-P

Good question

Manishearth

Q: Why do we need Higgs field to re-explain mass, but not charge?

We already had definition of mass based on gravitational interactions since before Higgs. Its similar to charge which is defined based on electromagnetic interactions of particles. Why did Higgs need to introduce concept of universe-wide Higgs field to define mass based on interactions with it? ...

Whoops wrong one

He's basically asking why we need Higgs for mass, but no similar particle for gravity

I think my answer is correct, but no way to tell

It seems like it's not that simple from your messages above :P

David Zaslavsky

Yeah, honestly, I'm not really sure offhand what the status of inertial and gravitational mass is with respect to the Higgs.

Manishearth

3:27 AM

David Zaslavsky

But the more I think about it, the more I would say this: I don't believe the Higgs actually "produces" either of them. Both inertia and gravity result from energy, or the so-called relativistic mass. The Higgs only explains rest mass.

Manishearth

Ah.

Right...

But it explains the inertial aspect of rest mass, not the gravtiational aspect, right?

Though one comes from the other I guess

David Zaslavsky

I think they're the same

Basically, the mass of something like a proton comes from two main sources: the rest masses of the quarks, and the kinetic energies of the quarks and gluons

The Higgs boson is involved in the theoretical mechanism by which the quarks have a rest mass in the first place.

It's not involved in the kinetic energies at all.

Manishearth

Aah

David Zaslavsky

But both the rest mass and KE contributions to the overall mass of the proton do contribute to both inertia and gravity

Manishearth

3:32 AM

That's new to me

Exactly.

But doesn't the Higgs wading-through-water mechanism explain inertia?

Which should still work for bodies with "augmented" mass

David Zaslavsky

I think you're looking at a level of detail at which that analogy fails

Manishearth

Yeah, I know it's just at the surface

David Zaslavsky

Honestly, I'm not such a fan of that one

Manishearth

All wierd... You think I should leave my answer to that post as-is? Because I don't understand enough to take it to that level...

Or ought I delete it?

David Zaslavsky

Your call, I wouldn't say you have to delete anything

Manishearth

3:36 AM

Kk.. Anything that I could add to make it better?

In terms of this issue with inertial/gravitational mass

David Zaslavsky

I dunno... to be honest, the part after the horizontal line doesn't quite seem right to me, though I'm not really sure how to improve it

I was thinking about posting an answer to that one myself, actually - but I haven't had time yet

Manishearth

Same here--I was trying to explain why charge doesn't need a Higgs, but I failed miserably :p

David Zaslavsky

Yeah, basically charge is U(1) gauge invariance, which is way simpler

Manishearth

Aah

Like I said, waay out of my league :p

(OK, I sort of do understand where charge comes from, but not enough to explain it)

I'll wait for your answer then...

(if you're answering)

David Zaslavsky

sure, I will, I just can't do it right now

maybe in a couple hours

Manishearth

3:44 AM

3 hours later…

Kortuk

6:30 AM

Standard Model

The Standard Model of particle physics is a theory concerning the electromagnetic, weak, and strong nuclear interactions, which mediate the dynamics of the known subatomic particles. Developed throughout the mid to late 20th century, the current formulation was finalized in the mid 1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, discoveries of the bottom quark (1977), the top quark (1995), and the tau neutrino (2000) have given further credence to the Standard Model. Because of its success in explaining a wide variety of experimental results, the Standar...

Actually was REALLY helpful. Very impressed by the writing and I still remember most of that terrible graduate quantum class.

3 hours later…

Stack Exchange

9:36 AM

Q: Are questions about practical definition alowed?

I was going to ask about definition (explanation) of the word "bias". But I am wondering if it is a right question for Physic forum. This is the part of FAQ describing what type of questions should be asked here: Explanations of observed physical or astronomical phenomena Why does one...

discussion allowed-questions questions

5 hours later…

Stack Exchange

2:09 PM

Q: Did site activity just grow noticeably?

I get the feeling that there's been a marked increase in new questions, particularly about the Higgs - no surprise there - but also on other topics, which may be associated with an influx of people coming here to ask Higgs questions and sticking around for at least some more while. But then agai...

discussion site-statistics

6 hours later…

DForck42

8:37 PM

Jsut out of curiosity, is there any known application if we do figure out that the higgs boson is real? IE, from a technological standpoint, how could we use this knowledge other than just proving someone was right or wrong?

3 hours later…

David Zaslavsky

11:38 PM

@DForck42 Nope. At least not that anyone can think of.

-1

Q: what is physics cornerstones

i know that We have now found the missing cornerstone of particle physics, higgs particle and also i know that Werner Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is QM cornerstone. what is the others physics cornerstones?

general-physics

Close-worthy, I think?

Q: Practical matter of the Higgs-Mechanism

My maybe very naive question is, of what practical importance will the discovery of the Higgs-Mechanism be for our technological advance in the near future?