I was incredibly fortunate to meet him at CERN the day before the Higgs boson announcement. As an intern, I encountered him the evening prior; he was dining alone in the CERN cafeteria, blending in like a kindly elderly gentleman. He was exceptionally humble and courteous. I feel so lucky that I mustered the courage to speak with him and shake his hand. Rest in peace, Mr. Higgs.
The story of how Higgs predicted his mechanism was part of what got me into physics as a kid. It fit 10 year old me's obsession with the 'soft-spoken genius' archetype perfectly and formed a pillar in my belief that 'genius' was made through hard work (and some amount of luck) rather than being born with it.
The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was, what I was doing and very excitedly trying to explain how cool it was to my parents at the time.
Same, same, and same, + currently working on one of the LHC detectors as a phd student -- but it can all be traced back to the lore of the golden age of particle physics and the discovery of Brout–Englert–Higgs boson in 2012.
That is awesome, we need some more amazing scientists in the public eye to inspire the young. I know there are a lot of amazing scientists, but somehow need to get them on tiktok or something? Can you share the story?
Did you succeed with your parents? It's hard to be excited about theoretical physics as a layman. It has been a long time since any of those theories had any practical application.
With a layperson in mind, curious about physics, do you recommend any resource (hopefully not too math-intensive) to learn how the higgs boson actually "gives mass" to stuff?
Some of my professors during my physics BS worked with the LHC during the mad scramble to find the particle. I remember people saying tongue in cheek "The Higgs particle doesn't exist, but it's inside this energy range."
Lame claim to fame: Higgs was the PhD supervisor of one of my university professors. He told us that Higgs left a message on his desk before going hiking one weekend to the effect that he'd had a great idea and would tell them all about it when he got back.
I wonder if he got the idea from Hardy, who before undertaking a journey on a very small boat sent a postcard saying he had proved the Riemann Hypothesis:
Hardy stayed in Denmark with Bohr until the very end of the summer vacation, and when he was obliged to return to England to start his lectures there was only a very small boat available…. The North Sea can be pretty rough, and the probability that such a small boat would sink was not exactly zero. Still, Hardy took the boat, but sent a postcard to Bohr: “I proved the Riemann Hypothesis. G.H. Hardy.” If the boat sinks and Hardy drowns, everybody must believe that he has proved the Riemann Hypothesis. Yet God would not let Hardy have such a great honor and so He will not let the boat sink.
It was a success for particle physics that they found the Higgs, but it was also a tragedy. Discovering the Higgs and nothing else new was the nightmare scenario for the LHC, and so it has come to pass.
Calling it a nightmare scenario is quite the overdramatic description of a successful experiment that validated a core prediction of the standard model
Sad to hear, I remember the excitement over the experimental evidence once his particle was detected. I'm always amazed by theoretical predictions that can actually be verified plus it was interrsting to hear about the higgs boson as part of my studies shortly after it was detected. Nowadays it seems many theoretical predications are not even close to being verifiable in the coming years or with the current and planned tech. Unless we are talking about superconductivity at room temperature ofc
(For me personally, I gave a massive sad sign when I saw this on the homepage. I really liked him a lot for a few reasons: He did his thinking in isolation, for a long period of time walking around the Scottish highlands . He was a keen disciple of interdisciplinary thought being pivotal to innovation. He appears to have imagined things and thought about things in a pretty weird way for his time, although that might seem obvious, how well he grappled with the reality of weirdness is exemplary. 힝)
With the knowledge and technology of today there is arguably very little direct economic value to be had from this part of particle physics. One cannot preclude potential future implications though (it has happened many times in the past that understanding phenomena that were far removed from everyday experience created later the conditions for massive technological breakthroughs).
Particle physicists and other researchers in fundamental science are also typically keen to point out at indirect effects. E.g., building the massive accelerators to detect particles pushes forward more conventional technologies. The Web was famously invented to serve CERN collaboration needs.
