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The passage describes the anticipation and build up to the launch of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator at CERN. Many physicists had been waiting decades for a machine like this to make new discoveries.
JoAnne Hewett is a particle physicist who had been waiting 25 years since the cancellation of the planned Superconducting Super Collider in the US. She viewed the LHC as crucial for testing her theories.
In 2008 when the LHC first circulated protons, Hewett was attending a celebration party in San Francisco while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She was hopeful the LHC would make surprising new discoveries.
By 2012, initial results were being presented from the LHC experiments at a particle physics conference in Melbourne, Australia. Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti from the two main LHC experiments presented evidence of a new particle discovery.
After decades of anticipation and theorizing, particle physicists like Hewett were finally able to test their ideas against real data from particle collisions at the highest energies ever achieved in a laboratory. This marked the beginning of a new era of discovery with the LHC.
Physicists at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle on July 4, 2012 through experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider. The particle showed properties consistent with the theoretical Higgs boson particle.
The discovery was the result of years of work by thousands of scientists and billions of dollars worth of experiments. It represented a major breakthrough and achievement for particle physics.
Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who first proposed the theory of the Higgs field and boson in the 1960s, was present for the announcement at 83 years old. Other physicists involved in the original theory were also in attendance.
While the discovered particle matched predictions of the Higgs boson, further studies are needed to confirm it is the particle from the original theory. Regardless, a new fundamental particle of nature was found.
The discovery marked the beginning of a new era in physics and provided clues about unknown realms yet to be explored through continued study of subatomic particles like the Higgs. It was a triumph and turning point for the field.
All matter in the real world, from small particles to large objects, is made up of combinations of elementary particles. Ancient cultures proposed that everything was made of combinations of basic “elements” like earth, air, fire and water.
Modern science has shown that at a finer scale, all matter is made of atoms, which are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons are in turn made of even smaller particles called quarks. Electrons, up quarks and down quarks are sufficient to account for all ordinary matter.
Particle physics describes 12 elementary matter particles and force-carrying particles that hold them together, known as the Standard Model. One force carrier, the Higgs boson, is different and controversial as it is needed to explain particle masses but makes the model less elegant.
The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 confirmed predictions and supported the Standard Model. However, the particle physics model does not fully explain everything observed in nature like dark matter and dark energy.
Basic particle physics research may not have immediate practical applications but drives fundamental understanding of nature and has repeatedly led to enormous technological benefits through spin-offs of that basic knowledge over time.
The term “God Particle” became popularly used to refer to the Higgs boson due to physicist Leon Lederman coining the phrase in his 1993 book about the particle.
Lederman has since had second thoughts about the name, as it implies a connection to God that the particle does not actually have. The Higgs boson itself is simply a fundamental particle that was predicted but not discovered until 2012.
Lederman is a renowned experimental physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1988. He made important discoveries like additional types of neutrinos and quarks.
While the “God Particle” name gained popularity, physicists simply refer to it as the Higgs boson after theoretical physicist Peter Higgs who predicted its existence. Finding the Higgs boson was a major achievement that validated the Standard Model of particle physics.
Though the name implies a religious significance it does not have, Lederman’s catchy phrase helped raise public awareness and interest in the complex world of particle physics and the scientific quest to understand fundamental forces and particles.
Physicists generally dislike the nickname “God Particle” for the Higgs boson, which was popularized by the book of that title by physicist Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi. Lederman said the publisher wouldn’t let them call it the “Goddamn Particle.”
Journalists love the nickname as it draws more attention than “Higgs boson.” While the nickname sells more papers, physicists argue it has nothing to do with God and is misleading.
Some physicists have used God as a metaphor to describe trying to understand the fundamental laws and order of the universe. But most working physicists today are less religious than the general public due to studying nature.
The nickname draws attention but also offends some believers and non-believers. While attention-grabbing, Lederman and Teresi intended to convey the importance of discovering the Higgs in understanding nature, not to imply a relationship to God. Finding it would not prove or disprove the existence of God.
The Higgs boson is described as being at the “explanatory end” of our understanding of particle physics, rather than spatially at the end of the universe. It is the final piece needed to complete the Standard Model.
The Standard Model explains all ordinary matter and interactions we experience, but does not include gravity. There are also open questions about dark matter, dark energy, and hypothetical exotic particles.
Before its discovery, physicists were confident the Higgs boson was important because the Standard Model required it to explain why particles have mass. Without it, predictions did not match observations.
Particles fall into two types - fermions which make up matter, and bosons which mediate forces. Fermions take up space while bosons can overlap. Lower mass means a particle takes up more space.
There are four known fundamental forces - gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force. Each is associated with boson particles that mediate interactions - graviton, photon, gluons, W/Z bosons. Understanding forces in terms of particle exchanges was a breakthrough of 20th century physics.

So in summary, the Higgs boson was predicted to be essential to complete our theoretical framework for understanding matter and forces at the most fundamental level.

There are two main “nuclear” forces - the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.
The strong nuclear force binds quarks together inside protons and neutrons. It is carried by particles called gluons. This force is very short-range but also extremely powerful.
Gross, Politzer, and Wilczek showed in 1973 that the strong force actually gets stronger as the quarks are pulled apart. It requires infinite energy to separate individual quarks. As a result, quarks are always confined within composite particles called hadrons.
The weak nuclear force is responsible for radioactive decay and helps power the sun. It is much weaker than the other forces.
The weak force is carried by three different bosons - the electrically neutral Z boson and the charged W+ and W- bosons. These bosons are heavier than other force-carrying particles.
The strange behavior of the weak force is explained by the Higgs field. The Higgs field permeates all of space and gives mass to other particles that interact with it. This is what makes the weak interactions unusual compared to other forces.

So in summary, it outlines the key differences between the strong and weak nuclear forces, their force-carrying particles, and how the Higgs field helps explain the odd properties of the weak force.

Matter is made up of atoms, which are the smallest units that retain the chemical properties of an element.
Atoms can be broken down further into subatomic particles called quarks and leptons. There are 6 types of quarks and 6 types of leptons, which interact via nuclear forces.
Quarks feel the strong nuclear force while leptons do not. Combinations of these 12 fundamental matter particles account for all observable matter.
The discovery of particles occurred gradually over the 20th century, culminating in the discovery of the last elementary fermion (the tau neutrino) in 2000.
While atoms were traditionally depicted as electrons orbiting a nucleus like planets around the sun, this is an oversimplification. The Bohr model applied early quantum mechanics but particles also behave as waves and their positions are probabilistic rather than definite.
Modern particle physics has broken down all matter into a relatively small set of fundamental building blocks, revealing the basic constituents and interactions that explain the diversity of the physical world at its most microscopic level.

In summary, through systematic experimentation and theoretical developments, physics has identified a small number of elementary particles that underlie all of chemistry and the vast variety we observe in nature.

The traditional cartoon model of an atom depicts electrons orbiting a central nucleus. In reality, electrons exist as probabilistic “clouds” or wave functions rather than having a definite position and velocity.
The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, which are attracted to each other by the strong nuclear force despite their electromagnetic repulsion.
Electrons are attracted to the positively charged protons via electromagnetism. This keeps electrons orbiting the nucleus, though quantum theory says their position is indefinite.
Antimatter particles like the positron were predicted by Dirac’s equation and discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932 using a cloud chamber. Antimatter has the same mass but opposite charge from normal matter particles.
Neutrinos were hypothesized by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain missing energy in nuclear decay, like neutron decay producing protons and electrons. Pauli suggested a nearly massless neutral particle was carrying away undetected energy.

