
Higgs Boson Explained by Cartoon - ColinWright
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120501.html
======
kcima
From the video around :30 seconds in, "...this is when surprises might happen.
Any day could be the day that changed the world."

I am still looking for an answer as to how the world could be changed by the
discovery of the Higgs Boson particle. What are some possible outcomes for
society? I do not doubt that it will change, and I agree fully with it's
value, however, I can't find any specifics in what ways it might change or
what new technologies might be created with or without the Higgs Boson.

Also, at a 9 Billion USD price tag, how were our governments convinced? There
must be something beyond scientific intellectual curiosity. Those of us with
this curiosity may be happy to pay for it, but how were politicians convinced?
What value will this provide to the governments of the world who made the
decision to purchase this answer.

I'm sure it's not this...

Scientists: "We need 9 Billion to find out if the Higgs Boson particle
exists."

Governments: "OK, here is your 9 Billion."

... 15 years later

Scientists: "The answer is yes. The Higgs Boson does exist."

Governments: "Oh, that's really great."

 _Update: I understand and agree fully with the value of this research. I am
asking if there are any specific technologies that are expected to be advanced
or if it is just added knowledge that could lead anywhere. I am also wondering
how it was explained to politicians who don't have specific interest in
science._

~~~
ColinWright
Understanding of how things work, so we can bend them to our will.

Better understanding of the standard model will buy us many things, most of
which we don't yet realise will be interesting, useful, fun, exciting, and
important. Better understanding of the standard model will possibly give us:

* Quantum computers

* Room temperature superconductors

* Substances strong enough to build a space elevator

40 years ago we had no idea how to build 'planes that were bigger, stronger,
faster, and more efficient than the ones we had, and yet people did the basic
research anyway, just because they thought it might be useful. They found
composite structures, and we got the 'planes and other things. The metals used
in car engines have improved enormously, in part because of what was seen at
the time as being basic research that might not really go anywhere.

But in the end it's basic science, and we don't always know how - or whether -
it will repay itself. For every advance that has gained us something there are
other efforts that have led nowhere, but we never know in advance which will
be which.

    
    
        That's the nature of research -- you don't know
            what in hell you're doing. -- 'Doc' Edgerton
    
        If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be
            called research, would it? -- Albert Einstein
    

So who knows what will come out of this. The research could give us
teleportation, or Star Trek-style replicators, or dirt-cheap solar energy
harvesting paints that cars can run on, or electricity storage devices, or
plastics that can be made without oil, or entirely _new_ substances, just as
plastics once were.

I have no idea how old you are, but I'm fifty, and stuff exists now that
didn't when I was in my teens, partly because of people doing basic research.

~~~
kcima
I understand (somewhat) and agree fully with the value of this research.
(Great specifics by the way.) I am hearing from you that we have no idea what
we will discover, but it could be anything and likely something really cool.

The question I have is really how it was explained to politicians and decision
makers who are not scientific. Was it really, "with this research we could
discover anything from teleportation to a better way to make toasters", or was
it something more specific?

I currently see our governments doing everything they can to limit discovery
and creativity because they don't understand basic science or the Internet. It
is interesting and heartening to me that a project like this currently exists
and is mostly not questioned.

~~~
aptwebapps
I don't think the top politicians in each country had to sign off on this.
More likely the money was already allocated to scientific research and there
were people in charge of deciding how to spend it.

<cynical rant>To the extent that politicians did have to be persuaded, they
were probably persuaded by other means than that of elucidating the potential
scientific payoffs. They were probably persuaded using political arguments,
i.e. how it would play with their voters. Politicians are not, in practice,
guardians of a sacred trust. They operate by their own rules and for their own
reasons.</cynical rant>

~~~
Gravityloss
no no no you're coming at this from the wrong angle.

To the politicians, it suffices to say that "It's bigger than what the
Americans got".

The importance of CERN for European science and culture as a whole is an
interesting subject, but I'd assume it's had very much positive effect.

~~~
scorpion032
The timing of the announcement, 4th July, surely suggests this could be what
actually transpired.

------
tatsuke95
Slightly off topic:

I admire this method of conveying ideas and information (animation). It's a
great way to consume these clips.

The RSA has a whole series of 10 minute lectures which they animate on a
whiteboard in this style. The illustrations are brilliant.

<http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/videos/>

(search for RSA Animate)

~~~
brittohalloran
Those are fantastic. This would be a great way to do a budget "about" video
for a startup. Get a decent voiceover with a script, then have your designer
do one of these videos.

------
runn1ng
I still don't get it.

