
Q&A with Higgs discoverers - erpa1119
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2119266,00.html
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randomdrake
Just out of curiosity, is "discover" really the correct terminology here?
Didn't these scientists, more correctly, observe the Higgs? Not only that, but
didn't they also observe phenomena that coincides with the existence of the
Higgs without actual observation?

I'm not arguing with the title, simply curious as to what the correct
terminology is for when something is previously hypothesized as being in
existence.

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sp332
They didn't know if it existed or not. Now they know it exists. Most high-
energy particle physics is done by analyzing decay products of short-lived
particles, so I don't begrudge them that.

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laserDinosaur
"they had at last confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs boson"

Last I heard they have not yet found the Higgs boson, they found something
that is LIKE the Higgs boson. Is this not correct?

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sp332
It's probably the Higgs. There are some decay paths that have not yet been
observed, some because they haven't analyzed that data yet, and at least one
that just doesn't appear to happen as often as predicted (very interesting).
But it's acting almost exactly as the Higgs should act, so while it's not
absolutely sure, there's no real reason to think that it's not the Higgs.

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laserDinosaur
That's awesome, thanks for the info =)

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vandershraaf
Out of curiosity: Even if they discover higgs boson, is there any chance for
standard model to be changed again later on? (when somehow we discover yet
another component)

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anamax
> Even if they discover higgs boson, is there any chance for standard model to
> be changed again later on?

Yes.

No matter what they discover that is consistent with the standard model,
there's always a chance that a later discovery will invalidate the standard
model.

One difference between science and math is that you can prove things correct
in math. In science, you can only prove things incorrect.