So in summary, it outlines the traditional atomic model, discoveries of antimatter and neutrinos that expanded the standard model, and notes quantum mechanics provides a more accurate description of electrons than definite orbits.

Neutrons were originally thought to decay via an unknown “weak nuclear force” as their decay was not well explained by known forces of gravity, electromagnetism, or the strong nuclear force.
The discovery of the neutrino helped explain neutron decay as involving the emission of an electron, proton, and electron antineutrino via this weak force.
Particle physics progressed through the discovery of multiple new particles like muons, taus, and different types of neutrinos. These were organized into three generations or families of leptons.
Hadrons like pions and kaons were also discovered, but were later understood to be composed of elementary particles called quarks, which also come in six flavors organized into three generations.
Forces arise from the exchange of boson particles between fermions like leptons and quarks. The four main forces are electromagnetism, weak force, strong force, and gravity. The Higgs is a unique scalar boson not directly related to symmetries like the other boson force carriers.
The Higgs boson interacts more strongly with more massive elementary particles like quarks, leptons, and W/Z bosons. The more mass a particle has, the more it couples to the Higgs field.
This feature is important for studying the Higgs boson at the LHC, as it decays very rapidly into other particles based on its coupling strengths. We can calculate expected decay rates into particles like W bosons, bottom quarks, and tau leptons based on their masses.
Discovering unexpected decay rates or products would indicate new physics beyond the Standard Model, since the predictions are very precise based on particle masses. Finding surprises would be an exciting sign of new phenomena.
Particle accelerators work by using electric and magnetic fields to accelerate charged particles like electrons and protons to very high velocities and collide them. This can recreate high-energy conditions not found naturally on Earth.
Collisions at high energy allow the conversion of energy into mass via E=mc2. Colliding particles can generate new, heavier particles if their total energy exceeds the mass of the new particles. This process underlies the creation of new particles in accelerators.
The electron volt (eV) is a common unit used in particle physics to measure energy. It represents the amount of energy needed to move one electron across a voltage of one volt.
An eV is a very small amount of energy - visible light photons have energies of a couple eV, while a flying mosquito has kinetic energy of a trillion eV.
Mass is also measured in eV, since mass is a form of energy. The proton/neutron mass is around 1 billion eV, while the electron is 0.5 million eV.
Higher energy particle accelerators like the LHC can probe smaller distances and discover new exotic particles by providing collision energies well beyond what particles naturally have. Previous machines included the SPS and LEP at CERN.
CERN was established in 1954 to boost nuclear and particle physics research in post-war Europe. It has operated several successive higher-energy accelerators over the decades.
The LEP collider precisely collided electrons and positrons for precision measurements, while hadron colliders like the LHC use protons for discovery potential despite less precise collisions.
SLAC, Brookhaven, and Fermilab have all contributed significantly to particle physics experiments and discoveries in the US, alongside CERN’s efforts in Europe.
SLAC played a key role in discovering the charm quark and tau lepton. Their experiments in the 1970s provided important evidence for the quark model by showing protons have substructure.
Brookhaven operates the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) which produces record-breaking temperatures to study quark-gluon plasma from the early universe.
Fermilab operated the Tevatron, discovering the top quark in 1995. It was the highest energy particle collider in the world until the LHC launched in 2009. The Tevatron sought but did not find the Higgs boson.
These three US labs have been important contributors to the Standard Model alongside CERN’s efforts, through accelerators, experiments, and discoveries made over decades of work.
The Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab was the last major high-energy collider in the US. It was shut down in 2011 as its energy was surpassed by the newly operational LHC.
The proposed Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in Texas was meant to succeed the Tevatron with over 20 times its energy, but it was canceled by Congress in 1993 due to cost overruns and budget pressures.
The cancellation was a blow to US particle physics. Many scientists had been planning to work at the SSC. Alternative projects were discussed but funding for particle physics declined overall.
Debate existed within the broader physics community over priorities for funding between particle physics and other fields like condensed matter physics. Some felt the SSC diverted too many resources.
After cancellation, the SSC site and facilities changed hands multiple times with different redevelopment plans that ultimately failed to materialize.
With the SSC canceled, US physicists successfully lobbied for greater involvement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project in Europe, helping to move it forward as the new flagship particle collider.
In September 2008, just 9 days after successfully circulating the first protons, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experienced an explosion. A faulty connection in a superconducting magnet joint caused an electrical arc that ruptured a helium vessel. Over 50 magnets had to be replaced.
This setback was psychologically damaging but also galvanized efforts to improve the machine. Over the next year, every component was checked and strengthened to withstand higher energies.
The LHC circulated protons again in November 2009 and brought beams into collision a few days later. Regular physics data collection began in early 2010, with the collider breaking energy records.
The 2008 accident helped physicists better understand the complex machine. Once fully operational in 2010, the LHC performed without interruption, discovering the Higgs boson ahead of schedule in 2012.
The LHC shows how large-scale international collaboration on “Big Science” projects can achieve remarkable results, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. Its success is a testament to scientific ingenuity and perseverance.
The LHC project was conceived as a less ambitious alternative to the canceled SSC project in the US. It would reuse the existing LEP tunnel at CERN but have a higher target energy of 14 TeV compared to LEP’s 4 TeV.
Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia was a major proponent of the LHC. As head of CERN’s planning committee and later director general, he convinced European governments to fund the project despite budget issues.
The LHC project director was Lyn Evans, who skillfully managed the immense engineering challenges over many years. Roadblocks included archaeological discoveries during cavern excavation and construction over an underground river.
Evans had to deal with cost overruns in 2001 that angered member states. An external review found issues with project management but kept Evans on as his expertise was vital.
The LHC accelerates protons around its 27km ring using electric fields to give small boosts to their speed each turn, like nudging a ball around a pole. Its two beams each contain around 500 trillion protons when operating at full capacity.
Protons are accelerated in the LHC to speeds very close to the speed of light using a series of preliminary accelerators before entering the main ring. They are grouped into bunches and tightly focused into a thin beam.
At these speeds, protons have tremendous kinetic energy - up to 7 TeV per collision in the LHC. Relativity effects become significant at these speeds.
The LHC uses extremely powerful superconducting magnets, cooled by liquid helium, to guide the proton beams around the 17-mile ring. Their magnetic fields are over 100,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
Tight focusing and high vacuum are required to maintain the proton beams. Beam dumping deposits the energy of about 175 pounds of TNT every 10 hours into a graphite block for cooling.
Luminosity measures the rate of collisions and improved greatly from 2010-2012, enabling new discoveries like the Higgs boson ahead of schedule. Careful operation is needed due to the large energies involved.
Particle physicists discover new particles by colliding other particles like protons together at high speeds in large detectors at facilities like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
When particles collide, they may decay and produce “fossil” evidence of new particles through patterns of particles detected. Identifying what particles were originally produced requires careful analysis.
It’s like paleontology - experts can distinguish fossilized bone from surrounding rock through subtle clues in color and texture. Particle physicists must similarly analyze collision data to identify patterns indicating new particles.
Two key LHC experiments, CMS and ATLAS, use giant detectors to observe particle sprays from collisions and try to identify evidence that particular particle decays came from hypothesized particles like the Higgs boson, rather than background processes.
Identifying particles from collision data is a combination of science, technology and interpretation that is crucial for discovering new subatomic particles.
ATLAS and CMS are the two main particle detector experiments at the LHC, located on opposite sides of the ring. They are much larger than previous experiments, weighing over 7,000 and 13,000 tons respectively.
Their goal is to precisely track and identify particles emerging from proton collisions, measuring properties like mass, charge, and whether they interact through the strong force. This allows physicists to deduce the underlying particle physics processes.
The strong force is relatively easy to identify, as quarks and gluons fragment into jets of hadrons. Charge can be determined using magnetic fields, which bend particles’ trajectories.
In addition to ATLAS and CMS, there are five smaller specialized experiments studying topics like heavy ion collisions, cosmic rays, and monopoles.
The detectors contain extremely complex arrays of materials like magnets, crystals, and wires, assembled by large international collaborations of over 3,000 scientists each from over 30 countries.
While ATLAS and CMS compete to make discoveries first, they also verify each other’s results due to the importance of confirmation in high-energy physics. This system of competition and collaboration has enabled top-quality science.

