Universe hates Higgs boson, Chicago Cubs
Friday, October 23, 2009 | 03:40 PM ET
By John Bowman, CBCNews
A physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider doesn't think much of the theory that the universe is sabotaging the project to prevent the discovery of the Higgs boson. Might as well say that Nature hates the Cubbies.
The Higgs boson is a theoretical particle that is predicted to exist based on current understanding of particle physics. Physicists think the Higgs particle could explain why some particles have mass and others don't.
In an interview with Scientific Computing, particle physicist Steven Nahn of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the premise that the Higgs boson is somehow sending signals back through time to sabotage its own discovery is "fairly crazy."
"Exactly in line with their argument, I could say that Nature abhors the Chicago Cubs, such that the theory which describes the evolution of our universe prescribed Steve Bartman to interfere on October 14, 2003, extending the "bad luck" of the Cubbies," he said.
Steve Bartman was the Cubs fan who reached out for a foul ball in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, disrupting an attempt by the Cubs fielder to catch it. The Cubs were leading the game and the series, but went on to lose both. The Cubs still haven't won a championship since 1908.
Nahn acknowledged that many scientific theories sound pretty crazy at first, especially in the realms of particle physics and relativity:
In special relativity, there is the famous "twin paradox," a prediction that if you take a set of twins, leave one on Earth and send one traveling through space at nearly the speed of light, when the second one returns he will be younger than the one left behind. Sounds "crazy," meaning outside of our normal experience. But, in 1972, they put some atomic clocks on planes, flew them around the world, and indeed found that the moving ones were behind relative to ones left on the ground. Experiments like these are essential to have a theory accepted into the canon of physics.
The Higgs boson "Back to the Future" theory, on the other hand, can't really be tested and seems to have been created to explain the problems at the LHC, he said.
"Seems a little circular," Nahn said.
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Comments
Paul Morris
Winnipeg
This silly theory that the universe is somehow conspiring to stop humans from finding the Higgs Boson particle makes several poorly thought out assumptions.
One, that the particle exists, two, that people in the future can time travel and three, that people in the future don't want us to find this particle.
The reality is that this experiment is so large and prone to failure that any small problem causes the whole thing to be shut down for months in order to repair it. I don't think people realize that if a small section of the collider does not work properly, then the whole system needs to be shut down and repaired and this system is not like turning off a computer. It actually takes many months for the system to "shutdown" safely before work can begin on the problem area. Then it take months more for the system to get up to speed. Overall it can take a year just to fix a small leak!
Conspiracy people love to conspire, but the problems the Large Hadron Collider have are very easily explained without need for these dumb ideas about future people sabotaging our present.
Posted October 27, 2009 03:44 PM
Clinton Seneca-McDonald
If the Higgs Bison Particle is actually going back in time to take out the Accelerator before it has a chance to preform its actions, then that must mean our destinies are pre-determined?
If that is the case, then apperantly 2012 dec. some time is the end of the world.....so why protest about the LHC if the world is gonna end anyways?
Also i had a question, if you would please send the answer back Via-Email that would be nice, thank you!
My question is, would it be possible to seperate protons, neutron and electrons into like a seperate containment field?
(like a Magnetic Accelerator with a diameter of 17.2 meters producing a electroMagnetic field, having 2 of those accelerators alined perfectly and then putting 2 seperate beams, an electron beam and proton beam through it. Would they collect the protons and electrons in each field repulsing each other or will nothing occur?)
I would do the expirment on my own, but i am just a college student with dozens of other questions.
Thanks for reading my comment and question.
Posted November 2, 2009 02:42 PM