God particle
God particle
A lot was missed
This is in response to Ken Obenski letter Aug. 13 “God Particle, what did I miss?”
I did not understand Mr. Obenski’s analogy between the Higgs boson (God particle) and the lack of school buses in the Hawaii, his description of the Higgs particle or experiment lasting a millisecond and reference of our 6 billion-year-old universe. According to the latest findings, our Universe is around 14 billion years old, Earth is around 4.5 billion and the Higgs boson does not last a millisecond, but the proton collisions performed in the experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) are measured in nanoseconds.
Per the LHC website:
We aim to squeeze the beam size down as much as possible at the collision point to increase the chances of a collision.
Even so, protons are very small things.
So even though we squeeze our 100,000 million protons per bunch down to 64 microns (about the width of a human hair) at the interaction point. We get only around 20 collisions per crossing with nominal beam currents.
The bunches cross (every 25 ns.) so often we end up with around 600 million collisions per second at the start of a fill with nominal current.
Most protons miss each other and carry on around the ring time after time. The beams are kept circulating for hours
The results announced by the scientists at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire /European Council for Nuclear Research) on July 4, regarding the discovery of a subatomic particle that looks like the Higgs boson involved analysis of about 800 trillion proton-proton collisions over the last two years. It also involved many scientists from all over the world working together on this project for more than four decades.
Now that we have the numbers out of the way, here are some other things he might have missed.
This discovery is likely to be one of the most important scientific discovery in decades. In a nutshell, the Higgs boson came about because although the Standard Model (Standard Model of Particle Physics: the simplest set of ingredients — elementary particles — needed to make up the world we see in the heavens and in the laboratory) holds together neatly, nothing requires the particles to have mass; for a fuller theory, the Higgs — or something else — must fill in that gap. The Higgs or a particle like it, will help further our knowledge of the universe and the fundamental structure of matter.
Most of us are not scientists or physicists but are still curious to learn about the laws of nature and science can help us understand what and who we are and how the universe came to be. As Dennis Overby wrote in an article published in the New York Times, “Confirmation of the Higgs boson or something very much like it would constitute a rendezvous with destiny for a generation of physicists who have believed in the boson for half a century without ever seeing it. The finding affirms a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws — but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.”
If you want to know more about the Higgs, you can find a lot of information on the web. The official CERN website is: public.web.cern.ch/public/.
Science is not an easy concept to grab, I can attest to it from my own struggles, but it is an important part for present and future generations. CERN and the Higgs, the JPL “Curiosity” rover Mars landing (Check the video of the control room as Curiosity landed at jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1103) and other recent science milestones are helping its popularity rise, but with the U.S. government spending/budget leaving science last, politicians’ mishaps and celebrity gossip still the main headlines, it needs all the help it can get from us. If you care about science, even if just a little, let others know, talk about it, discover new things. It’s not only for rocket scientists and geeks, it’s truly a lot of fun for everyone.
I have an art background, however, I see many similarities between the two. To name a couple, both fields require a great deal of imagination and they always get the short end of the stick when it comes to funding. Computer, physics, math, earth, chemistry and all sciences are advancing very fast. Let’s keep an open mind and instill curiosity in younger generations, as well. They will thank us for it later.
As far as the comment on the lack of transportation for our kids, I can only empathize with Mr. Obenski. I remember driving my kid to and from school and sports practices seven days a week. But let’s not compare the flaws in our system and our leaders with the achievements of brilliant men and women and dismiss their work without even trying to understand it.
Mahalo to West Hawaii Today which publishes scientific news to keep us informed. Don’t miss out, stay informed. Go science.
I. Degroote
Waikoloa