I still don't get how they jumped from "We have this Higgs field" to "and hey,
the field is a particle."

~~~
kmm
Don't worry, don't worry. This one of the most complicated theories in physics
(apart from string theory) to grasp intuitively. I'm a physicist and I could
try to help you.

Think of an excitation of the field. One of the "axioms" of quantum field
theory is that the energy of an excitation is related to the inverse square of
the wavelength. Don't ask me why, it's just like that. Think of UV radiation
or X-rays, which are just light with a higher frequency and you know those
radiation is more damaging to the human body than for example radio waves.

Now, are you familiar with Fourier decomposition?[1] It's the idea that all
functions are the sum of a waves (sines and cosines). We do the same thing in
quantum field theory, we have our quantum field and we write it as the sum of
our elementary wavefunctions, which are called plane waves[2]. When you look
at a wave packet[3], you can't really say what its wavelength is. Wavelength
is not a local concept, as for example the height of the wave, but the wave
differs from place to place, so it's impossible to give it just one
wavelength! We don't have that problem with plane waves. Because they're the
same all over the universe, they have a clear wavelength and thus a well-
defined, unique energy. This concept, an excitation of a field with a well-
defined energy (and thus a well-defined mass!) is what particle physicists
call "a particle".

When a collision happens in a collider, we're actually preparing two plane
waves and pointing them in the same direction. As they collide, the
wavefunctions of the various fields become incredibly complex. We humans can
only "see" excitations with a well-defined mass, or better yet, our detectors
can only detect excitations with a well-defined mass. And thus instead of a
complicated field, we see a mess of particles going in different directions
and having different masses, energies and speeds.

Does that make it any clearer?

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_series> [2]:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_wave> [3]:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Wave_pack...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Wave_packet_%28dispersion%29.gif)

~~~
colanderman
This was a very good explanation, thank you. One question: the Standard Model
describes a finite number of "fundamental" particles/waveforms, correct? What
makes them "fundamental"? Presumably they are orthogonal (or at least span a
complete vector space), but there must be some restriction on the (otherwise
infinite) domain? (e.g. "waveforms with total energy = 1" and "wavelength is
kX where k < 4" or some such.)

~~~
kmm
Are you under the impression that all particles live in one All-Embracing
Majesty? That is not true, although all particles of the same type are
excitations of a single field, different types of particles have their own
fields. For example, the electron and the tau have two separate fields. The
weak interaction makes for some mixing, but that is not really important.

If you're wondering why there's exactly 12 (+ 1 for the Higgs?) fields, I
cannot answer that question and it's one of the open questions in current
theoretical physics.

~~~
colanderman
I understand that there are different fields. More so my question is, why are
there a finite (as opposed to infinite) number of fundamental waveforms for
any given field? My intuition is that this is because the domain of
"candidate" waveforms is restricted to those which exhibit particle-like
behavior (i.e. compatible with a particle physics). I'm not sure if this
intuition is correct however.

~~~
lmm
There are an infinite number of possible waveforms; pretty much any waveform
in the electron field is a valid one. What we see as a single electron is
simply a "spike" waveform localised in a particular position. There's no
reason you couldn't have a more smeared-out waveform that was "an electron
somewhere in the universe", though entanglement comes into play at some point.

When we have particular constraints (e.g. known energy) that constrains the
space of possible waveforms. E.g. when we talk about there being an electron
in an orbital around an atomic nucleus, what we actually mean is there's a
waveform. of a particular shape around the nucleus.

Are you asking why we only ever see waveforms corresponding to whole numbers
of electrons? That's the "quantum" part of quantum mechanics; certain values
are quantized (e.g. electric charged). I don't have a good intuition for why
that's so though, except to observe that the time evolution of a system
preserves this quantization, so there's no way to ever go from having one
electron to having half an electron (for example).

~~~
dedward
At some point "why" becomes impossible - everything just becomes a set of
relationships between things that we can define and predict. The only real
answer to "why", from a scientific point of view, is ultimately "because
that's how it is"

~~~
lmm
Most good science comes of asking "why" - if you took "because that's how it
is" as the answer to "why did the apple fall" science wouldn't have got as far
as it has. Whenever a theory has some seemingly arbitrary property it's worth
asking "why"; sometimes the answer is "we don't know yet", but that doesn't
mean it's not worth asking the question.

~~~
dedward
Couldn't agree more - I wasn't thinking about how that might be interpreted
when I wrote it..... Absolutely we ask "why" - and look for explanations. I
meant nothing with regards to being defeatist and not looking at things - only
that, as far as I can see, even though we'll keep going deeper and deeper and
discovering more and more, we'll never get to a final answer (other than
perhaps getting to a point where we can't research further without blowing up
the universe? I read too much sci-fi.

A final answer would be boring..... WHY is a fantastic question - it's just
not something pure science can answer with finality, only layers until we get
to an unknown.

