Higgs Bosun Particle

[flip_flop]

Can anybody explain, in laymans terms please, what the Higgs Bosun Particle is and, if discovered, what it means?

I found physics at school utter bewildering, so the more dumbed down the explanation is the better!

[Old_Geezer]

Is is a particle, and due to duality it means it is a wave/field too. As I have been informed in an existing thread the field is waht affects other particles giving them mass, something we are aware all material thing have. Having elxplain the reason mass exists, and having been predicted, and presumably found, it helps confirm our present understanding is not so far off.

[jake-the-peg]

Strangely this was the subject of a challenge William Waldegrave set to physicists back in 1993 when the LHC project started

The answer was to be understandable to a Prime minister and fit on a side of A4 paper

The prize was a crate of vintage champagne

the winning answer was this one

http://www.physics.up...epex/higgs_boson.html

[EDDIE51]

Thanks Jake that's the first time I have been able to understand what the Higgs is. Looks like it has finally been found

[flip_flop]

Thanks - I think I get it now. Sort of. A Bit.

[jake-the-peg]

It's important scientifically because it confirms the "standard model" which is the understanding of how things work at the subatomic level.

It's important politically because if it hadn't been there there would have been a lot of bad press of the "you spent all this money on nothing" sort

There will now be a lot of "so what now how will it change our lives - where's my hoverboard?" stories but that's to be expected.

There's an awful lot of work to be done to really understand this beast.

[venator]

Here Jake - this lady is making it all clear

http://www.theanswerb.../Question1149002.html

[joggerjayne]

Some of the pebbles on the beach are really small.

Teeny.

I think the Higgs Boson particle is even smaller.

And more energetic.

[rojash]

"And for the two years of her course I got a twenty minute lecture on CERN and Higgs Bosun"

So, after two years at twenty minutes day, you still can't tell the difference between a particle and a bloke who works on a ship :-)

[Old_Geezer]

Not as good as the Higgs Bison though; it can charge as well.

[rojash]

... and of course, the Higgs basin, which is used for cleaning them.

[bibblebub]

http://www.guardian.c...higgs-boson-discovery

Depends on who wants to know:

For people you're trying to impress: "The Higgs boson is an elementary scalar particle first posited in 1962, as a potential byproduct of the mechanism by which a hypothetical, ubiquitous quantum field – the so-called Higgs field – gives mass to elementary particles. More specifically, in the standard model of particle physics, the existence of the Higgs boson explains how spontaneous breaking of electroweak symmetry takes place in nature."

For harassed, sleep-deprived parents: "If the constituent parts of matter were sticky-faced toddlers, then the Higgs field would be like one of those ball pits they have in the children's play area at IKEA. Each coloured plastic ball represents a Higgs boson: collectively they provide the essential drag that stops your toddler/electron falling to the bottom of the universe, where all the snakes and hypodermic needles are."

For English undergraduates: "The Higgs boson (pronounced "boatswain") is a type of subatomic punctuation with a weight somewhere between a tiny semicolon and an invisible comma. Without it the universe would be a meaningless cloud of gibberish – a bit like The Da Vinci Code, if you read that."

For teenagers studying A-level physics: "No, I know it's not an atom. I didn't say it was. Well, I meant a particle. Yes, I do know what electromagnetism is, thank you very much – unified forces, Einstein, blah blah blah, mass unaccounted for, yadda yadda, quarks, Higgs boson, the end. It was a long time ago, and I'm tired. Change the channel – we're missing Come Dine With Me."

For a member of the Taxpayers' Alliance: "Its discovery is a colossal, unprecedented, almost infinite waste of money."

For a child in the back seat of a car: "It's a particle that some scientists have been looking for. Because they knew that without it the universe would be impossible. Because without it, the other particles in the universe wouldn't have mass. Because they would all continue to travel at the speed of light, just like photons do. Because I just said they would, and if you ask 'Why?' one more time we're not stopping at Burger King."

For religious fundamentalists: "There is no Higgs boson."

[joeluke]

^ Joeluke - "Its discovery is a colossal, unprecedented, almost infinite waste of money."