It serves as an important confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics, which is a foundational theory underpinning many other important discoveries. But the particle itself probably has no current practical application.
Don't downvote them! This is actually a good question! (and gives us a chance to talk about why we should pursue these things!)
It's also incredible difficult to answer! Can we define what it means? Direct or indirect?
=== Indirect (LHC) ===
Well one of the reasons the LHC was built was to find the Higgs. To do so, we had to invent a lot of shit along the way. Thing is, when you're pushing the bounds of human knowledge, you don't exactly have all the devices you need to measure and test everything. The WWW[0] is famously one of such "spin-offs" as we needed to connect scientists from around the globe to distribute the data from this project. Remember that it is an international project[1*]. There is also a lot about superconductors and refrigeration, both of which significantly contribute to modern medical devices. A lot for magnets, vacuum devices, and electronics, all of which have permeated into industry.
These scientific projects also are a big political effort and demonstrate good will and can be grounds for collaboration and building democracies. The hosting countries also have a lot to benefit from as direct collaboration happens there. Just think of the force of putting a bunch of very smart people in a room together, especially when they are experts in very different things. It's difficult to predict the direct revenue, but at such a cheap cost, even small innovations can easily end up covering the costs. Certainly the internet has more than paid for CERN, in the form of tax revenues to each country compared to the cost they give, not to mention benefit to the public (especially considering other indirect aspects).
=== Direct (LHC) ===
Maybe a bit harder. There's some slides here [2] that claim CERN nets 3.3bn for 1993 - 2038. You can find much more detail here[3] and another independent one here[4]. I'd just like to note [4]'s last line in their abstract:
We conservatively estimate that there is around a 90% probability that benefits exceed costs, with an expected net present value of about 2.9 billion euro, not considering the unpredictable applications of scientific discovery.
=== Specifically the Higgs ===
That's unfortunately impossible to say. To make use of it technologically we're at least 50 years away, which is to say "who the fuck knows". But also remember the cost is almost nothing. If we speculate, it is not unreasonable that the technologies that could be enabled through the understanding of this science (and the requisite further knowledge we'll need) could be insurmountable. We're talking about understanding how mass works. So if we're ever going to invent things like inertial dampeners (which would make mass an irrelevant aspect of transportation), mass effect drives, gravity generators, and so on, knowledge of the Higgs would be essential. But don't hold your breath on seeing technologies any time soon.
Remember that we're playing the long game with science. It is good to think about short term, but never forget the long game. If you forget you may win battles but will lose the war.
=== Side Note About Money ===
The LHC is actually one way I like to think about the ultra billionaires (like Musk, Bezos, Gates types). The reason being that with that level of wealth we cannot ignore the effects of compound interest, as this plays a significant role. Let's take Bezos, the #2 on the list (behind Bernard Arnault) with $203.3B. We can ask, how many LHCs could Bezos make? We assume 10 years to build at 0.5B/yr and then 1B/yr to operate. We'll assume a 7% interest rate, compounded yearly, which means 14.231B/yr! So clearly Bezos is worth at least 14 LHCs! We could get more precision and actually compound, but the quick version gives us a sufficient lower bound to really put into perspective either the wealth of Bezos or how cheap the LHC is. However your want to frame it. FWIW, with the same lazy analysis we get Forbes top 10 as: Arnault @ 15.2 LHCs, Bezos @ 14.2 LHCs, Musk @ 13.72 LHCs, Zuckerberg @ 12.7 LHCs, Ellison @ 10.7 LHCs, Buffett @ 9.6 LHCs, Gates @ 9.2 LHCs, Page @ 9.1 LHCs, Ballmer @ 8.8 LHCs, and Brin @ 8.8 LHCs.
[1*] I wanted to take a minute to mention the cost, so we can better guestimate the ROI. The project took 10 years to build and cost about $5bn and costs about $1bn/yr to operate, with Germany being the largest contributor and only contributing 21%[1^]. I'm not sure how it works, but the Federal budget is about 370B euros but total gov spending was 1.76T for 2021. That would be 0.065% of the federal budget or 0.014% of the total spending. Pretty fucking cheap if you ask me!