------
hazov
I watched it here some months ago:

<http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1489>

------
DanBC
Depressingly this cartoon is more complex than almost all of the BBC science
output.

Broadcasters with the BBC's remit need to have science programmes that are far
beyond my understanding. Almost everything on the BBC can be followed by a
reasonably smart 14 year old.

~~~
tikhonj
While I would like advanced science programming, I think the BBC is not the
right medium. Particularly, as the material gets sufficiently advanced, it
targets a progressively smaller audience. At some point, it is better to have
this on the internet than on TV.

It's the same logic as to why there aren't any interesting TV programs about,
say, programming languages, but you can find good content on Channel 9 (not
really a channel :P) or Google Tech Talks.

~~~
DanBC
I agree with you, until I start comparing the amount of heavy duty arts
programming on the BBC.

So, on BBC radio 4 you'll have A day set aside for "Bloom's Day", heavily
promoted before hand, with James Joyces' Ulysses newly dramatised and
broadcast over five and a half hours, in seven slots from 9:00am to midnight;
and the cross-promotional stuff.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jl7l9>)

This is a considerable amount of time and money on a well known (but little
read) book. And when you hear arts items on news programmes no-one stops to
patronise the audience[1] yet anything that goes beyond very simple science on
news is handled very gently, as if all the audience are idiots. I don't even
mind that so much - but it's the lack of any programming at all that goes
beyond the curriculum that a 15 year old would study that is problematic. Of
course, there are notable exceptions, and I know that it'd be as bad or worse
in other countries.

[1] They'll mention names of artists but not bother explaining any context;
you're just expected to know that this person is a scupltor or has won some
award or whatever; and you're expected to be aware of some of the main themes
in their work.

~~~
tikhonj
Hmm, that's a fair point. And I have seen some programs about art history from
the BBC that are probably rather advanced.

Perhaps it's a fundamental difference in the two fields? For something like
Renaissance art, you can get away with not knowing too much about other sorts
of art; on the other hand, for any sort of even moderately serious physics,
not only do you need a good grasp of related physics but you also need a
strong grasp of relatively advanced mathematics.

Also, thinking about it, it seems that CS is even more underrepresented than
other sciences. At the very least, you see _some_ shows about physics and
cosmology and biology, however basic. But I've never seen even a painfully
basic show about CS. There are shows about robotics, but more from an
engineering standpoint than a CS standpoint. Math also seems rarer than the
sciences, but I recall _some_ math shows.

Of course, I watch any sort of TV very rarely, so I have a small sample with a
distinct selection bias (namely, I mostly watch what other people in my family
are interested in). This bias trivially explains the disproportionate amount
of art history (my mother is an art teacher) but does not explain the complete
dearth of CS.

------
fromdoon
Can someone explain or point to sources where the implications of finding/not
finding the Higgs Boson are clearly quantified?

Or is it that they are not sure what they would do with it when they find it.

Further, how would this discovery affect the modern day/upcoming tech?

~~~
nine_k
Current theory predicts that Higgs boson exists. If it is found, the theory is
deemed 'correct' (that is, reinforced, not disproved). Then we're a step
closer tho the 'general theory of everything'.

If Higgs boson is clearly not found where the theory predict it, then the
theory is deficient and has to be seriously rethought or thrown away
altogether! It would be exciting time of uncertainty, crazy ideas, and new and
interesting stuff to try (like it was with quantum mechanics). Or maybe not —
the new and interesting effects may lie far away from the range of masses and
energies of daily life (e.g. we don't usually directly see any effects of
general relativity).

~~~
jerf
Actually, if the existence of the Higgs boson exists and it is right where we
expected it, we are zero steps closer to a theory of everything. To get closer
we really need to find something unexpected. Finding something we expected
merely further confirms the Standard Model and gives us nothing to work with,
even as we know something must be wrong with it. We need clues about how it is
wrong, not more confirmation it is correct.

~~~
tspiteri
It's not as simple as that. Confirming something will make it more attractive
to build on and extend. And it will save time that would be spent looking for
fundamentally different theories.

------
femto
It seems as if a Higgs confirmation announcement is going to happen in about
12 hours [1]. A video was briefly up on the CERN site, before disappearing
behind a password. Apparently it is part of preparations for an announcement
at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, which started today in
Melbourne, Australia.

