“I think it will be much more exciting if we don’t find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won’t find the Higgs.” – Stephen Hawking (_The Times_ 9/9/08; [Far Reach](http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9510029))
From an interview[\*](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/nobelist-weinberg-ponders-higgs-boson-particles-of-dark-matter-interview.html) with Steven Weinberg on 6/28/2011 by Zinta Lundborg:
_Lundborg_ – What about the particle everyone’s looking for—the Higgs boson?
_Weinberg_ – Because the Higgs boson is really required by the simplest version of the theory that unifies the weak and electromagnetic forces,[\*](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/) it’s very likely to be discovered. The theory has other versions which would lead to the discovery of other kinds of particles, the so-called technicolor particles. We have a fair degree of certainty that one or the other of those, and very likely the Higgs boson, will be discovered. In fact, it’s so likely that we already anticipate it, so it probably won’t get us anything new. What we really need is something that we don’t anticipate.
Another quest at the LHC is for particles that constitute dark matter.*** That would be cold dark matter, for which a light neutralino might be the particle.
Recent modeling of dwarf galaxies suggests dark matter emerged later after the initial singularity and is of higher energy than the “cold” dark matter sought at LHC.* “Warm” dark matter would be out of the range of the LHC. The sterile neutrino is a plausible candidate for warm dark matter, and if that is right, warm dark matter could be detected in the future by telltale X-rays.*
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. It sounds like no one–including the experimenters–actually believes it; they are looking for the mistake they think they must have made, somewhere, somehow. (As they should be–physicists must be certain of something that overturns well-established theory.)
The 60 nsec differential multiplied by the speed of light in vacuum is (rounded to appropriate significant figures) 18 meters.
If the transmitting and receiving locations are 18 meters closer together than they think, the result is explained. That is 18 meters out of the approximately 730 kilometers of the direct path through the Earth. They claim to know the distance accurately to within 20cm, but leave all of the geodesy discussion in the references 24, 25, and 26 in the linked paper. That would be the first place to look for an error in my opinion. Performing the experiment on a different site would require entirely replacing this data.
We also know reference frames with a stronger gravity field appear to be slower than frames with less gravity. At the deepest point in the Earth of the 730 km path of the neutrinos the gravity will be slightly less than at the surface, and the neutrinos will appear to move faster. If this was considered, it is buried somewhere in one of the references.
Superluminal neutrino possibility analyzed with respect to energy transfer and particle transformations when speed limits are different for different elementary particles: Sci. Am. – 10/2/11
Not five sigma, but something is up at Atlas and CMS on the Higgs boson.
Existence of the Higgs boson “is a prediction that stems from a very mathematical approach to understanding the Universe, which is guided by the idea that it is simple at heart.” —
. . .“I think it will be much more exciting if we don’t find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won’t find the Higgs.” – Stephen Hawking (The Times 9/9/08; Far Reach)
From an interview* with Steven Weinberg on 6/28/2011 by Zinta Lundborg:
Lundborg – What about the particle everyone’s looking for—the Higgs boson?
Weinberg – Because the Higgs boson is really required by the simplest version of the theory that unifies the weak and electromagnetic forces,* it’s very likely to be discovered. The theory has other versions which would lead to the discovery of other kinds of particles, the so-called technicolor particles. We have a fair degree of certainty that one or the other of those, and very likely the Higgs boson, will be discovered. In fact, it’s so likely that we already anticipate it, so it probably won’t get us anything new. What we really need is something that we don’t anticipate.
“One could say that the electron was conceived in 1892 and delivered in 1897.”
“Although the Higgs particle is sometimes credited with giving matter mass, its contribution to the mass of ordinary matter is actually quite small. Lorentz’s beautiful idea, in modern form accounts for most of it.”
Concerning the monumental proof, in my lifetime, of the exhaustive classification of finite simple groups, Stephen Ornes, notes in Scientific American (July 2015):
The work [the classification theorem] brings order to group theory, which is the mathematical study of symmetry. Research on symmetry, in turn, is critical to scientific areas such as modern particle physics. The Standard Model—the cornerstone theory that lays out all known particles in existence, found and yet to be found—depends on the tools of symmetry provided by group theory. . . .
Group theory also led physicists to the unsettling idea that mass itself . . . formed because symmetry broke down at some fundamental level. Moreover, that idea pointed the way to the discovery of the most celebrated particle in recent years, the Higgs boson, which can exist only if symmetry falters at the quantum scale. . . .
Symmetry is the concept that something can undergo a series of transformations—spinning, folding, reflecting, moving through time—and, at the end of all those changes, appear unchanged. . . .
[The classification theorem] demonstrates with mathematical precision that any kind of symmetry can be . . . grouped into one of four families . . . . In the future, it could lead to other profound discoveries about the fabric of the universe and the nature of reality. . . .
I think you may be most qualified to answer : What would an Objectivist’s integration and understanding of the applicability of mathematical abstractions such as group theory and symmetry to reality and identity, look like? I’d like a taste of what the explanation would be of A. this is what is in reality, B. these are the abstractions and why they are coherent with reality.
I have a background in physics and my colleagues at the time seemed perplexed and often confused reality with abstraction…