I read "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass" by Frank Close and I found it an excellent read on the elusive Higgs Particle and the elusive Peter Higgs himself (Higgs went for a walk to hide from people on the day the Nobel Prize was announced).
Just keep in mind that if this way present day, the Sabine hosenfelds of the world would be saying iTs NoT eVeN tEsTaBlE, and HN would be cheering her for fighting the evil corrupted mainstream academia.
vazma|1 year ago
teekert|1 year ago
dotnet00|1 year ago
The announcement of the detection at the LHC is a core memory of mine, I still distinctly remember where I was, what I was doing and very excitedly trying to explain how cool it was to my parents at the time.
moelf|1 year ago
KingFelix|1 year ago
amelius|1 year ago
cm2187|1 year ago
rmbyrro|1 year ago
lupire|1 year ago
I can see in own kids that each one is built differently, with different inmate propensities despite similar environment.
lapetitejort|1 year ago
UncleSlacky|1 year ago
ColinWright|1 year ago
Hardy stayed in Denmark with Bohr until the very end of the summer vacation, and when he was obliged to return to England to start his lectures there was only a very small boat available…. The North Sea can be pretty rough, and the probability that such a small boat would sink was not exactly zero. Still, Hardy took the boat, but sent a postcard to Bohr: “I proved the Riemann Hypothesis. G.H. Hardy.” If the boat sinks and Hardy drowns, everybody must believe that he has proved the Riemann Hypothesis. Yet God would not let Hardy have such a great honor and so He will not let the boat sink.
-- https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~mcleod/Riemann/Hardy.html
pfdietz|1 year ago
joshcryer|1 year ago
vikramkr|1 year ago
akumetsu|1 year ago
CapeTheory|1 year ago
callumw13|1 year ago
hiddencost|1 year ago
silverfrost|1 year ago
jaredwiener|1 year ago
russelldjimmy|1 year ago
toomuchtodo|1 year ago
neom|1 year ago
How the Higgs Mechanism Give Things Mass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Q4UAiKacw
Could the Higgs Boson Lead Us to Dark Matter? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2yLMY6Mpw8
Where Is The Center of The Universe? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLHtIWLkHg
(For me personally, I gave a massive sad sign when I saw this on the homepage. I really liked him a lot for a few reasons: He did his thinking in isolation, for a long period of time walking around the Scottish highlands . He was a keen disciple of interdisciplinary thought being pivotal to innovation. He appears to have imagined things and thought about things in a pretty weird way for his time, although that might seem obvious, how well he grappled with the reality of weirdness is exemplary. 힝)
brcmthrowaway|1 year ago
openrisk|1 year ago
Particle physicists and other researchers in fundamental science are also typically keen to point out at indirect effects. E.g., building the massive accelerators to detect particles pushes forward more conventional technologies. The Web was famously invented to serve CERN collaboration needs.
wavemode|1 year ago
godelski|1 year ago
Don't downvote them! This is actually a good question! (and gives us a chance to talk about why we should pursue these things!)
It's also incredible difficult to answer! Can we define what it means? Direct or indirect?
=== Indirect (LHC) ===
Well one of the reasons the LHC was built was to find the Higgs. To do so, we had to invent a lot of shit along the way. Thing is, when you're pushing the bounds of human knowledge, you don't exactly have all the devices you need to measure and test everything. The WWW[0] is famously one of such "spin-offs" as we needed to connect scientists from around the globe to distribute the data from this project. Remember that it is an international project[1*]. There is also a lot about superconductors and refrigeration, both of which significantly contribute to modern medical devices. A lot for magnets, vacuum devices, and electronics, all of which have permeated into industry.
