Okay, let's see if I even begin to get it. "Mass" is the quality that gives matter gravity. And the presence of the Higgs Boson particle within an atom is what gives mass this quality we call "gravity."
Any physicists out there? Is this what they're saying? If not, what are they saying?
Liberal arts majors want to know!
Posted by: Susan | Jul 3, 2012 11:27:17 AM
Where does the energy in the Higgs Boson come from originally?
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Jul 3, 2012 11:37:55 AM
"presence of the Higgs Boson particle within an atom is what gives mass this quality we call "gravity.""
How about a fine arts major takes a crack at it (lol).
Everything has wave/particle duality. A "field," therefore (the waves) can be caused to collapse into its expression as particles. Bosons are particles that transfer force, energy, or attraction between particles, they are not contained within the particles, but come into being for the duration of the transmission. They also exhibit as waves. A photon is a common Boson. The Higgs Boson is a particle representation of the Higgs field that draws all particles toward each other, that we perceive as gravity.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 3, 2012 11:48:02 AM
The Higgs Boson has nothing to do with gravity. The Higgs Field gives particles mass when they interact with it (they basically created a gap in the field by existing). Every field has a ground state (a minimum potential energy state). The Higgs Boson is what you get when you excited the Higgs field above its ground state.
Mass alone isn't enough for gravity though. It is the energy-momentum of an object that gives it gravity, and this comes from not just the Higgs Boson, but every other Boson as well.
The Higgs Boson is really important because:
1) It will provide evidence of the Higgs field.
2) It will tell us a lot more about the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force, and how those two forces arose from the "electroweak" force.
Gravity is a separate issue. The fact that it acts through mass doesn't mean the Higgs Boson mediates/carries/causes gravity.
Posted by: Varun | Jul 3, 2012 4:04:51 PM
@Susan, I am not physicist but you are right, essentially they are saying the Higgs Boson "gives" mass to particles.
@Olavi, the energy comes from the famous E = mc^2 equation that lets you convert mass to energy and vice versa. E is the energy and m is the mass in that equation.
Apparently right after the Big Bang all particles were shooting out at the speed of light, the Higgs field kicked in, which slowed down these particles by imparting mass. It also allowed them to "coagulate" and create everything we see around us that has mass.
The empirical evidence of the Higgs Boson lends credibility to the standard model, which predicts the Higgs Boson and describes how particles are formed in the Universe. If it didn't exist, the physicists would have had to come up with a new model!
Posted by: ganji | Jul 3, 2012 7:34:31 PM
Thank you Carlos, Varun, and ganji for taking the time to share your explanations. Having no background in physics, I try to understand it primarily through visual imagination and metaphor. For some reason, I've always thought of particles as miniscule, sometimes temporary, parts of the atom, perhaps from having been told a long time ago that a heretofore unknown particle -- the quark? -- was observed immediately after a controlled nuclear fission (or was it fusion?)
Carlos, I found your explanation rather aesthetic and a pleasure to read. ;-)
Varun, I think what got me going on the "gravity" tack was the animated cartoon's assertion that one can think of "mass" as "gravitational charge."
Ganji, while new models represent quantum leaps in our understanding of reality, I was quite relieved a few months ago to find that the neutrino had not exceeded the speed of light. It would certainly be interesting to know how the Higgs Boson gives mass to particles.
This is all very exciting, even from within the relative fog of a non-physicist mind.
Posted by: Susan | Jul 3, 2012 11:32:45 PM
http://vimeo.com/phdcomics
This fairy tail is called a cartoon or comic, and that is an appropriate description of it.
The only understanding we have of gravity is at the classical level as presented about 4 centuries ago by Issac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Yes, we have general relativity connecting it to curved space time, but no Planck's constant appears in any of the equations, save as an input in the energy density. These are classical equations.
There is no, zero, experimental proof of anything about gravity at the small distances and times involved in current accelerator experiments, none. Any comments about it are pure speculation, meaningless guesses. The best one can do is say that we get the right answers for the energy levels in atoms by ignoring gravity explicitly, but many other assumptions are made to accomplish this. We simply do not know the effect of gravity or the correct description of it at smaller distances and shorter times.
Furthermore no gravitational waves have ever been observed either.
Furthermore, no field particle for the gravitational field, often called a spin 2 graviton has ever been proved to exist. So far, it exists only in the imagination of some who seek to promote it and falsely link it to the so called "Higgs" particle currently receiving so much public relations.
If this so called particle gives others mass, prove it with facts and calculations, not hollow, empty words for public consumption to a gullible and unwitting easily fooled public. Prove it, prove it, prove it, don't just repeat meaningless words, over and over again.
Feynman once formally expanded the classical gravitational field equations into a similar Born series similar to what he did for electromagnetism. But this problem is orders of magnitude more complicated especially since one does not know how to quantize gravity and the equations, even at the classical level, are very complicated non linear ones. And of course all those nasty questions of mathematical convergence are swept under the propaganda rug, just as similar questions about this speculative particle called "Higgs" are.
