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[Osmosis Jones]

In the interests of inspiring inquisitive intellects to initiate independant inquiry into interesting items, I feel this forum needs a dedicated science thread. Basically, here is a repository where you can dump all your cool links about insanely awesome scientific discoveries.

Railguns? Invisibility cloaks? Warp drives?!

Of course, this thread was originally inspired by the discovery of the Higg's boson. Open the spoiler below and educate yourself on this truly monumental event

Spoiler: Original Original Post (click to show/hide)

So, in the interests of informing the inquiring individual of intriguing innovation;

THEY HAVE CONFIRMED DISCOVERY OF THE HIGGS BOSON!

A signal suggesting the presence of the particle was reported by two independant teams at the same conference here in Melbourne today.

The CMS group spoke first, reporting a 4.9 sigma probability of a signal (~99.99995% confidence, or just under a 5 in 10000000 chance of being random noise) at an energy of 125.3 + 0.6 GeV. This is very significant, but falls just shy of the magic 5 sigma, (99.99997%) which is the accepted threshold for discovery of a new particle.

However; the representative for the ATLAS group (both CMS and ATLAS are detectors on the LHC, but are at opposite ends of the ring) stood up immediately afterwards and presented her findings. Exactly 5 sigma at an energy of ~126 GeV. Boo. Freaking. Yah.

Basically speaking, the Higgs boson is why everything has mass. Not gravitational attraction (although that does in turn depend on mass), but the actual mass itself. Much as photons (e.g. light/radiowaves/microwaves etc.) mediate electromagnetism, or gravitons (supposedly) mediate gravity, the Higgs boson mediates the Higgs field! The density of the Higgs field is mass. It's a big day for science.

Also; the beauty of this finding, while it's roughly where theory said, it's not exactly. That means our best theory is off. Which is awesome! Why? Because it means there's SCIENCE to be done!

Other stuff.

EDIT: Derp, I was pulling my stats from the wrong distribution. Corrected now.

[MrWiggles]

Yea, but it not looking as exotic as the Physicist Academia was hoping for, it still mostly normal. But it is fucking awesome.

I cant wait for the applications that this new understanding will give us. What if you can make a meta materiel that can interact with the higgs field in novel ways?

[Osmosis Jones]

I cant wait for the applications that this new understanding will give us. What if you can make a meta materiel that can interact with the higgs field in novel ways?

Not gonna lie; that isn't possible under any current interpretation of physics (not "we don't know how to do that", but rather like breaking light speed, "we're pretty sure you *can't* do that"). However, this could potentially explain the inflation period after the big bang, dark energy, and a whole host of other funky fundamental physics and astrophysics problems. Isn't that sexy enough?!

[Frumple]

I'd say "confirmed finding the flesh of God" is pretty damn sufficiently sexy, regardless as to its practical applications. Still, definitely let's poke it with a stick to see if it jumps.

[Il Palazzo]

Delicious news!

[Starver]

Well, just so long as we don't poke the universe so hard so as to make it start disappearing, because that would be a downer.  Of course, I know this won't happen, but someone out there is bound to still be worrying that, one day soon, everything in the Universe will be dissipated back into the eternal void, heralded only by a momentary and all too brief realisation that another bit of the Earth has suddenly ceased exi

[Jackrabbit]

I'd say "confirmed finding the flesh of God" is pretty damn sufficiently sexy, regardless as to its practical applications. Still, definitely let's poke it with a stick to see if it jumps.

Science just makes me so happy I could cry.

[Criptfeind]

I'm not going to lie. I was sorta hoping that they failed to find the Higgs and all our knowledge was undone and we find ways to move faster then the speed of light and such. But still. Pretty cool.

[Darvi]

Better Higgs than hugs, I guess.

Oh god I can't believe I actually said that, that was so terrible.

[Jopax]

Actually, a Hugs Boson would be awesome. A very exotic particle that induces hugginess in any living thing it affects.

[Hubris Incalculable]

Some people (like grandmothers) have perpetual Hugs fields surrounding them.

[Darvi]

So now all we've got to do is to put a couple of grannies into the LHC and smash them against each other at relativistic speeds. Lather, rinse, repeat until we got results.

[Starver]

Lather, blue-rinse, repeat until we got results.

FTFY

[Darvi]

The joke, like many other things that came before it, is lost on me.

[Starver]

Okey-dokey, obviously not as obvious as I thought...

Covered by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rinse, however.