These scientific projects also are a big political effort and demonstrate good will and can be grounds for collaboration and building democracies. The hosting countries also have a lot to benefit from as direct collaboration happens there. Just think of the force of putting a bunch of very smart people in a room together, especially when they are experts in very different things. It's difficult to predict the direct revenue, but at such a cheap cost, even small innovations can easily end up covering the costs. Certainly the internet has more than paid for CERN, in the form of tax revenues to each country compared to the cost they give, not to mention benefit to the public (especially considering other indirect aspects).
=== Direct (LHC) ===
Maybe a bit harder. There's some slides here [2] that claim CERN nets 3.3bn for 1993 - 2038. You can find much more detail here[3] and another independent one here[4]. I'd just like to note [4]'s last line in their abstract:
=== Specifically the Higgs ===That's unfortunately impossible to say. To make use of it technologically we're at least 50 years away, which is to say "who the fuck knows". But also remember the cost is almost nothing. If we speculate, it is not unreasonable that the technologies that could be enabled through the understanding of this science (and the requisite further knowledge we'll need) could be insurmountable. We're talking about understanding how mass works. So if we're ever going to invent things like inertial dampeners (which would make mass an irrelevant aspect of transportation), mass effect drives, gravity generators, and so on, knowledge of the Higgs would be essential. But don't hold your breath on seeing technologies any time soon.
Remember that we're playing the long game with science. It is good to think about short term, but never forget the long game. If you forget you may win battles but will lose the war.
=== Side Note About Money ===
The LHC is actually one way I like to think about the ultra billionaires (like Musk, Bezos, Gates types). The reason being that with that level of wealth we cannot ignore the effects of compound interest, as this plays a significant role. Let's take Bezos, the #2 on the list (behind Bernard Arnault) with $203.3B. We can ask, how many LHCs could Bezos make? We assume 10 years to build at 0.5B/yr and then 1B/yr to operate. We'll assume a 7% interest rate, compounded yearly, which means 14.231B/yr! So clearly Bezos is worth at least 14 LHCs! We could get more precision and actually compound, but the quick version gives us a sufficient lower bound to really put into perspective either the wealth of Bezos or how cheap the LHC is. However your want to frame it. FWIW, with the same lazy analysis we get Forbes top 10 as: Arnault @ 15.2 LHCs, Bezos @ 14.2 LHCs, Musk @ 13.72 LHCs, Zuckerberg @ 12.7 LHCs, Ellison @ 10.7 LHCs, Buffett @ 9.6 LHCs, Gates @ 9.2 LHCs, Page @ 9.1 LHCs, Ballmer @ 8.8 LHCs, and Brin @ 8.8 LHCs.
I'm just saying, we could afford a lot of LHCs...
[0] https://www.home.cern/science/computing/birth-web
[1*] I wanted to take a minute to mention the cost, so we can better guestimate the ROI. The project took 10 years to build and cost about $5bn and costs about $1bn/yr to operate, with Germany being the largest contributor and only contributing 21%[1^]. I'm not sure how it works, but the Federal budget is about 370B euros but total gov spending was 1.76T for 2021. That would be 0.065% of the federal budget or 0.014% of the total spending. Pretty fucking cheap if you ask me!
[1^] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN#Participation_and_funding
[2] https://fcc-cdr.web.cern.ch/webkit/press_material/Brochure_A... (site: https://fcc.web.cern.ch/society)
[3] https://indico.cern.ch/event/760053/contributions/3152652/at...
[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00401...
sohkamyung|1 year ago
jszymborski|1 year ago
https://youtu.be/1GWsdqCYvgw
hobo_mark|1 year ago
empath-nirvana|1 year ago
ayakang31415|1 year ago
freddealmeida|1 year ago
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taylorbuley|1 year ago
santbo|1 year ago
Lucky who is born in an English-speaking country with a short name easy to remember by other English monolinguals. The "Higgs boson" has many fathers, but his name got attached to the concept for simplicity, giving him world fame and, ultimately, a Nobel prize when he likely didn't contribute significantly more than others, cf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#History or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Ph...
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