The passage describes the process of colliding protons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments like CMS and ATLAS. When protons collide at high energies, they are contracted into pancake shapes due to relativity. Inside the protons are quarks, antiquarks, and gluons called partons. It’s these partons that actually interact during collisions, not the protons as a whole.

Collisions produce a messy spray of particles, often over 100 hadrons from a single event. This pileup makes it hard to distinguish what happened. Detectors must detect and identify the various particles that could be produced, like quarks/gluons appearing as jets, electrically charged electrons/photons, heavy particles decaying before detection, and neutrinos which are not detected. Missing transverse momentum calculations accounting for invisible neutrinos are important. Muons are also highlighted as they leave detectable tracks but can penetrate detectors unlike electrons. Working together, CMS and ATLAS aim to precisely measure collisions to discover new particles like the Higgs boson.

The Khafre and Khufu pyramids sit next to each other outside Cairo. Khufu’s is larger but erosion has made Khafre’s slightly larger now.
Khufu’s pyramid has 3 interior chambers, while Khafre’s seems solid except for 1 burial chamber. This difference has puzzled archaeologists.
In 1967, physicist Luis Alvarez used cosmic ray muons to try to image inside Khafre’s pyramid. By detecting muons passing through, they hoped to find undiscovered chambers. However, the experiment found the pyramid appeared equally dense everywhere.
The ATLAS and CMS particle detectors at the LHC are constructed in layers to capture information from collisions. An inner tracker is surrounded by electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters to measure particle energies, and an outer muon detector tracks muons.
The layers work together to identify particles emerging from collisions before they decay or escape. However, the enormous data from the LHC poses huge storage and processing challenges given how much information is produced. Most data must be discarded in real-time to focus on interesting collision events.
The chapter discusses the Insane Clown Posse’s song “Miracles” and their wonder at phenomena like magnets and how they work. While magnetism is scientifically understood, their questioning highlights how magnetic force at a distance can seem mysterious.
Magnets work via magnetic fields - invisible lines of force that extend from magnets and can exert force even before direct contact. Visualizing iron filings aligning with magnetic fields helps make these fields more tangible.
In fact, all of space is filled with fields even when objects are not nearby. There are quantifiable magnetic field values at every point. Multiple magnets’ fields simply add together.
Fields extend beyond magnetism - the fundamental nature of reality involves quantum fields that permeate space and time. Matter itself arises from quantum field vibrations. Fields are the most basic building blocks, with no evident lower layer of reality beneath them. The universe consists of interacting force-carrying fields rather than discrete particles alone.

In summary, the chapter uses the Insane Clown Posse’s song to illustrate how magnetic fields reveal a deeper reality of fields permeating space, not just particles, according to modern physics. Fields may seem mysterious but are the best current conception of nature’s most basic structure.

Here are the key points about fields from the passage:

Fields are fundamental to modern physics. Particles arise as vibrations or excitations in underlying fields that permeate space.
The gravitational field was the first to be widely accepted as conceptualized by Laplace. It imagines space filled with a gravitational potential field distorted by massive objects, creating gradients that exert forces. This avoided “action at a distance.”
Electromagnetism is understood as a single electromagnetic field. Orsted’s discovery of the link between electricity and magnetism helped unite them conceptually.
Maxwell’s equations modeled the electromagnetic field and predicted electromagnetic waves (light). This established light as oscillations in the EM field and unified optics with electricity/magnetism.
Fields provide a local, continuous explanation for forces rather than mysterious actions across distances. They are distortions or variations in invisible, permeating properties of space. Excitations in fields manifest as the particles we observe.

So in summary, fields were a breakthrough in conceptualizing forces as arising from local properties of space, helping unify disparate phenomena, and in understanding how particles emerge from deeper underlying continuous fields.

Physicists wondered if gravity, like electromagnetism, propagates as waves. General Relativity predicts gravitational waves that could be produced by binary star systems.
In 1974, Hulse and Taylor discovered a binary neutron star system and measured its orbital period gradually decreasing over time, as predicted if the system loses energy through gravitational waves. This provided indirect evidence of gravitational waves.
Efforts are ongoing to directly detect gravitational waves using laser interferometers like LIGO, which aim to detect tiny distance changes caused by passing gravitational waves. Detecting them would confirm gravity’s dynamic, vibrating field nature.
Quantum mechanics brought together the concept of particles and fields. Fields exist everywhere but appear particulate at short distances or high energies. This helped explain phenomena like the quantization of light and electron behavior. Efforts to detect ever smaller scales require higher particle energies, explaining the large size of experiments like the LHC.
The photoelectric effect kicked off the development of quantum mechanics as Einstein realized light acts as discrete packets of energy (photons) rather than a continuous wave. This helped explain experimental observations.
Neither Planck nor Einstein used the term “photon” - it was coined later by Lewis and popularized by Compton, who showed light has momentum.
Einstein’s 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect was groundbreaking and earned him the Nobel Prize. Remarkably, in the same journal issue he also published his paper on special relativity.
Quantum mechanics replaced Newton’s classical mechanics view of the world. In the quantum world, what we observe is only a subset of what really exists according to the wave function.
Matter is best described not as particles but as quantum fields that vibrate. When observed closely enough, fields appear as discrete particles like electrons, photons, etc. This explained phenomena like radioactivity and particle creation/annihilation.

The passage discusses the Higgs boson and Higgs field through various analogies and explanations. It notes that the Higgs field permeates all of space and gives mass to other fundamental particles like electrons.

Without the Higgs field, matter would not be able to form stable atoms and molecules. Objects like popcorn kernels would explode if the Higgs field suddenly disappeared. The field is what allows particles to interact and bind together.

The Higgs boson is a unique particle in that it arises from a field that fills all of space, even empty space. No other known particle has this property. Finding the Higgs was a major discovery as its field is responsible for breaking symmetries and giving properties of mass and individuality to other Standard Model particles.

The passage provides the analogy that the Higgs field is like the air or water that particles interact with everywhere. It is always present even if not directly noticed. Finally, it describes how a group of CERN physicists won a bottle of champagne for providing then-UK science minister William Waldegrave with a simple one-page explanation of the Higgs boson that he could understand, showing how important clear communication of these concepts is.