To talk about all this in such a flippant way as in the above comic is almost an obscenity. The average lay person and many physicists have no clue how complex all these calculations are to accomplish; this of course is why these propagandists are short on such calculations.
Here is a much more significant article which could have been posted in its place: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/dr-drew-glaxosmithkline-promote-drugs_n_1647045.html?1341340758&icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl6%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D175513.
This article describes the apparent misconduct of a medical doctor who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a drug company to illegally promote off label use of dangerous drugs for uses which they have not been tested, and for which that company just paid a huge fine!
But we have only silence from the 3 quarks editors on this vital subject, but repeated speculative garbage promoting particles which are speculated to have fractional electric charge, but have never been observed, speculations of how other particles are made of them, but no actual calculations proving it. Talk is cheap in physics too, just like selling any product today.
Physics is bankrupt, just like our government, only able to copy theories based on chemistry and seek to fool a gullible and unwitting and easily fooled public with public relations in an effort to obtain more government dinero to continue their meaningless experiments. Dinero means MONEY in Spanish.
If all this is so significant and important and earth shattering, why don't the physicists pay for these experiments personally themselves instead of begging money from the public like a common beggar?
Evidently the physicists of today learned well from their teachers, Joseph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler in Nazi, Germany which so many brave souls in this world sought to get rid of:
"The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Adolph Hitler
By the way, how many earth shattering discoveries have been produced by large group efforts? Almost none. Just look at all the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on groups working on cancer, but the cancer generals can't even tell you what cancer is, let alone how to cure and prevent it in the human body can they?
Once nearly everyone believed the earth was flat. Many still do. So just because most of the physics experts in the physics orthodoxy believe they have proved the so-called
"Higgs" "particle" exists, even though most of the rest of the world has not a clue of the "proof", does not make it so does it? Always remember the admonition of Richard Feynman: "I never pay any attention to experts".
Is it worth throwing out centuries of the scientific method for a fleeting fame of personal vanity in one's lifetime? I don't think so and I doubt if the great scientists of the past like Galileo Galilei, Karl Gauss, Issac Newton or Albert Einstein would either.
Posted by: WJAbbe | Jul 4, 2012 1:42:15 PM
WJAbbe, thank you for that breath of oh so welcome fresh air.
Posted by: Dana | Jul 9, 2012 4:44:31 PM
If Higgs Boson allows substance to have mass by blocking that ability if that were possible then one would assume that a substance would have the same mass as a photon or particle of light. Thus that substance might travel at the speed of light. Does not do us much good to find planets like earth out there if we can't get to them.
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Comments
Okay, let's see if I even begin to get it. "Mass" is the quality that gives matter gravity. And the presence of the Higgs Boson particle within an atom is what gives mass this quality we call "gravity."
Any physicists out there? Is this what they're saying? If not, what are they saying?
Liberal arts majors want to know!
Posted by: Susan | Jul 3, 2012 11:27:17 AM
Where does the energy in the Higgs Boson come from originally?
Posted by: Olavi Valo | Jul 3, 2012 11:37:55 AM
"presence of the Higgs Boson particle within an atom is what gives mass this quality we call "gravity.""
How about a fine arts major takes a crack at it (lol).
Everything has wave/particle duality. A "field," therefore (the waves) can be caused to collapse into its expression as particles. Bosons are particles that transfer force, energy, or attraction between particles, they are not contained within the particles, but come into being for the duration of the transmission. They also exhibit as waves. A photon is a common Boson. The Higgs Boson is a particle representation of the Higgs field that draws all particles toward each other, that we perceive as gravity.
Posted by: Carlos | Jul 3, 2012 11:48:02 AM
The Higgs Boson has nothing to do with gravity. The Higgs Field gives particles mass when they interact with it (they basically created a gap in the field by existing). Every field has a ground state (a minimum potential energy state). The Higgs Boson is what you get when you excited the Higgs field above its ground state.
Mass alone isn't enough for gravity though. It is the energy-momentum of an object that gives it gravity, and this comes from not just the Higgs Boson, but every other Boson as well.
The Higgs Boson is really important because:
1) It will provide evidence of the Higgs field.
2) It will tell us a lot more about the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force, and how those two forces arose from the "electroweak" force.
Gravity is a separate issue. The fact that it acts through mass doesn't mean the Higgs Boson mediates/carries/causes gravity.
Posted by: Varun | Jul 3, 2012 4:04:51 PM
@Susan, I am not physicist but you are right, essentially they are saying the Higgs Boson "gives" mass to particles.
@Olavi, the energy comes from the famous E = mc^2 equation that lets you convert mass to energy and vice versa. E is the energy and m is the mass in that equation.
Apparently right after the Big Bang all particles were shooting out at the speed of light, the Higgs field kicked in, which slowed down these particles by imparting mass. It also allowed them to "coagulate" and create everything we see around us that has mass.
The empirical evidence of the Higgs Boson lends credibility to the standard model, which predicts the Higgs Boson and describes how particles are formed in the Universe. If it didn't exist, the physicists would have had to come up with a new model!
