Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider discover two new supermassive particles

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Well the reason we had not seen them before, is that the circumstances necessary to create them, and study them, only exist on one place on the planet, and that is at CERN, in the LHC. Furthermore they decay rapidly, and in physics terminology, that could mean that the particles in question are only manifest in an observable form for fractions, of a fraction, of a fraction of a second, which means in turn that only very sensitive equipment can register their coming into, and going out of existence.

That is why we have never seen them before, why their existence has only been theorised previously, and are only now gaining evidence which might see them classified as a firmer concept!

a reply to: XL5

Well, flying cars are not science fiction any more. The Terrafugia (spelling?) is a model of flying car which is looking to take off soon (did you see what I did there?).

I understand what you are driving at, but because the technologies of the future will, undoubtedly rely on unseen particles, it is necessary that everyone who is not interested in them, get interested in them, else those technologies will be all the slower in coming online! The more people are interested, the sexier the possibilities become to entrepreneurs and stock market analysts after all!

An inability to accept the potential importance of a discovery, on the part of those who are either too angry with the slow pace of progress, or too terrified by its rapid onset, will not get the job done any faster!

Furthermore, the only relevant example you gave as to a better discovery to make was the one relating to the Casmir effect, and here's a kicker... Its experiments like those run at the Large Hadron Collider which have the best chance of answering that kind of question. They will not do so to order however, since any answers which do relate to that effect are likely to come as an unintended result of an experiment aimed else where, precisely because the Casmir effect is such a strange thing!

With regard to the other angles, the Stockholm Syndrome issue... That has NOTHING to do with physics, so the people at the LHC would not be involved in any research into it what so ever, because they are physicists and engineers, not head shrinkers and neurologists!

a reply to: TrueBrit

So if these things exist for fractions of a second, what purpose do they serve in the universe? What do they do?

I'm so confused. If you smash 2 protons together, how can you get a particle with 6 times the mass of a proton? It sounds like instead of discovering new particles, they are creating them.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

That is just one of a whole mass of interesting questions that spring to mind about them! One of the purposes of the LHC, as near as I can make out, is to make discoveries which allow interesting questions like that to be asked in context, rather than as a theoretical amusement or sideline!

originally posted by: XL5
We were promised flying cars.... this kind of thing feels like a slap in the face.

Slightly off-topic, have you ever heard of the Indie Rock band from Scotland named "We Were Promised Jetpacks"?

Check them out if you are an indie music fan -- and I understand not everyone is, considering music is such a personal thing.

...and keeping on topic, we DO have flying cars of sorts (as TrueBrit mentioned above), albeit not for the masses, just like we do have jetpacks, although we're not all jet-packing or flying in our cars on our way to work -- at least not yet.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Of course. I know that. Most of my questions were meant to be rhetorical. I didn't expect you to answer them really.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Ah. My apologies!

I really must learn to discern the difference between a genuine query and a rhetorical question with a greater degree of accuracy! It is on the to do list!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Ah no offense. It is hard to tell these things on the internet in forums. I appreciate you telling those things anyways.

a reply to: TrueBrit

My question wasn't rhetorical. I'd actually like to know.

Do I just have it wrong and they're smashing entire atoms together instead of just protons? And if that's the case, then why do they need more power to smash quarks together?

We don't really have flying cars, we have plane that can be used as cars. You can not be stuck in traffic and say screw it and then lift off. I am talking about anti-gravity flying cars, where for the first few years they are out, the running joke will be "roads, where we're going we don't need roads".

As some one who's into electronics/mechanical eng. I feel we are being held back some how, by now there should at least be a way of direct way to convert gasoline or alcohol into electricity with high efficiency. When I see discoveries like this that will only help 50 years from now while we have more pressing problems that do have solutions it almost feels like its a distraction. We could end up finding out how to control gravity and what holds atoms together by accident a week from now. I'm not saying its not important, just that its like investing all your money while you should be spending it on food.

The reason I mention stockholm syndrome is that when/if they can fix that, the world starts to become a better place (the govt., employers, other people being our captors).

You know what I wonder?
With these new discoveries they are finding with the LHC....
What particles have they found that they DO NOT tell everyone about?

Super weapons have to be a part of these discoveries...