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/weve-observed-a-
ne...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/weve-observed-a-new-particle-
leaked-video-reveals-apparent-god-particle-confirmation-20120704-21g63.html)

------
ColinWright
Found via midko's comment here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4193517>

------
krrrh
If this is still too advanced for you, and you need to brush up on the atom,
proton, neutron, and electron, this video of Venus Flytrap explaining the
concept in 2 minutes might be a good place to start.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhbqIJZ8wCM>

------
seanalltogether
So if I've got this right, mass shouldn't be thought of as the "bulk" of a
thing, it's simply thought of as a charge within that thing. So a photon is a
particle of substance that contains no mass charge on it, despite the fact
that it has some amount of volume?

~~~
Xcelerate
"Mass", as referred to by physicists is what may be known to others as "rest
mass" or "invariant mass". An electron and a positron both have rest-mass.
(Think of it as a fundamental property, like charge.) When they collide, the
result is two photons that no longer have rest-mass.

It is important to note that gravity affects _energy_ (mass-energy). This is
why a compressed spring weighs more than the same spring uncompressed. A
spinning ball weighs more than the same ball when it is stationary because
there is more energy.

It's an important but subtle distinction that even a lot of physics professors
don't quite grasp. Matt Strassler has some very good explanations of it on his
page.

~~~
dedward
Great comment.

I want to hijack it and add....

Couple of points along the same lines that I always like to explain to people.

The familiar E=mc^2 we all know - people like to say that means that the
energy in a system is equal to the mass times the speed of light (squared) -
if we convert between the two. Which is true..... but it's also saying
something else. In this formula, energy is measured in joules, and mass in
kilogams - the speed of light in meters per second. Importantly, notice the
c^2 is a constant - it's there for unit conversion. What we really have is a
statement that energy=mass. Energy and Mass are the same thing.

In the same line - there's no such thing as "pure energy" (if I'm wrong,
someone educate me, I'm all ears) - people have a hard time with this. Energy
is a property of a system that can be calculated. "pure energy" doesn't exist.
Radiation is not what we mean by "energy" (though obviously it's got energy) -
energy is a property that we can calculate and work with, and a rather
important one at that.... but it's not a "thing" or "stuff" or "non-stuff"
that moves around... it's a property of a system that can be calculated.

~~~
Xcelerate
Yep. Energy is one of the more difficult things to explain, because it's
really more of a mathematical property that results from a conservation law
about symmetric transformations (Noether's theorem).

Luboš Motl has a great explanation here:
[http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/3014/what-is-
ener...](http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/3014/what-is-energy-where-
did-it-come-from)

Feynman's explanation is pretty amazing as well. I can't find the one where he
gives an analogy to blocks (or something) but here is one definition he gives:
[http://www.phy.davidson.edu/fachome/swp/courses/PHY110/Feynm...](http://www.phy.davidson.edu/fachome/swp/courses/PHY110/Feynman.html)

------
elorant
What I don’t understand about quantum mechanics is the reason nature had to
make things so damn complicated. What was the fundamental problem that led to
the solution of quantum entanglement, or the duality of the wave-particle
situation.

~~~
aidenn0
Arguably having separate waves and particles would be more complex, since
there would be more entities.

~~~
elorant
Yes but why you need to have a wave function in the first place? Why can't we
just have particles with a single state?

------
eevilspock
Shy physicists explain dating and relationships in extremely roundabout way.

------
Zaheer
Awesome video! I had Daniel Whiteson as a Physics professor at UC Irvine last
year. My favorite professors ever. Very great at explaining concepts and makes
the class fun.

------
SonicSoul
love this! it's like khan academy on steroids. It must have taken a lot of
work to create. great way for Jorge Cham to get his name out. I'll be
subscribing to PHD Comics

------
Jun8
My takeaway from this: CERN's cafeteria beats the shit out of ours! Years ago
I had the chance to visit there and didn't, talk about the road not taken.

------
retube
great cartoon, shame about the cafeteria audio.

~~~
biot
I thought it added a nice "at the scene" ambience, as if you were in the
cafeteria yourself overhearing a great explanation between two researchers. It
gave it a great university feel to it.

------
mietek
The cartoon says "Interestingly, you can't have negative mass, or repulsive
gravity." It would be interesting to hear why.

------
josscrowcroft
Fantastic animation, but doesn't give any indication as to _why_ it's such an
important search!

------
modernise
I has it.

    
    
      heep://jessecrockett.com

~~~
modernise
<http://jessecrockett.com> ? ...

------
elorant
Another particle, another Nobel prize.

------
smeg
So if mass and charge are both just attributes of particles, what is the
"charge equivalent" of the Higgs boson? And if there isn't one, then why is it
assumed the HB exists? Why cant particles have a innate "mass charge" in the
same way they have an "electric charge"?

------
tdskate
waste of my fucking time

~~~
ColinWright
I'm not sure why you would take time out of coitus, obviously an activity you
would enjoy, and watch this instead.

Would you care to explain further?

------
jalanco
All I want out of it is an anti-gravity device.