Five people got bottles of champagne, suggesting they were celebrating something.
The United Kingdom supported the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project. The LHC is a large particle accelerator located at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. It was built to allow physicists to test theories of particle physics and high energy physics.
Miller’s analogy is updated to use Angelina Jolie instead of Margaret Thatcher to walk across an empty room. When the room is empty, both would take the same time.
When the room is full of partygoers, Jolie would interact more with people wanting autographs or pictures, effectively making it harder for her to cross the room. This is analogous to particles having different masses when interacting with the Higgs field filling space.
The Higgs field is like an “upside down pendulum” with its lowest energy state being away from zero, filling all of space. Other particles interacting more strongly with the Higgs field pick up more “mass”.
While giving a simplified explanation, it summarizes the key points about the Higgs field and how it is thought to give other elementary particles their mass through interaction.
Mass is a measure of how much matter is in an object or how difficult it is to accelerate the object. A larger mass object like a car requires more energy to move than a smaller mass object like a bicycle.
Mass is not directly related to gravity. Mass exists independently of gravity and gravity affects all forms of energy, not just mass.
Particles get their mass from interacting with the Higgs field. Particles that directly interact strongly with the Higgs field have a larger mass, while those that interact weakly have smaller or zero mass.
The Higgs field gives mass to things like electrons, quarks, and W/Z bosons, but it is not directly responsible for most of the mass of ordinary objects which comes mainly from protons/neutrons via the strong interaction.
Changing the mass of fundamental particles like the electron could have dramatic effects on chemistry, atoms, molecules and ultimately all of life and the universe. A world without the Higgs field would be very different.
The Higgs field breaks symmetry by making particles that would otherwise be identical (like electrons, muons and taus) have different masses depending on their interaction strength with the Higgs.
Symmetries are transformations that leave an object looking the same, such as rotating or reflecting a geometric shape.
More symmetric objects like circles can be transformed in more ways (any rotation angle) while maintaining their appearance, compared to less symmetric shapes like squares or scribbles.
In physics, symmetries place strong constraints on what is possible. For example, a figure with rotational symmetry can only be a circle.
Symmetries that apply everywhere independently, called gauge symmetries or local symmetries, give rise to fundamental forces.
To relate transformations at different points, a connection field is needed that “tells us how to connect” directions in space. This connection field underlies the corresponding force.
Famous examples are the electromagnetic field arising from rotational symmetry, and the weak force’s underlying symmetry only becoming apparent with the discovery of the Higgs field.

So in summary, deeper underlying symmetries are crucial in physics because they directly relate to fundamental forces via necessary connection fields. More symmetric systems have stronger constraints and simpler descriptions.

The four fundamental forces of nature - gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force - are all based on underlying symmetries in physics.
These symmetries imply the existence of “connection fields” that mediate the forces. Examples include gravitons, photons, gluons, W/Z bosons.
Connection fields define “force slopes” at every point in space that push particles in different directions depending on how they interact. This gives rise to the forces of nature.
For example, bending/twists in the gravitational connection field create slopes analogous to hills that produce gravitational forces.
Originally, the weak nuclear force was thought to involve a symmetry between protons and neutrons. But this posed problems as it predicted massless force-carrying particles, unlike what is observed.
The solution involved “symmetry breaking” - the Higgs field breaks the electroweak symmetry in a way that gives mass to the W/Z bosons while preserving other symmetries of the theory.
Other forces also involve symmetry breaking or hidden symmetries to reconcile theory with observations, like confinement of massless gluons in the strong force.

So in summary, fundamental forces arise from underlying symmetries and connection fields, even if the symmetries are hidden, broken or approximate in nature.

The underlying laws of physics often have symmetries, but the environment can break these symmetries by picking out a preferred state or direction. This is called spontaneous symmetry breaking.
The weak interactions were originally thought to have a symmetry between particles like protons and neutrons. However, their different masses and charges seemed to violate this symmetry.
It was found that elementary particles have a property called spin, and the weak interactions only respect symmetry between left-handed particles, not right-handed particles. This breaks parity symmetry.
The symmetry of the weak interactions relates pairs of left-handed particles like up/down quarks. The Higgs field breaks this symmetry by giving particles different masses and charges.
Without the Higgs field, particles in each pair would be indistinguishable. The Higgs picks a preferred direction, differentiating the particles.
At very high energies near the Big Bang, the temperature restored the weak interaction symmetry by averaging the Higgs field to zero.
Over time, the Higgs field transitioned to its current nonzero value, breaking the symmetry and giving particles their masses.
While theoretical, this model of spontaneous symmetry breaking via the Higgs field has been extremely effective in explaining experimental observations of the weak interactions.

Here are the key points from the summary:

There are three main steps to discover the Higgs boson: 1) Make Higgs bosons by accelerating protons in the LHC and having them collide, 2) Detect the particles that the Higgs decays into, 3) Convince yourself the particles came from the Higgs and not something else.
Making Higgs bosons involves quark and gluon interactions - gluons can combine to make a Higgs by first going through quark interactions as an intermediate step. Top quarks contribute most since they couple strongly to the Higgs.
Feynman diagrams are used to visualize and understand particle interactions and how particles can be produced or converted into other particles through fundamental interactions. Diagrams show how gluons can interact to produce a Higgs through quark intermediaries.
Detecting Higgs decay particles involves the particle detectors measuring properties of particles produced from Higgs decays to identify candidate events. Convincing yourself the particles came from the Higgs requires eliminating other possible sources and looking for the signature expected from Higgs decays.

So in summary, it involves theoretical understanding of production mechanisms, experimental detection and measurement, and rigorous statistical analysis to identify Higgs candidates and rule out alternative explanations.

Feynman diagrams provide a visual way to represent interactions between particles in quantum field theory. They correspond to calculations of probability for interactions.
The diagram shows two gluons fusing to create a Higgs boson via virtual quarks. The proper interpretation is that gluon field vibrations interact to create vibrations in the quark and Higgs fields.
Frank Wilczek first realized that gluon fusion could be a promising way to produce Higgs bosons. He had this insight during a walk at Fermilab while thinking about particle physics after caring for his sick family.
The Higgs decays very quickly after production, so detectors look for what it decays into rather than observing the Higgs itself. It can decay via various modes depending on its mass, with heavier masses allowing more decay channels.
For a 125 GeV Higgs, the dominant decay is to bottom quarks, but other modes like decays to W/Z bosons or tau leptons are also important to study for signs of new physics. However, identifying decay products can be challenging due to high background levels.

So in summary, Feynman diagrams represent particle interactions probabilistically, gluon fusion is a key Higgs production mechanism, and detecting Higgs decays requires separating its signature from large backgrounds.

