Dear Long Live Yorke

[LongLiveYorke 38]

So what are the potential applications of it, or the reasons for attempting to create it? Surely it's something more than 'it's wicked interesting to theoretical physicists, and our Does Higgs Boson Exist pool has gotten ridiculously juicy.' Seriously though, tell me physicists wager on the outcome of their experiments. If not, might I suggest you become the first physicist-bookie? I know those dudes get crazy.

Yeah, many physicists are total action junkies. Just yesterday, a pretty famous scientist was telling me that some people offered to pay him 5 Franks for every time he said the word "quack" in the middle of a talk. Apparently he got 45 bucks.Hawking famously made a bet AGAINST his own theory of black holes as a consolation prize in case he was proven wrong (essentially, he was getting insurance).Just recently there was a lot of fuss about someone proving a computational theorem called P=NP (or disproving it, rather). The theorem is part of the Clay Millenium Prizes, meaning that if you prove it, you get a million dollars. One guy offered to supplement that the prize with a year's worth of his salary if the guy claiming to have proven it was right, because he was so sure the proof would turn out incorrect.I've heard people make ridiculous wages like that concerning the Higgs. I guess the problem is that people don't take these things seriously enough. Maybe I could become a centralized bookie and hire some goons to put these free-loadin' physicists in their place.

[speedz99 145]

Yes, sometimes the Higgs, for some reason, is called the "God particle." The only reason I can think of is because it sounds cool.

But you know the real reason, right?

So what are the potential applications of it, or the reasons for attempting to create it? Surely it's something more than 'it's wicked interesting to theoretical physicists, and our Does Higgs Boson Exist pool has gotten ridiculously juicy.'

Sen. Jack Enlow, D-IL: If we can only say what benefit this thing has. No one's been able to do that. Dr. Dalton Millgate: That's because great achievement has no road map. The X-Ray is pretty good, and so is penicillin, and neither were discovered with a practical objective in mind. I mean, when the electron was discovered in 1897, it was useless. And now we have an entire world run by electronics. Hayden and Mozart never studied the classics. They couldn't. They invented them. Sam Seaborn: Discovery. Dr. Dalton Millgate: What? Sam Seaborn: That's the thing that you were... Discovery is what. That's what this is used for. It's for discovery.

[timwakefield 68]

Good answer.Edit: Ahhh, it did seem too good to be real. Damn you Hollywood! Still a good answer though.

[El Guapo 8]

LLY, can you answer knuckleballers question about practical use of the Higgs Boson. If we can make it, what can we use that knowledge for that will better society?Will we have better microwaves? Will it cure cancer? Will it give our enemies cancer?

[antistuff 0]

Yeah, many physicists are total action junkies. Just yesterday, a pretty famous scientist was telling me that some people offered to pay him 5 Franks for every time he said the word "quack" in the middle of a talk. Apparently he got 45 bucks.Hawking famously made a bet AGAINST his own theory of black holes as a consolation prize in case he was proven wrong (essentially, he was getting insurance).Just recently there was a lot of fuss about someone proving a computational theorem called P=NP (or disproving it, rather). The theorem is part of the Clay Millenium Prizes, meaning that if you prove it, you get a million dollars. One guy offered to supplement that the prize with a year's worth of his salary if the guy claiming to have proven it was right, because he was so sure the proof would turn out incorrect.I've heard people make ridiculous wages like that concerning the Higgs. I guess the problem is that people don't take these things seriously enough. Maybe I could become a centralized bookie and hire some goons to put these free-loadin' physicists in their place.

do you happen to know where i can find a copy of this paper?

[SlapStick 0]

I thought finding Higgs basically just verified whatever theory we have now of how physics works..or something like that.

[timwakefield 68]

Will we have better microwaves? Will it cure cancer? Will it give our enemies cancer?

Hilariously, it will both give you cancer and then cure that cancer. From the future.

[speedz99 145]

do you happen to know where i can find a copy of this paper?

So you can confirm that you don't understand any of it?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

do you happen to know where i can find a copy of this paper?

It seems that several versions were posted and later taken down. This is the best I could find, but if you hunt, you can probably find a version:http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index....r_P_vs_NP_paper

[JoeyJoJo 18]

Aaaaaand....confirmed!

[LongLiveYorke 38]

LLY, can you answer knuckleballers question about practical use of the Higgs Boson. If we can make it, what can we use that knowledge for that will better society?Will we have better microwaves? Will it cure cancer? Will it give our enemies cancer?

The foreseeable practical benefits are basically zero. And it's unclear that there ever will be any since its direct presence can only be determined at very high energies. (It's indirect presence, if it exists, is felt by the very fact that we're all here and by the very fact that the universe works the way it does, the fact that there is light, nuclear reactions, and many other things).

I thought finding Higgs basically just verified whatever theory we have now of how physics works..or something like that.