Just guessing, but I wonder if they have discovered something more powerful than nuclear energy and just don't tell people.

*slaps on tinfoil hat*

a reply to: Bone75

No, they aren't creating them per se. When you collide two cars, the weight of the impact is greater than the weight of either car alone.

In collisions between accelerated particles, the speeds are insane, mind bogglingly fast. So even though you only collide some puny particles (and let's face it, even your larger particles are pretty tiny in real terms) the speed and therefore the potential energy of that collision is VAST. Because of the scale of the energy bound up in the collision, as I understand it, the barriers between matter and energy become fluid, which means that some of the energy released may manifest in the physical universe, as these short lived, and as this new finding shows, sometimes super massive particles of matter.

Now, a disclaimer. I could have gotten this whole thing round my neck, and even my simplistic explanation above may be total balls, but that is the way I understand what they do at CERN.

With regard to needing to increase the power, applying different acceleration to a collision produces different particles as a result. Also, it stands to reason accelerating particles which are larger takes a bigger kick to achieve the same speed attained in a previous experiment with a lighter, smaller particle, just as it takes a larger engine to move a heavier car at the same speed as a smaller engine would move a lighter car.

Doing collisions at higher energies, means that there is a greater potential impact energy, and therefore a greater chance that some interesting particles might manifest, or so the thinking goes.

Again, I could be way off base, but that is the way I have understood the experiments so far.

originally posted by: gortex
The technology you've used to post that response came from CERN , just because you don't see the importance of the discovery of new particles doesn't mean it's a waste of time or money.

I think this is woefully inaccurate. The technology to create that message already existed long before any developments of CERN, nor were they the result of a greater understanding of high energy physics. This is why this argument of justifying fundamental research with spin-offs is a fallacious one. You could have easily developed the vanishingly small practical spin-offs as a result of the research along with much more interesting stuff with a $10 billion dollar price tag.

originally posted by: gortex
If we are to secure the future of mankind we need knowledge of new physics beyond the Standard Model to escape this planet.

This is an outright fantasy. Most of the honest scientists at CERN themselves will openly admit their research into new physics will never lead to any groundbreaking practical applications, and there are very, very good physical reasons to think why that is indeed the case.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Xeven

Ah.

Of course, Copernicus, and Galileo both wasted their time on a heliocentric model of Earths movement, and place within the solar system, because as you say, it made no immediate difference to the lives of people living in the period when they were living, breathing people, as opposed to dead and lofty boffins from yesteryear.

And I suppose Faraday and Tesla were just jokers, doing impractical things like harnessing lightning for their own sheer amusement?

What complete and utter rot!

Most of the greatest discoveries ever made by scientists, in ANY field, take years and years to reach the point where their implications are well enough understood to be applied to every day life! The improvements to shipping and navigation that a more accurate understanding of Earths place in the solar system made possible, were not implemented the day that Copernicus first pondered the possibility of an alternative to the Ptolemaic model! They were not even implemented when Galileo improved upon and expanded upon those points decades later, and they would not be fully implemented til after he had died, because of equal parts stupidity on the part of the sodding Roman Catholic Church *hawks, spits* and the lazy minded, change fearing nature of the human condition!

Similarly, the implications of the discoveries of those working at the LHC, will more than likely be some considerable time in becoming relevant to the daily lives of human beings, but I will tell you one thing. When that does happen, when people are using that kind of physics in every day items, for their every day lives and as part of their routine, they will look back on those who poo-pooed the experiment as singularly closed minded, and they would be right to do so.

The reality is that just as it was decades between the creation of the first computer, and the creation of the first home computer, just as it was decades between the Wright brothers first flight, and the moon landing, so it will be some considerable time between the discovery of these particles and the alterations to theory that some of them may require, and the implications of those changes affecting every day lives. However, to suggest that the effort is not worth it, without giving technology the time to catch up to new knowledge, is just the most staggeringly ignorant thing, one could possibly utter!