The Higgs boson can decay into several different particle combinations, including Z boson pairs, tau lepton pairs, photons, and others. These decay processes are all relatively rare but detectable at large particle collider experiments like the LHC.
One of the most detectable decay processes is into two photons. This occurs through a loop process where the Higgs first decays into charged virtual particles that then decay into photon pairs. This decay mode occurs about 0.2% of the time but provides a clear signal due to the distinct two-photon final state.
Achieving a statistically significant detection of the Higgs involves looking for a small excess of events in a particular decay channel above expected background from other standard model processes without the Higgs. It is analogous to looking for a slight excess of stalks of a particular length in a haystack.
Statistics are used to quantify the probability of observing a given excess and reject or fail to reject the “null hypothesis” that the data is consistent with no Higgs. A five sigma result corresponds to a less than one in a million chance of occurring by chance, justifying claiming discovery of a new particle.
Different Higgs decay channels are studied as different “search channels” at the LHC, defined by the detectable final state particles. The goal is to see a small signal excess above large comparable background in at least one channel.
At the Large Hadron Collider, proton collisions produce a variety of particle events that can be detected and analyzed. The total energy of outgoing particles is measured.
Quantum field theory and simulations are used to predict event rates and energies without a Higgs boson (the null hypothesis).
If a Higgs exists at a particular mass, it would cause an excess of events at that corresponding energy, forming a “bump” above the predicted background curve.
Predicting backgrounds is challenging, so experiments use “blind” analyses where they don’t examine certain data regions until understanding backgrounds in other regions.
In 2011, ATLAS saw a 3.6 sigma bump at 125 GeV and CMS saw 2.6 sigma, suggestive but not definitive evidence.
Five sigma significance is needed to claim a discovery, to account for looking at many possibilities. More data was needed to reach this threshold.
In 2012 runs at higher energy and luminosity, experiments saw something significant when unblinding around June. Rumors quickly spread that they were seeing a new particle.
Both experiments scheduled major seminars in July to announce a potential discovery of the Higgs boson or other new result.
In July 2012,CMS and ATLAS experiments at CERN separately announced findings of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson at around 125 GeV, with a statistical significance of over 5 sigma when channels were combined. This constituted a discovery.
Both experiments saw excesses of events in the two photon decay channel above what was expected from background alone. However, the excesses were larger than predicted by the standard model Higgs.
CMS also analyzed tau-antitau, bottom-antibottom and WW channels but did not see a significant excess in tau-antitau as expected, slightly reducing their overall significance.
While the new particle is consistent with the Higgs boson, there are some hints in the data like the larger-than-expected excesses that it may not be exactly as described by the minimal standard model Higgs. More data will be needed to investigate these possible discrepancies.
The discovery was a confirmation of the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism and a major milestone, but also left questions to be answered about the precise nature and properties of the new particle.
Announcing new particle physics results from large experiments like ATLAS and CMS is a complex process, not like publishing a typical peer-reviewed paper.
The collaboration is made up of thousands of scientists from around the world working together.
The first step is usually a collaboration member posing a new question to investigate based on theory, existing data, or the LHC’s capabilities.
They will discuss the question with colleagues to judge if it’s worth pursuing. Students may consult advisers; professors may consult peers.
If worthwhile, they begin analyzing experimental data, developing analysis techniques, and writing computer code to search for signals or exclude possibilities.
Results go through an extensive internal review process within subgroups and the full collaboration before being submitted for external publication or presentations.
The goal is to have an extremely rigorous verification process given the large scope and complexity of the experiments. Only other collaboration members can really serve as competent peer reviewers.
Eventually results are published or publicly announced if they pass this rigorous multi-stage internal review.
An experimental physicist may get an idea for a new analysis from a student and bring it to their working group (focused on topics like top quarks, Higgs, exotic particles) for review.
If approved, the analysis moves forward, with the physicist splitting time between computer work and meetings to oversee the experiment. They also have other duties like teaching, grant writing, and committees.
The collected data is stored globally and the physicist works to analyze it by applying cuts, writing software, and modeling predictions to compare to the data. Regular updates are given to the working group.
Eventually a result is obtained and must be reviewed internally before publication. Papers have thousands of authors from the collaboration listed alphabetically.
An example is given of preliminary HAR results about the Higgs search being known internally before announcements due to collaboration members interacting socially.
The summary then shifts to discuss the neutrino speed anomaly initially reported by OPERA but later found to be due to an instrumentation error, highlighting the importance of checking for systematic errors even with statistically significant results.

Here is a summary of the anonymous comment:

The comment discusses how large particle physics collaborations have lost some control over internal information in the age of blogs and social media. Anything shared within a collaboration risks becoming publicly known nowadays.

An example is given of preliminary PAMELA data on a possible positron excess being photographed at a conference and used in an outside analysis before official publication. While some debate whether this was appropriate, it highlights how easily information can spread.

Another example is an internal ATLAS memo suggesting a possible Higgs signal being leaked online prematurely. This caused misunderstanding and undermined confidence until the result was properly vetted. The leakage of internal working documents damages collaboration openness.

Overall, the comment argues large collaborations now face challenges from rumors spreading online before results are finalized. While new technologies enable sharing, they also mean collaborations lose some control over internal discussions and preliminary findings.

Hollywood is often interested in science and uses consultants to help portray science accurately in films. The production company behind Angels & Demons consulted the author about particle physics for the film.
Scientists also try to engage the public through more entertaining means. A particle physicist created a rap video about the LHC that got millions of views on YouTube.
David Kaplan, a theorist at Johns Hopkins, conceived of a documentary film project to document the crucial period around the LHC’s startup and search for the Higgs boson. He raised funding and used small cameras to film key events.
The project, called Particle Fever, aimed to convey the high stakes of the LHC program for the future of particle physics and science. It received significant support from funding organizations and renowned filmmakers to help complete the documentary.
The story relates how Niels Bohr hid Nobel Prize medals from Nazis during WWII by dissolving them in acid, preserving the gold atoms.
People take Nobel Prizes very seriously as the pinnacle of scientific recognition, though the prizes don’t always match the most important discoveries due to specific criteria.
Theoretical contributions require not just being right, but having the theory confirmed experimentally, so some important theories may never win a Nobel.
Discovering the Higgs boson would be worthy of a Nobel Prize, as would inventing the Higgs theory. However, Nobels are limited to 3 people max, so determining who “deserves” one does injustice to the collaborative nature of scientific progress.
The chapter explores the history behind the Higgs boson and search for it in more technical detail than previous chapters, to better understand how the idea developed over time through many contributions, not just a few individuals. Who might win Nobels is not as important as understanding the science.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, physicists like Julian Schwinger argued that forces based on symmetries must be carried by massless particles. However, Schwinger later realized this argument had a loophole allowing gauge bosons to potentially gain mass.
Theories of superconductivity in the 1950s suggested a field could give an effective mass to normally massless photons inside a superconductor. This field was explained by BCS theory as arising from Cooper pairs of electrons forming bosonic fields.
Yoichiro Nambu and others applied ideas of spontaneous symmetry breaking from superconductivity to particle physics. They showed symmetry can be hidden by a field taking a nonzero value in vacuum, as in superconductors.
Nambu helped develop the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking but his early models predicted additional massless bosonic particles like Goldstone bosons. The Higgs mechanism later resolved this by giving these Goldstone bosons mass too, thus avoiding conflict with observations.

So in summary, theories of superconductivity inspired the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking, which was later developed and applied to the weak force, allowing the W and Z bosons to gain mass while still preserving the underlying electroweak symmetry.

