

Higgs Boson: Physicists See Best Proof Yet of 'The God Particle' - chegra
http://news.yahoo.com/higgs-boson-physicists-see-best-proof-yet-god-155311961--abc-news-tech.html

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jgrahamc
Every time I hear "God Particle" I want to cry. Please, please, media stop
saying that. It's the perfect name to annoy scientists and people who are
religious. It's a stupid name. The Higgs has nothing to do with God at all.
There's no implication that the Higgs boson is anything more than yet-another-
particle (albeit an important one).

Why won't people call it the Mass Particle instead?

~~~
i_cannot_hack
Seriously, _what does it even mean!?_ What are they trying to convey by
including "God" every time they mention it? That the theory was very important
and hard to prove? In that case, might we be hearing about the "God string
theory" or "God P=NP" next?

They might as well just call it the "Ketchup particle", and it would make just
as much sense.

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tjoff
_Lederman said he gave it the nickname "The God Particle" because the particle
is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our understanding
of the structure of matter, yet so elusive," but jokingly added that a second
reason was because "the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn
Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous
nature and the expense it is causing."_

From (with more):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#.22The_God_particle...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson#.22The_God_particle.22)

While mass is quite fundamental even to the general public I agree, "the god
particle" is just silly.

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davidjohnstone
"Best proof yet" sounds weird. How about "best evidence yet"?

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Variance
Does anyone have the actual information of how many standard deviations the
data confirms the Higgs to? Last I heard it was four, so I assume that this
"update" has more, but I can't find any actual information anywhere.

Edit: found it, physorg says that there's a reported "1 in 1.7 million chance"
of them being wrong, which comes out to a z-score of around 4.86. So pretty
close to 5, which is their standard, if I remember correctly.

~~~
nilaykumar
No ATLAS or CMS member is currently allowed to release these numbers. Then
numbers these sites are releasing are just pure rumors (although they may have
an element of truth). Just wait until the press conference tomorrow and you
will see all in gory detail.

~~~
Variance
I have to wonder where that "1 in 1.7 million" came from, then. It sounds too
exact to be speculation, but I guess I did get the numbers from Physorg...

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Anon84
Let's hope they learned the "Faster than light neutrino" lesson...

EDIT: In reply to comments:

1\. The speed of the neutrino had already been measure experimentally before.
It was unlikely that a new experiment would produce different results.

2\. Requests for help from the scientific community are not delivered via
press releases. Specially in an area as relatively small as high energy
physics where everyone knows everyone.

3\. If you look at the slides used to announce the "result"
[http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&material...](http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=155620)
nowhere does it mention that they are not sure of the results and are asking
for help finding the error.

4\. The actual article, that was directed at the scientific community,
<http://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4897v2.pdf> makes no mention of asking for help to
understand where the problem is. It simply announces a new result and the
checks that were made to "ensure" that it was correct (as is common in any
other scientific publication announcing a new result).

5\. Immediate reactions from several leading minds in high energy physics were
against the validity of the result. Perhaps these people should have been
contacted before if they weren't sure of the result?

6\. Shortly after the announcement was made, dozens of papers popped up
"explaining" the result from every possible angle and receiving varying
degrees of media coverage, further giving the impression to the general public
that scientists don't know what they are talking about.

Based on all of this, my conclusion can be just one. This was a publicity
stunt that backfired. As a result, people lost their jobs and science was
shamed in the public eyes. Nothing more than disservice to science in exchange
for 15m of fame...

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nilaykumar
Both ATLAS and CMS have legitimate, crazily cross-checked data and therefore
they are releasing it. That's all. This is how science is done - all CERN is
doing is updating the world on its of progress the search for the Higgs boson.
Sure, sometimes mistakes are made. But you'd have to be an idiot to think that
scientists pull these for publicity. Press is a pain in the ass and we try to
stay away from them as much as possible.

~~~
mmcnickle
I'm pretty sure the combination is done blind by an independent research group
too.

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bdg
Is there an Odin particle that banishes frost giants?

~~~
valmitj
'' Lederman said he gave the Higgs boson the nickname "The God Particle"
because the particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial
to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive," ''

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fasouto
Can we wait until tomorrow? Let's wait to hear CERN confirmation instead of
make asumptions.