We have a theory of how physics works, and it relies on the Higgs being there. There is some flexibility in that theory, and we'd like to actually see the Higgs so we can measure it and really narrow down our theories. All the physics in text books and that you're taught in grad school approaches the Higgs as an almost certainty. And if you're more generic, something very much like the Higgs has to be there. Something has to be doing the job that we think the Higgs is doing (the job is formally called "Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking."

[speedz99 145]

Has anyone found physical particles that exert gravitational forces? Am I making up their existence, or did I really hear about that at some point?

[AmScray 355]

Unfortunately (or very fortunately, depending on one's perspective), there are absolutely no weapon applications to the Higgs boson. It's not like splitting the atom which releases a lot of energy. The Higgs requires a lot of energy to make, then it just sits there for a bit, and then it decays into tiny particles and goes poof. The biggest machine in the world working year round can only make a few hundred of them.

I don't understand.Higgs Boson is supposed to be related to all mass? Giant machines working year round can only make a few Higgs Bosons, yet a toddler can fill a diaper full of them in a matter of seconds and that costs nothing? What the fuck am I missing here?

[antistuff 0]

Has anyone found physical particles that exert gravitational forces? Am I making up their existence, or did I really hear about that at some point?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

[GeneralGeeWhiz 0]

how much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood(2)^16 ?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Has anyone found physical particles that exert gravitational forces? Am I making up their existence, or did I really hear about that at some point?

No one has yet directly observed the graviton, which is the name of the particle associated with Gravity. However, we know a lot about the properties that the Graviton must have based on what we know about gravity. For example, because gravity travels at the speed of light, we know that the Graviton must be massless. An because Gravity is a strictly attractive (heavy things can't repel each other), we know that the Graviton must be "spin-2".In Quantum Field Theory, every force is associated with a particle, so it's not a stretch to imagine that Gravity too has a particle. Since it is a field, one must be able to excite the field, and make waves in the field, and the Graviton is the particle associated with these waves. The problem is that we can't yet come up with a consistent theory of the Graviton. The simplest ways to write down a quantum theory of gravity result in nonsensical solutions. There must be subtleties in gravity that we don't yet understand that would allow these non sensical answers to go away.There are experiments running right now which are trying to observe gravity waves. They are called LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory). But they are not trying to observe an individual graviton in the way that we can observe individual photons or electrons. It would be more like observing "Gravity light", meaning a big wave of gravity coming from a massive stellar explosion, as compared to seeing an individual Graviton.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO

I don't understand.Higgs Boson is supposed to be related to all mass? Giant machines working year round can only make a few Higgs Bosons, yet a toddler can fill a diaper full of them in a matter of seconds and that costs nothing? What the fuck am I missing here?

The fact that we have mass is obvious, as you so eloquently put it. But one can not write down elementary theories of particles that include mass in the simplest way. Those theories don't have solutions. Instead, one must invoke a somewhat complicated mechanism, called the Higgs mechanism, to explain the presence of mass. The Higgs is the puppeteer behind the scenes that is holding the marionette's strings. Although the puppet is obvious, it would take a lot of energy to see the puppeteer.

[Balloon guy 158]

A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician were all in a hotel sleeping when a fire broke out in their respective rooms.The physicist woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, pulled out his CRC, and began working out all sorts of fluid dynamics equations. After a couple minutes, he threw down his pencil, got a graduated cylinder out of his suitcase, and measured out a precise amount of water. He threw it on the fire, extinguishing it, with not a drop wasted, and went back to sleep.The engineer woke up, saw the fire, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucets full-blast, flooding out the entire apartment, which put out the fire, and went back to sleep.The mathematician woke up, saw the fire, ran over to his desk, began working through theorems, lemmas, hypotheses , you -name-it, and after a few minutes, put down his pencil triumphantly and exclaimed, "I have *proven* that I *can* put the fire out!" He then went back to sleep.

[AmScray 355]

The fact that we have mass is obvious, as you so eloquently put it. But one can not write down elementary theories of particles that include mass in the simplest way. Those theories don't have solutions. Instead, one must invoke a somewhat complicated mechanism, called the Higgs mechanism, to explain the presence of mass. The Higgs is the puppeteer behind the scenes that is holding the marionette's strings. Although the puppet is obvious, it would take a lot of energy to see the puppeteer.

Does finding the puppeteer give us dominance over anything relevant?I mean, at what point does 'science for sciences sake' become a superfluous exercise in capital destruction?The Scientists would say never, since they're rarely the ones generating the capital used to pay for their exercises.

[vbnautilus 48]

Does finding the puppeteer give us dominance over anything relevant?I mean, at what point does 'science for sciences sake' become a superfluous exercise in capital destruction?The Scientists would say never, since they're rarely the ones generating the capital used to pay for their exercises.

You can never really know what the consequences of knowledge are going to be before you have it. Requiring every scientific venture to have a practical application in mind is big creativity-limiting mistake. I'm sure someone will find a way to use it, but I don't think that should be the scientist's concern.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Does finding the puppeteer give us dominance over anything relevant?I mean, at what point does 'science for sciences sake' become a superfluous exercise in capital destruction?The Scientists would say never, since they're rarely the ones generating the capital used to pay for their exercises.