When a global symmetry is spontaneously broken, normally there would be N scalar bosons with equal masses. After symmetry breaking, all but one become massless Nambu-Goldstone bosons, while the remaining one is massive.
Phil Anderson realized in the 1960s that in the case of local (gauge) symmetries, the massless gauge bosons and Nambu-Goldstone bosons can “cancel each other out”, forming a single massive force-carrying particle. This resolves the issue of massless particles arising from symmetry breaking.
In 1964, three independent groups of physicists - François Englert and Robert Brout, Peter Higgs, and Carl Hagen, Gerald Guralnik, and Tom Kibble - published similar proposals showing how spontaneous breakdown of a local symmetry does not produce any massless bosons, only massive ones that mediate short-range forces. This became known as the Higgs mechanism.
Englert and Brout’s paper was the first to appear. It had two kinds of fields - a gauge boson and symmetry-breaking scalar fields that take on a value in empty space. They showed the gauge field becomes massive through its interaction with the scalar fields.
In 1964, Guralnik, Hagen, and Kibble were collaborating on a paper about spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theories at Imperial College London.
Just as they were submitting their paper to PRL, they saw newly published papers by Englert/Brout and Higgs addressing similar ideas.
Their paper focused specifically on how assumptions of Goldstone’s theorem could be sidestepped, which was a main concern of their work. It also took a fully quantum mechanical approach.
While Englert/Brout and Higgs showed gauge bosons could get mass, GHK argued their discussions were not as clear. Higgs’ work was also completely classical.
So GHK submitted their paper with a brief note referencing the other works, though their paper was substantially complete beforehand.
GHK’s treatment did not fully get the Higgs boson right - they set its mass to zero by choice rather than expecting it to be massive like the real Higgs boson.
So while the timing was similar, GHK made distinct contributions regarding Goldstone’s theorem and a quantum treatment. There is no evidence they simply built on the earlier papers.

Here is a summary of the key points about the development of the weak interactions theory in the 1960s:

Julian Schwinger first proposed a Yang-Mills theory of the weak interactions in the late 1950s, introducing massive W+ and W- bosons by hand. However, this violated renormalizability.
In the early 1960s, theorists including Brout, Englert, Higgs, Guralnik, Hagen, and Kibble independently developed the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking, which could give rise to massive gauge bosons in a renormalizable way. However, their work faced skepticism from other physicists.
In 1961, it was discovered that the weak interactions violate parity symmetry. This posed a challenge for unifying electromagnetism and weak interactions, as electromagnetism preserves parity.
In the late 1950s/early 1960s, Sheldon Glashow, working as a graduate student under Julian Schwinger, proposed a model that attempted to unify electromagnetism and weak interactions. It introduced two broken symmetries whose combination remained unbroken. This predicted a new massive neutral gauge boson, the Z boson.
Glashow’s model represented early progress toward what became known as electroweak unification theory, but his boson mass proposal was still ad hoc and the theory was not renormalizable. Further developments were still needed.
Abdus Salam and John Ward were frequent collaborators, working together on unifying theories of the fundamental forces. Both were highly accomplished physicists individually.
In 1964, they published a model that predicted massless photons and three massive weak gauge bosons, similar to Glashow’s earlier model. However, they did not incorporate spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Around the same time, Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble were working down the hall on spontaneous symmetry breaking, but for unknown reasons, Salam and Ward were not aware of their work.
In 1967, Steven Weinberg incorporated spontaneous symmetry breaking into a model of electroweak interactions, independently rediscovering much of what Glashow, Salam and Ward had done earlier. His paper helped unite the different pieces of the puzzle.
Salam also incorporated spontaneous symmetry breaking into his model with Ward in 1968, after learning about the idea from Kibble.
‘t Hooft’s 1971 proof that such theories are renormalizable gave great importance to these earlier works, which then led to predictions that were confirmed experimentally in the 1970s.
While many contributed to the theory, it became known as the “Higgs mechanism” and “Higgs boson” due to historical factors like influential talks, even though Higgs was not alone in developing the ideas.
Vera Rubin was a pioneer in astronomical research who faced obstacles due to gender discrimination. She was interested in studying galaxy dynamics rather than just their central regions.
Rubin and her collaborator Kent Ford made the astonishing discovery that stars at the outer edges of galaxies orbited at the same speed as those closer to the center. This implied there was much more matter in galaxies than just the visible stars.
Their finding suggested there is “dark matter” distributed far beyond what can be seen, accounting for the greater gravitational pull needed to explain the uniform orbital speeds.
This discovery about dark matter sits at the center of modern cosmology. While others had theorized about dark matter before, Rubin and Ford provided strong evidence for its existence through their meticulous galactic rotation studies.
Rubin’s work overcame prejudices against women in science and helped reveal the prevalence of invisible dark matter throughout the universe. Her persistence and willingness to look beyond the norm led to a pivotal astronomical discovery.
Astronomical observations show there is more matter in the universe than just the “ordinary” matter we can see (atoms, stars, galaxies). This “missing” matter is known as dark matter.
Careful measurements of processes in the early universe allow scientists to precisely calculate the total amount of ordinary matter. This is significantly less than the total amount of matter we know must be present.
Dark matter likely consists of as-yet undiscovered particles that interact weakly, like WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). WIMPs with masses around 100 GeV would have the right properties to account for the dark matter abundance.
The Higgs boson could provide a connection between ordinary matter and dark matter. Many viable dark matter models predict the strongest interaction would be via the exchange of a Higgs particle between dark matter WIMPs and ordinary matter particles.
Studying Higgs properties in detail gives hope for shedding light on the nature of dark matter and physics beyond the Standard Model. The Higgs may serve as a “portal” between known physics and still-unknown dark worlds.
The Higgs boson may provide a “portal” between the Standard Model particles and hypothetical “hidden sectors” of new particles that don’t directly interact with known particles. Finding evidence of new particles coupling to the Higgs would point to physics beyond the Standard Model.
One way new particles could show up is through their effects on Higgs decays. For example, Higgs decays to photons could proceed faster than expected if additional virtual particles beyond the Standard Model contribute to the decay loop. Early LHC data hinted at this possibility but was not conclusive.
WIMP dark matter is hypothesized to interact very weakly via Higgs boson exchange. A small number (about 10 per year) of WIMP interactions are estimated to occur inside the human body.
Direct detection experiments search for rare WIMP interactions in deep underground detectors to identify dark matter signals apart from background radiation/cosmic rays. Indirect detection looks for gamma rays from WIMP annihilation.
The Standard Model has unnatural fine-tuning problems with the Higgs field vacancy expectation value and vacuum energy being much smaller than predictions based on quantum effects involving virtual particles. This points to possible new physics beyond the Standard Model.
The hierarchy problem refers to the huge numerical difference between the observed Higgs field value (246 GeV) and the Planck scale of gravity (1018 GeV). Quantum effects should drive the weak scale up to the Planck scale, so this difference is puzzling.
The vacuum energy problem is even more severe. Observational data suggest the universe’s acceleration is driven by a small but non-zero vacuum energy density. However, theoretical estimates predict a vacuum energy density that is 10120 times larger - an unimaginably huge difference. Understanding vacuum energy is a major unsolved problem in physics.
Supersymmetry proposes a symmetry between fermions and bosons by introducing “superpartner” particles. For every Standard Model particle, there is a superpartner with the same properties but differing by being a boson or fermion. However, supersymmetry must be broken in reality as partners do not have identical masses. Adding supersymmetry to models introduces over 100 new arbitrary parameters.
While speculative, supersymmetry has desirable theoretical properties. It is currently the most popular proposal for new physics beyond the Standard Model, but no direct evidence supports it yet. Its parametric freedom makes specific predictions difficult.
Supersymmetry predicts that there should be superpartners for all standard model particles like quarks, electrons, photons, etc.
The superpartners of the W and Z bosons mix to make charginos, while the superpartners of the Z, photon, and neutral Higgs bosons mix to make neutralinos.
A key implication of supersymmetry is that there must be multiple Higgs bosons, not just one like in the standard model. Specifically, supersymmetry requires there to be five Higgs bosons - one with a positive charge, one with a negative charge, and three neutral ones.
Finding multiple Higgs bosons would provide support for supersymmetry but not be definitive proof, as it could still match other theories. More data is needed to fully understand any Higgs-like particles discovered and look for additional predicted superpartners.

