

Stephen Hawking lost $100 bet over Higgs boson discovery - mproud
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18708626

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garyrichardson
His smile at the end of the video is priceless.

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capex
Came to say this, ditto.

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Bitwse
This truly is breaking news

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olalonde
Eliezer Yudkowsky (AI researcher) also lost his bet it seems
(<http://lesswrong.com/lw/1dt/open_thread_november_2009/17xb>).

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StavrosK
Semi-offtopic, but I'm currently reading his book, Harry Potter and the
Methods of Rationality, and it's just amazing. Quite a page-turner. I highly
recommend it.

Also, I've never read any of the original Harry Potter books, so don't sweat
it if you haven't either.

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JoshTriplett
Also offtopic: for anyone interested in starting it, especially late in the
evening, try [http://www.comic-
rocket.com/go?uri=http%3A//hpmor.com/chapte...](http://www.comic-
rocket.com/go?uri=http%3A//hpmor.com/chapter/1) ; that way, when it gets to be
early in the morning, you can stop, mark your place, and come back later.

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brass9
The actual ebook is here: <http://hpmor.com/>

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agentgt
Does anybody else hate videos w/o an abstract or short description?

I can read/skim faster than videos play so I hate video news where I have to
waste a couple of minutes when I could have read it in 30 seconds.

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teamonkey
This is not the first time Hawking has made such a bet.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne–Hawking–Preskill_bet>

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jpalomaki
Did he make the bet because: a) He did not believe Higgs boson exists? b) He
believed Higgs boson exists, but could not be "found"? c) Just for fun d)
Publicity stunt

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md8
May be to pose a challenge to Higgs.

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DanBC
What else are they going to do with LHC now?

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dbaupp
There is quite a few broad topics suggested for the LHC[1], and even right now
there are 3 other experiments running on it[2]. (ATLAS is the Higg's boson
experiment, although it isn't just looking for the Higg's boson.)

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Purpose> [2]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Large_Hadron_Collider_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Large_Hadron_Collider_experiments)

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DigitalSea
Fair enough they've found proof that Higgs Boson exists but this is only the
beginning. Nothing will come of this discovery for a very long time, it's a
start but there are many more years of research before any benefit of this
discovery is seen or felt. Great news though, I knew they'd find it
eventually.

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dedward
The same could be said of many subatomic particles that were found as we built
larger and larger colliders.... it's a very big deal in advancing our
understanding of.... everything.

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DigitalSea
I don't mean to double post, but I noticed that Stephen Wolfram (no stranger
to physics) has even come out saying that he is disappointed and believes the
chances of another discovery in this lifetime are pretty low.
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/why-
th...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/why-the-higgs-
boson-discovery-is-disappointing-according-to-the-smartest-man-in-the-
world/259468/)

We've proved the simple model, but as I said I don't think anything else will
come of this and even if something does come of this I doubt you or I will be
alive to see the results.

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s_henry_paulson
Seems like he was betting $100 on altruism.

I have no idea how to feel after watching this video.

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zitterbewegung
Think of it this way.

What does Stephen Hawking get if he is wrong?

-$100 dollars

+Media coverage saying that he was wrong which promotes physics.

What does Stephen Hawking get if he is right?

+$100 dollars

+Media coverage saying that Stephen Hawking is right which promotes physics.

This is not altruism this is intelligent promotion of a topic that you want
children and young adults to be educated in.

It is a paid advertisement for physics by a celebrity. Similar to athletes who
get paid endorsements. It encourages people to challenge him. Using his
celebrity status can inspire people into doing Physics, Math or Engineering.
We need more scientists and engineers. Professor Hawking knows Physics but
even better he knows how the play the media.

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achal
XKCD mentioned a similar idea a while back. <http://xkcd.com/955/>.