Posted by: ganji | Jul 3, 2012 7:34:31 PM
Thank you Carlos, Varun, and ganji for taking the time to share your explanations. Having no background in physics, I try to understand it primarily through visual imagination and metaphor. For some reason, I've always thought of particles as miniscule, sometimes temporary, parts of the atom, perhaps from having been told a long time ago that a heretofore unknown particle -- the quark? -- was observed immediately after a controlled nuclear fission (or was it fusion?)
Carlos, I found your explanation rather aesthetic and a pleasure to read. ;-)
Varun, I think what got me going on the "gravity" tack was the animated cartoon's assertion that one can think of "mass" as "gravitational charge."
Ganji, while new models represent quantum leaps in our understanding of reality, I was quite relieved a few months ago to find that the neutrino had not exceeded the speed of light. It would certainly be interesting to know how the Higgs Boson gives mass to particles.
This is all very exciting, even from within the relative fog of a non-physicist mind.
Posted by: Susan | Jul 3, 2012 11:32:45 PM
http://vimeo.com/phdcomics
This fairy tail is called a cartoon or comic, and that is an appropriate description of it.
The only understanding we have of gravity is at the classical level as presented about 4 centuries ago by Issac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. Yes, we have general relativity connecting it to curved space time, but no Planck's constant appears in any of the equations, save as an input in the energy density. These are classical equations.
There is no, zero, experimental proof of anything about gravity at the small distances and times involved in current accelerator experiments, none. Any comments about it are pure speculation, meaningless guesses. The best one can do is say that we get the right answers for the energy levels in atoms by ignoring gravity explicitly, but many other assumptions are made to accomplish this. We simply do not know the effect of gravity or the correct description of it at smaller distances and shorter times.
Furthermore no gravitational waves have ever been observed either.
Furthermore, no field particle for the gravitational field, often called a spin 2 graviton has ever been proved to exist. So far, it exists only in the imagination of some who seek to promote it and falsely link it to the so called "Higgs" particle currently receiving so much public relations.
If this so called particle gives others mass, prove it with facts and calculations, not hollow, empty words for public consumption to a gullible and unwitting easily fooled public. Prove it, prove it, prove it, don't just repeat meaningless words, over and over again.
Feynman once formally expanded the classical gravitational field equations into a similar Born series similar to what he did for electromagnetism. But this problem is orders of magnitude more complicated especially since one does not know how to quantize gravity and the equations, even at the classical level, are very complicated non linear ones. And of course all those nasty questions of mathematical convergence are swept under the propaganda rug, just as similar questions about this speculative particle called "Higgs" are.
To talk about all this in such a flippant way as in the above comic is almost an obscenity. The average lay person and many physicists have no clue how complex all these calculations are to accomplish; this of course is why these propagandists are short on such calculations.
Here is a much more significant article which could have been posted in its place: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/03/dr-drew-glaxosmithkline-promote-drugs_n_1647045.html?1341340758&icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl6%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D175513.
This article describes the apparent misconduct of a medical doctor who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a drug company to illegally promote off label use of dangerous drugs for uses which they have not been tested, and for which that company just paid a huge fine!
But we have only silence from the 3 quarks editors on this vital subject, but repeated speculative garbage promoting particles which are speculated to have fractional electric charge, but have never been observed, speculations of how other particles are made of them, but no actual calculations proving it. Talk is cheap in physics too, just like selling any product today.
Physics is bankrupt, just like our government, only able to copy theories based on chemistry and seek to fool a gullible and unwitting and easily fooled public with public relations in an effort to obtain more government dinero to continue their meaningless experiments. Dinero means MONEY in Spanish.
If all this is so significant and important and earth shattering, why don't the physicists pay for these experiments personally themselves instead of begging money from the public like a common beggar?
Evidently the physicists of today learned well from their teachers, Joseph Goebbels and Adolph Hitler in Nazi, Germany which so many brave souls in this world sought to get rid of:
"The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." Adolph Hitler
By the way, how many earth shattering discoveries have been produced by large group efforts? Almost none. Just look at all the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on groups working on cancer, but the cancer generals can't even tell you what cancer is, let alone how to cure and prevent it in the human body can they?
Once nearly everyone believed the earth was flat. Many still do. So just because most of the physics experts in the physics orthodoxy believe they have proved the so-called
"Higgs" "particle" exists, even though most of the rest of the world has not a clue of the "proof", does not make it so does it? Always remember the admonition of Richard Feynman: "I never pay any attention to experts".
Is it worth throwing out centuries of the scientific method for a fleeting fame of personal vanity in one's lifetime? I don't think so and I doubt if the great scientists of the past like Galileo Galilei, Karl Gauss, Issac Newton or Albert Einstein would either.
Posted by: WJAbbe | Jul 4, 2012 1:42:15 PM
WJAbbe, thank you for that breath of oh so welcome fresh air.
Posted by: Dana | Jul 9, 2012 4:44:31 PM
If Higgs Boson allows substance to have mass by blocking that ability if that were possible then one would assume that a substance would have the same mass as a photon or particle of light. Thus that substance might travel at the speed of light. Does not do us much good to find planets like earth out there if we can't get to them.
Posted by: Owe | Mar 7, 2013 3:00:04 PM
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