So in summary, supersymmetry makes specific predictions about new particles like charginos, neutralinos and multiple Higgs bosons that experiments like the LHC can search for to test this theory.

String theory predicts the existence of extra dimensions beyond the usual 3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension. However, these extra dimensions must be “compactified” or curled up into an extremely small scale in order to agree with experimental observations that only see 3+1 dimensions.
The exact mechanism of compactification is unknown, making it difficult to make definitive predictions from string theory about experiments in our observable 3+1 dimensional universe. Testing string theory directly would require energies at the extremely high Planck scale, beyond what can be achieved in particle accelerators.
In the 1990s, theorists discovered that string theory includes higher-dimensional objects called branes in addition to strings. This led to the realization that the different string theories are different limits of a single underlying theory called M-theory. However, it also expanded the possible ways the extra dimensions could be compactified.
With such a vast landscape of possible compactifications, it became difficult to find one that exactly matched the Standard Model. This spawned the idea that all compactifications may be realized in different “universes” within a multiverse. But this makes definite predictions challenging.

So in summary, string theory predicts extra dimensions but knowing how they are compactified is key to making testable predictions, and the large number of compactifications complicates connecting string theory to experiments. The multiverse idea was proposed but also makes clean predictions difficult.

Basic scientific research like that done at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) costs billions of dollars in taxpayer funding. Scientists have an obligation to convincingly explain the value of this investment.
Some value comes from technological breakthroughs, but the most important rewards are the new scientific knowledge gained about the universe. However, not everyone agrees basic science deserves high priority funding.
Past basic research has often led to unexpected practical applications later on like electricity and quantum mechanics. However, particles discovered at the LHC like the Higgs boson may never have direct practical uses due to their massive size, weak interactions, or short lifetimes.
While LHC discoveries may not enable technologies like warp drive or levitation as some speculate, particle physics research does often lead to “spinoffs” - new technologies developed to solve experimental challenges that have broader applications, like the World Wide Web. Investing in basic science provides knowledge about the universe and stimulates unanticipated innovation.
The passage discusses the future of particle physics and potential next steps after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). One option is upgrading the LHC to higher energies, but a more permanent solution is needed.
Proposed next machines include the International Linear Collider (ILC), which would be a linear collider for electrons and positrons up to 1 TeV. It would provide more precise measurements than the LHC. Estimates put its cost between $7-25 billion, requiring major international collaboration.
An alternative is the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), which would reach higher energies through more innovative technologies but also more risks. Studies of these two proposals are now combined.
For any new large collider project to happen, scientists must demonstrate the importance of fundamental particle physics research, not just promise practical applications. Learning nature’s laws is worthwhile on its own.
The passage ends by discussing inspiration from science - building projects like the LHC inspire curiosity in young people, as demonstrated by the excitement around the Higgs boson discovery. Particle physics traces back to ancient Greek philosophers’ fundamental inquiries into nature.
Ancient Greek philosophers like the Epicureans grappled with defining ethics and finding meaning in life given their atomic view of the universe. Epicurus located value in experiencing pleasure in moderation and cherishing friendship.
Science can describe reality but not prescribe values. Still, it provides lessons - we are made of the same particles as stars, and nature constrains our ideas through experimentation.
The Higgs field is needed to give mass to fundamental particles according to the Standard Model of particle physics. Without it, certain massless particles like the W and Z bosons would violate observed facts.
Spin is a fundamental property in quantum mechanics. Angular momentum comes only in discrete units of Planck’s constant divided by 2pi. Elementary particles can have intrinsic spin even without literal rotation. The Higgs field breaks symmetries that otherwise would forbid particle masses given their spin properties.

Angular momentum refers to the classical phenomenon of an object moving around another object, also known as orbital angular momentum.

Spin works differently than orbital angular momentum at the quantum level. Every particle has a fixed intrinsic spin that cannot change. Spin is quantized and comes in integer or half-integer values of Planck’s constant h.

Bosons have integer spin values like 0 or 1, while fermions have half-integer spin values like 1/2. There is a correlation between spin and whether a particle is a boson or fermion.

Elementary particles in the Standard Model have specific spin values - fermions are spin-1/2, gauge bosons are spin-1, the Higgs boson is spin-0.

When measuring the spin of a particle, the possible outcomes are quantized to integer or half-integer values of the particle’s intrinsic spin. For massless particles there are fewer possible spin measurement outcomes compared to massive particles.

The number of possible spin measurement outcomes corresponds to the number of “degrees of freedom” or ways the particle’s quantum field can vibrate. Having the right number of degrees of freedom was important in explaining how particles get mass through the Higgs mechanism in the Standard Model.

Helicity is a particle’s spin measured along the axis of its motion. For massive particles, helicity depends on the observer’s reference frame and can change depending on their motion relative to the particle.
For massless particles, which always travel at the speed of light, helicity is fixed and the same for all observers. Their helicity corresponds to being either left-handed or right-handed.
The weak force couples only to left-handed fermions and right-handed anti-fermions. For this to be a well-defined property, fermion helicity must be fixed, meaning they must be massless and travel at light speed.
If the weak interactions could couple to particles of either helicity, it would not require fermions to be massless.
The Higgs field is necessary to break the electroweak symmetry and give fermions mass while allowing both helicities. This reconciles the mass of fermions with the chiral coupling of the weak force.
Before the Higgs, fermions would exist only as left-handed and right-handed massless versions with fixed helicity, forming symmetric pairs under the electroweak force.

So in summary, the behavior of the weak force requires a relationship between helicity and mass that is only resolved by the Higgs mechanism breaking electroweak symmetry and generating fermion masses.