It's hard to say. On the one hand, nobody knows where the next revolution will come that will change lives. On the other hand, it's extremely likely to come from the Higgs boson. Discovering it and measuring its properties means we'd have a very deep understanding of how our world works and we'd be able to make very strong statements about things like the evolution of the early universe. This is more along the lines of Galileo and Copernicus understanding how the Earth stood compared to the rest of the solar system. What practical applications came from knowing the Earth revolved around the sun?

[AmScray 355]

What practical applications came from knowing the Earth revolved around the sun?

A significant reorientation of thinking, away from dark age voo-doo and towards a more factual approach. Arguably, Heliocentrism had philosophical implications that resonated all the way to the introduction of the Jet engine or the semiconductor. Were it not for that, we'd still likely be emphasizing altars, gods and magic oils (kinda scary that the rabble still does, to such a large degree, but the unencumbered basis for scientific thought couldn't have possibly occurred without first kicking Jesus out of the solar system)I don't think we're hamstrung by those same conditions, in this age, and whatever practically-pointless discoveries we make to advance a theory seems to be good fodder for scientific journals, but doesn't help us make anything useful, improve anything broken, dominate and/or destroy another group of people... if none of those things, then why? Is curiosities sake worth so much investment in treasure when there are far more pressing, immediate things going unfunded? Seems like a rather inefficient use of resources...Indulging this sort of thing may have been OK in the age when we took on debt and spent whatever we wanted, but these days? Yes, you're going without health care and will soon die as a result- and we're not going to pay for the care you need- but before you go, we're spending $150,000 on a finely crafted 18th Century Austrian music box for you to enjoy...

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Well, that's true. It won't have the revolutionary side effect of Copernicus. (Incidentally, his discovery was so revolutionary that they named the term "revolutionary" after it, revolution describing the Earth's motion around the sun).There are indirect effects of looking for the Higgs: it requires state of the art magnets, vacuum systems, and cryogenics. So, it can be viewed as a government subside into those types of research, which could possibly. have tangible effects. But that's a side argument at best.

[AmScray 355]

Requiring every scientific venture to have a practical application in mind is big creativity-limiting mistake. I'm sure someone will find a way to use it, but I don't think that should be the scientist's concern.

I believe in oral histories. I think they're important. First hand accounts of things conveys stuff in ways that sterile historical narrative cannot. Lets say I wanted to set up a society to get the oral histories of everyone who attended Woodstock in 1969. I'd spend my money on newspaper, TV, online and radio ads to raise the flag... I'd make websites... I'd buy voice recorders and everything I needed to catalog and recover these stories....Lets say after a huge marketing push, I was able to locate 20,000 original Woodstock Attendees who were willing to have their stories entered into the record for posterity. North, South, East and West, mostly in the United States, some in Europe, Latin America... Getting these stories would be a rough go, since lots of travel would be required and funds are not unlimited.You start to cull out the unimportant ones... You start to distinguish what offers meaning versus what offers more of the same....Then, you receive a letter.Wavy Gravy himself is living on top of Mount Everest, supplied with oxygen tanks, granola and weed by benevolent Sherpas who've made him their king... These Sherpas are quite protective and will fight to the death to keep you from reaching his position, but if you do, he may tell all his stories.Now, you have a decision to make. You have 1,000,000 to spend and that 1,000,000 will get you maybe 10,000 unique stories, each with merits of their own, each with meaning... Or, you could spend that 1,000,000 traveling to Mt. Everest, equipping a climb, raising a force to quell the defending Sherpa army and ascend up the face to Wavy Gravy, getting what very well could be one of the best Woodstock stories ever told... Or, maybe he was too high during that time and doesn't even remember. Or, maybe his story isn't that much better than the story you could've gotten for $100 from the lady in Eugene, Oregon who still has the negatives of her three-way with David Crosby and Hendrix. Do you spend this 1,000,000 to catalog 10,000 unique stories, or do you spend it to maybe get something good out of Wavy Gravy?

[AmScray 355]

There are indirect effects of looking for the Higgs: it requires state of the art magnets, vacuum systems, and cryogenics. So, it can be viewed as a government subside into those types of research, which could possibly. have tangible effects. But that's a side argument at best.

It's an argument I buy. NASA has thrown off some pretty awesome shit. These governments funding these things really need to get on the ****ing ball about patenting, trademarking, branding and marketing these ancillary technologies that are developed in broader pursuits. In many cases, they may significantly offset the costs of the endeavor in the first place. This is the case with Paul Moller and the stuff he invented in his quest for a flying car.Instead, though, they toss it into the public arena and don't recover a dime.\Besides. You and I both know that this "Higgs Boson" hogwash is just covert weapon research for a super-ray.

[leftygolfer 7]

Do you spend this 1,000,000 to catalog 10,000 unique stories, or do you spend it to maybe get something good out of Wavy Gravy?

How good is Wavy's weed?