Hints That 'God Particle' May Exist

[Four-sided Triangles]

I read this in "Experiment NL: deel 2", a (Dutch) publication of the NWO (Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research) and popular-scientific magazine Quest containing short articles about scientific discoveries made in the Netherlands. The article this came from was written by Gieljan de Vries and describes how Professor Kobus Kuipers of the FOM-Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam slowed down light and measured it.

However you can easily find information about this through googling "Slow light". The references of the Wikipedia page on the subject also provide valuable information. This for instance states that light has been slowed down to about 38 Mi/h.

It's exactly what I thought. They didn't slow photons at all. They slowed a beam of light. It's nothing more than a more extreme version of what happens when light moves from air into water. The beam of light slows because photons get absorbed and re-radiated. This effect delays the progression of the overall beam of light, but the individual photons never travel any slower.

[Great Nepal]

The closer you get to the speed of light the more energy it takes to go faster.

Yeah, to get to lightspeed with mass would take more energy than the entire Universe contains.

@Nepal; if you took away a fundamental particle's mass it would travel at the speed of light.

Okay, thanks.
That means, if we manage to eliminate Higgs in say probe, we will be able to charter way much further in reasonable time...

Now only if they could find a way to make that a reality in my lifetime.

[Lordieth]

Yeah, to get to lightspeed with mass would take more energy than the entire Universe contains.

@Nepal; if you took away a fundamental particle's mass it would travel at the speed of light.

Okay, thanks.
That means, if we manage to eliminate Higgs in say probe, we will be able to charter way much further in reasonable time...

Now only if they could find a way to make that a reality in my lifetime.

It begs the question though, if you could create a probe and remove its mass, could you regain that mass once it arrives at its destination? Or would the probe regain its mass as it passes through the Higgs Field? Matter requires mass, I'm not sure what would prevent the probe from demolecularizing without a force to hold it together.

Maybe Quantum Entanglement.

[The Murtunian Tribes]

Okay, thanks.
That means, if we manage to eliminate Higgs in say probe, we will be able to charter way much further in reasonable time...

Now only if they could find a way to make that a reality in my lifetime.

It begs the question though, if you could create a probe and remove its mass, could you regain that mass once it arrives at its destination? Or would the probe regain its mass as it passes through the Higgs Field? Matter requires mass, I'm not sure what would prevent the probe from demolecularizing without a force to hold it together.

Maybe Quantum Entanglement.

[Raleigh]

It's not true! It's turtles all the way down!

[Four-sided Triangles]

It begs the question though, if you could create a probe and remove its mass, could you regain that mass once it arrives at its destination? Or would the probe regain its mass as it passes through the Higgs Field? Matter requires mass, I'm not sure what would prevent the probe from demolecularizing without a force to hold it together.

Maybe Quantum Entanglement.

Mass doesn't hold stuff together. Gravity is the only fundamental force that depends on mass, and that's too weak to hold a probe together.

Also, the Higgs mechanism only gives mass to fundamental particles. Other configurations like protons and neutrons gain mass primarily through the strong force fields holding the quarks together. Even if you could decouple the Higgs field, something for which there is no mechanism available in the standard model, the majority of the mass of matter would still remain.

I'm sorry to be such a downer.

[Simon Cowell of the RR]

It's not true! It's turtles all the way down!

Someone had to say it.
Of course the zealots will now be shouting how it cannot exist because all they saw was the name...

[Johz]

The closer you get to the speed of light the more energy it takes to go faster.

Yeah, to get to lightspeed with mass would take more energy than the entire Universe contains.

@Nepal; if you took away a fundamental particle's mass it would travel at the speed of light.

Glad to see Four-sided Tringles has arrived to make me look relatively stupid in comparison

It's what happens to time at lightspeed that fascinates me. If you could travel at lightspeed you would arrive at your destination instantaneously, but to an outside observer on Earth, that observer would age relative to how many lightyears you have travelled, even though the journey is instant from your frame of reference. This is known as Time Dilation and the Twin Paradox respectively.