The passage discusses different force-carrying particles (bosons) in particle physics.
It notes that gravitons carry gravity but gravity is very weak, so gravitons are not usually included in the Standard Model.
The weak force is carried by the massive W and Z bosons. Their mass comes from the Higgs field breaking electroweak symmetry. Without the Higgs, the W and Z would be more like gluons.
Unlike other forces, the weak force alone cannot bind particles together due to its weakness. Weak interactions occur via particles exchanging W/Z bosons or one particle decaying by emitting a W.
The Higgs boson is a scalar boson with spin-0. Unlike gauge bosons, its mass does not come from a symmetry. It gives other particles mass via its field.
Gluons carry the strong force between quarks and are massless. The passage notes that once again, gluons are related by an unbroken symmetry, so they don’t need specific labels, just like photons which also don’t interact directly with themselves.
Diagrams can show virtual particles that don’t directly obey mass-energy conservation as long as they decay back into particles below the parent particle’s mass. For example, a muon can emit a heavier W boson virtually that then decays into lighter particles.
Loops can be drawn back on themselves, like in a diagram of a Higgs decaying to two photons through a loop of virtual quarks or other particles. Heavier particles like the top quark contribute more significantly.
At the LHC, important Higgs production mechanisms include gluon fusion through a quark loop, vector boson fusion of W/Z particles, and associated production with a W/Z or quark-antiquark pair.
Both Higgs production and decay processes arise from many possibilities that can be systematically worked out using the established rules of quantum field theory. Studying these diagrams helps capture deep truths about particle physics.
In 2011, Nature reported that scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider had detected signs that could hint at the long-sought Higgs boson. Experts expressed cautious optimism but noted more data was needed.
In a 2012 interview, Fabiola Gianotti discussed the challenges of the Higgs search and her role as spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment. She described the anticipation as the discovery was nearing.
A 2007 article detailed how hackers had infiltrated LHC control systems and mocked the security measures in place. This highlighted cybersecurity risks for such facilities.
Books like “The Infinity Puzzle” provided historical context on the development of ideas like quantum field theory that paved the way for the Higgs theory. Scientists like Yang, Pauli, and others played important roles.
As data collection at the LHC continued in late 2011, increasing numbers of scientists felt signs of the Higgs were emerging though confirmation was still pending. Various blogs and websites tracked developments.
In 2012 interviews, Gianotti discussed the pressure as the announcement grew nearer but her commitment to making the results open and scientifically sound. Other scientists like Wu also weighed in on the analysis.
Technical papers in the 1970s by theorists like Ellis, Gaillard and Nanopoulos further developed the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking and multiple Higgs bosons.
Histories of the people and ideas leading to the Higgs theory helped explain its emergence from theories of superconductivity and others developed by Schwinger, Anderson, Goldstone, Higgs and others in the 1950s-60s.
Beyond confirming the Higgs, scientists hope the LHC and future experiments will provide insights into dark matter, supersymmetry, extra dimensions, and other mysteries at the frontier of particle physics. Meanwhile, the societal impacts of big science projects continue to be debated.

Here is a summary of the comic “Particle Physics for Poets” from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

The comic depicts two people, one who appears to be a scientist and the other a poet, discussing particle physics.
The scientist excitedly explains that at the Large Hadron Collider, they have discovered the Higgs boson, which gives mass to other particles.
However, the poet is unimpressed and doesn’t understand why this discovery is significant or exciting. They ask what practical applications this discovery has.
The scientist admits that the discovery of the Higgs boson doesn’t have any immediate practical applications. It is just helping humans understand fundamental questions about the universe.
The poet remains underwhelmed, saying they were hoping for something more directly useful like a jetpack or laser eyes.
The comic suggests that some basic scientific discoveries, while increasing human knowledge, may not have obvious practical applications at the time but could lead to future technologies once more is understood. It highlights the difference between curiosity-driven and application-driven research.

In summary, the comic provides a humorous illustration of the challenge of explaining the significance and excitement of basic particle physics discoveries to a non-scientist only interested in immediate practical applications.

Here is a summary of the key points about the Higgs boson and related topics:

The Higgs boson is predicted to exist based on the Higgs mechanism/model, which explains how particles acquire mass through interacting with an omnipresent Higgs field. Peter Higgs predicted its existence in the 1960s.
It is produced in high-energy particle collisions, like those at the LHC, primarily through gluon fusion. Its decay modes involve heavier particles like W/Z bosons and fermions like top quarks, tau leptons, and b quarks.
In 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC announced the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson, fulfilling a major prediction of the Standard Model. This helped confirm the Higgs mechanism for mass generation.
The Higgs relates to ideas in quantum field theory, where fundamental particles and forces are described by fields. It can be depicted in Feynman diagrams involving gluon fusion and decay branches.
The Higgs helps unify the weak and electromagnetic forces, a major advancement known as electroweak theory. But it does not explain gravity or dark matter.
Beyond the Standard Model physics explores ideas like supersymmetry, extra dimensions, and dark matter candidates that could be detected at the LHC through phenomena like Higgs decays.
The Higgs hierarchy or naturalness problem questions why its mass is not much higher, as quantum effects would naively drive it to extreme energy scales. Proposed solutions fuel theories for new physics.

Here is a summary of the key points about the Higgs field and boson from the excerpt:

The Higgs field gives mass to particles through interactions with the Higgs boson. It permeates all of space and time and has a “resting value” that breaks electroweak symmetry.
The Higgs field was hypothesized to explain how particles obtain mass while still obeying the principles of electroweak unification and symmetry breaking.
The discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 confirmed the mechanism by which the Higgs field interacts with and gives mass to other particles.
Through spontaneous symmetry breaking, the Higgs field took on a non-zero value in the early universe, which is thought to have driven inflation after the Big Bang.
The Higgs field is theorized to help explain several phenomena, including the matter-antimatter asymmetry, properties of the weak nuclear force, and candidates for dark matter like the WIMP.
Supersymmetry theories predict additional Higgs bosons and connections to phenomena like vacuum energy and particle spin assignments. Finding or ruling out supersymmetry remains an open question.

In summary, the Higgs field pervades space and is thought to interact with particles via the Higgs boson, endowing them with mass and helping explain fundamental forces and properties of matter. Its discovery provides confirmation of the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking.

Here is a summary of the key points about the Higgs mechanism from the provided text:

The Higgs mechanism explains how elementary particles like the W and Z bosons and fermions like electrons acquire mass without violating symmetry principles of gauge theories like electroweak theory.
It involves a field called the Higgs field that is associated with an elementary particle, the Higgs boson.
The Higgs field permeates all of space and has a “resting value” of non-zero strength when the universe was cooling after the Big Bang.
Particles interacting with the Higgs field become heavier, an effect analogous to objects moving through molasses and experiencing drag. This interaction gives the particles their mass.
The Higgs field also “breaks” electroweak symmetry and allows the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism to become separate forces.
Discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the LHC provided strong evidence that the Higgs mechanism is correct and the way particles obtain mass in the Standard Model. It was a major validation of the theory.
The Higgs mechanism resolved the issue of how gauge bosons like the W and Z could have mass while obeying the principles of gauge invariance and renormalizability in quantum field theory.
The passage discusses numerous topics related to particle physics and the discovery of the Higgs boson, ranging from theoretical concepts like symmetry breaking to specific particles and experiments.
It covers the theoretical developments that led to predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, such as quantum field theory, electroweak unification, and the Higgs mechanism.
Key particles discussed include quarks like the top quark, as well as force carrier particles like the W and Z bosons. Experiments that helped discover these particles are also mentioned.
Theoretical physicists who advanced our understanding are featured, such as Yang, Weinberg, Glashow, and Englert & Brout who proposed the Higgs field. Experimental physicists who discovered new particles are also noted.
Concepts from cosmology like dark matter, vacuum energy, and the Big Bang are discussed in relation to particle physics theories.
Accelerators and detectors used at CERN like the LHC, ATLAS, and CMS that were crucial for discovering the Higgs boson are outlined.

So in summary, the passage provides an overview of the theoretical and experimental developments in particle physics that ultimately led to the discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson. It touches on both theoretical concepts and key experimental discoveries.

#book-summary

B008BM0IUG EBOK - Carroll, Sean