The Higgs Boson

if I read the article correctly they are 99.7% sure that they have found it. That would satisfy most hypothesis tests. In science they need to be even more sure--that will come with more time.

We at Test4Theory@home have been told by dr.Ben Segal to wait for the official announcement.Wait and see.
Tullio
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I'll have to read-up on this subject regarding the Higgs Boson.
"Boson" is this similar to the photon Boson structure?
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The Kite Fliers

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Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet
belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes.

A boson is a particle with integer spin so it does not have to obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Any number of bosons can occupy the same energy level, forming a boson conglomerate.It obeys the Bose-Einstein statistics, hence its name.
Tullio
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So. if they do conclude that the Higgs Boson exists which theories get ditched and which ones get a new lease on life?
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Bob DeWoody

The Standard Model would be confirmed. But look at the CERN Bulletin site, it says that the G-2 anomaly of the muon magnetic moment is still valid and that is contrary to the Standard Model. So all depends on your choice, as ever.
Tullio
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The problem is that every new instrument, be it a new accelerator or a new telescope, costs a lot more. Hence it must give results, otherways what are the scientists to tell the taxpayers who financed its costs? This was pointed out by Emilio Segre'. Nobel winning physicist, already in 1972. The people at CERN were much troubled if they had to admit that the Higgs boson does not exist.Now they will be happy to announce that it exists, and I will be happy too, since I am helping them with my computer running Test4Theory@home. But real discoveries come often by surprise or serendipity, like the neutrino discovery. There they were looking for one aspect of the neutrino and found another, much more intriguing. Now they shall ask to use the LHC, much more powerful than the SPS, to produce the neutrino beams from Geneve to Gran Sasso. Lovely places both.
Tullio
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As a postscript, I have read in New Scientist that a Cambridge physicist, Jayant Narlikar, had proposed in 1963 that neutrinos could travel back in time in a Big Bang universe. He was a proposer of the steady state theory with Herman Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle, abandoned by many after the discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1965. Superluminal neutrinos could, according to relativity, travel back in time. Now the OPERA result seems to support Big Bang. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Tullio
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I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here for a minute. OK, they spent billions to discover these new but predicted particles. In what way has this discovery improved the day to day life of the average citizen of the planet. Will it help farmers grow larger and better crops. Will it improve the air that we breathe or the water that we drink? Will it make transportation safer? Will it control the weather or make day to day living safer? Will it keep terrorists from committing acts of senseless violence? Is it going to make interstellar space travel possible and better yet practical? The taxpayers of the world footed the bill for these discoveries so I think those are valid questions.

But like I have always said about the space program most all of the money was spent to pay people to do jobs so in that sense it was money well spent.
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Bob DeWoody

Four thousand people are working at CERN, mostly young. 250 of them are Italians, including the Scientific Director, Sergio Bertolucci, and the leaders of the Atlas experiment, Fabiola Gianotti, and the CMS experiment, Guido Tonelli. In a time in which Italy is often laughed at because of its politicians, as an Italian taxpayer and a retired theoretical physicist, I think they are earning they paychecks.
Tullio
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Interesting, but like any scientist or mathematician, I don't like uncertainty. I'll celebrate once the official confirmation is given, like the neutrinos supposedly traveling faster than light.

Wait until tomorrow. We shall know if the Higgs boson exists or not.
Tullio
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The toast to the electron made in 1897 at the Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory was: to the electron! May it remain useless to anybody.
Tullio
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I think it was LaPlace who said 'Here's to abstract mathematics, may never be of any use to anyone."

I think it was HOMER who said "Beer, the solution to all lifes problems"