This is a completely ludicrous argument if you're comparing the past scientific research that may have been considered esoteric at one point to today's esoteric research. It's a complete false equivalence, the primary reason being the fact that some guy experimenting in his basement had access to see the manifestations of electromagnetic phenomenon. Today, we need $10 billion dollar machines just to probe this new physics, and even if something extraordinary is discovered, it will have to reduce to the standard model for any scales that could possibly ever be accessible to develop a useful product or process. In my opinion, particle physics is interesting and we should ideally fund it to have a much better understanding of the universe, but you're feeding nothing more than snake-oil to the ignorant public if you make them believe fanciful inertial dampeners, anti-gravity, or warp drives will come from that research.

a reply to: Diablos

I think this is woefully inaccurate. The technology to create that message already existed long before any developments of CERN

The first website described the World Wide Web project, as well as how to use it to access documents or set up a computer server. Berners-Lee hosted the Web on his NeXT computer, which is still located at CERN.

The WWW software was put into the public domain in April 1993, and was made freely available so anyone could run a Web server or use a basic browser. And the rest, as they say, is history.
www.livescience.com...

Woefully inaccurate ?

Most of the honest scientists at CERN themselves will openly admit their research into new physics will never lead to any groundbreaking practical applications

And you know this how ?
Just because you think it don't make it so.

originally posted by: Diablos


This is a completely ludicrous argument if you're comparing the past scientific research that may have been considered esoteric at one point to today's esoteric research. It's a complete false equivalence, the primary reason being the fact that some guy experimenting in his basement had access to see the manifestations of electromagnetic phenomenon. Today, we need $10 billion dollar machines just to probe this new physics, and even if something extraordinary is discovered, it will have to reduce to the standard model for any scales that could possibly ever be accessible to develop a useful product or process.

Uh, no. It is not a ludicrous argument. It is entirely sensible, realistic, and relevant. The venue, and the cost of the materials being used is utterly irrelevant to the subject. It is the science which matters, and scientific apparatus of the scale and sensitivity required to perform these experiments will naturally cost an awful lot of money. In a world where governments world wide spend tens, and sometimes hundreds of billions of dollars on ensuring that their soldiers are better at killing than other soldiers, I think a bit over ten billion dollars for a peek under the skirts of existence is well worth the money! Given that some entities are suggesting that up to 19 TRILLION dollars were lost from real terms household wealth globally during the banking crisis, I think that people who detract from the LHC on the basis of cost have no grounds what so ever to do so. We spend money on far less worthy ventures, all the damned time!

In my opinion, particle physics is interesting and we should ideally fund it to have a much better understanding of the universe, but you're feeding nothing more than snake-oil to the ignorant public if you make them believe fanciful inertial dampeners, anti-gravity, or warp drives will come from that research.

Actually, your comment above is utter rubbish. The discovery of the Higgs boson could very well lead in decades, or centuries to come, to anti gravity, and mass manipulator based FTL propulsion. You have to understand, that if we can learn to harness the ability to impart or remove mass from regions of space and time, or objects for that matter, then we will be in a position to create warp bubbles, to bend the very fabric of space and time to our own ends. That is EXACTLY the sort of thing, which a better understanding of the Higgs Boson could lead to. It will not happen quickly, and it may be that just as it was sometime between the discovery of the atom, and the first time it was ever split, it will be some time between the discovery of the Higgs Boson, and any potential applications for it coming along.

Furthermore, the LHC, to get back to the cost issue for a moment, is a multipurpose experimental apparatus, and is providing data of a quality level and volume, which will render researchers busy with its output for a very long time indeed. The more data produced by an experiment, the better its value. I really think you need to revisit these issues you have with the LHC and what use it's output is to us, because if you have a problem with it, you must be missing something crucial.

Scientific research leads to all sorts of improved technology for everyone. It might be difficult to see what advantage we could gain from a very unstable essentially man-made particle but it does extend our understanding of the physics of the universe and opens up new possibilities.

a reply to: gortex

Diablos is correct and the snippet you posted doesn't prove him wrong by any stretch of the imagination. The Web was originally developed as a way for scientists to share documents and the technology used to make that happen had nothing to do with the experiments carried out by the LHC.

a reply to: Bone75

If you read Diablos's response, the member clearly states that it is the members belief that the development of the World Wide Web was nothing to do with CERN, not that it is their belief that it had nothing to do with the LHC.

Indeed, the World Wide Web WAS developed at CERN, by Tim Berners Lee. Therefore, your belief that Diablos's comment was valid, is false. The members comment was in error.