I read a rather interesting book, John Gribbin's The Search for Schroedinger's Cat, which had a rather interesting bit showing that you could consider, were you to simply look at the Feinman diagrams, photons as fixed lines through the four-dimensional universe. However, Gribbin did point out that this way of thinking probably isn't desperately helpful, although it's pretty neat...

[Lordieth]

@Four-sided Triangles; Electromagnetism is the force behind chemical bonding, right? So if you took away a physical object's mass, it would still remain intact? Mass doesn't effect the electromagnetic force?

[Four-sided Triangles]

I read a rather interesting book, John Gribbin's The Search for Schroedinger's Cat, which had a rather interesting bit showing that you could consider, were you to simply look at the Feinman diagrams, photons as fixed lines through the four-dimensional universe. However, Gribbin did point out that this way of thinking probably isn't desperately helpful, although it's pretty neat...

That kinda is how light is seen, or at least light-like rays. Under any Lorentz transformation, light-like rays have exactly the same length (their length is actually zero in every reference frame). Thus, in flat space-time, they're a nice invariant object. Light-like rays never change their four-length. All they do is rotate in four dimensional Minkowski space.

[Four-sided Triangles]

@Four-sided Triangles; Electromagnetism is the force behind chemical bonding, right? So if you took away a physical object's mass, it would still remain intact? Mass doesn't effect the electromagnetic force?

Electromagnetism holds things together. If you took away a physical object's mass, it would necessarily travel at light speed. Electrons would break apart into two completely decoupled objects, namely left and right chiral electrons. Mass causes the two chiral states to couple into one object, but without mass, the two are basically completely independent of each other.

Of course, the only way for electrons to have no mass is to completely remove them from any external potential energy. Since the electromagnetic bonding of electrons to atoms is potential energy, they would still have a source of mass. Electrons would be closer to their nuclei, at least for hydrogen-like atoms. This would change chemistry drastically, but electrons would still have some pseudo-mass. It would just be a much more easily changeable mass than that of the Higgs mechanism.

Chemistry would be fucked up, and the chemical properties of objects would change, but it's hard to say, without really looking over the equations, exactly how the properties would change. Our kind of life would probably be impossible, but simpler things like metals would still likely remain stable.

[Raleigh]

It's not true! It's turtles all the way down!

Someone had to say it.
Of course the zealots will now be shouting how it cannot exist because all they saw was the name...

I doubt they'll say anything. They probably won't even understand what is going on.

I sure don't.

[Great Nepal]

Okay, thanks.
That means, if we manage to eliminate Higgs in say probe, we will be able to charter way much further in reasonable time...

Now only if they could find a way to make that a reality in my lifetime.

It begs the question though, if you could create a probe and remove its mass, could you regain that mass once it arrives at its destination? Or would the probe regain its mass as it passes through the Higgs Field? Matter requires mass, I'm not sure what would prevent the probe from demolecularizing without a force to hold it together.

Maybe Quantum Entanglement.

So, all we gota do now is...
1) Conform that it is actually true.
2) Find a way to locate it on all atoms without smashing them together.
3) Come up with a theory to extract Higgs.
4) Test the theory and conform it works.
5) Come up with a theory to enact Quantum Entanglement.
6) Test and conform it.
7) Make a giant probe out of it.
8 ) Send it to the stars...

Seems simple enough.. .

[Lordieth]

Oh, is that all?

I think Four-sided Triangles' response to my question highlights another problem; entropy.

If you could remove the mass from the probe, then some of the materials may undergo reactions and transformations that can't be reversed; in the same way that you can't unscramble an egg.

The probe would have to be developed from materials that could revert back to their original state once they regain their mass.

[Maineiacs]

...Ouch, that must hurt...letting several Gods out Uranus.

Its times like these that keep bringing me back to nation states, only here can you have a thread on the God Particle involving butt jokes about an ancient pantheon of gods

Thank you! I'm here all week!

[Maineiacs]

It begs the question though, if you could create a probe and remove its mass, could you regain that mass once it arrives at its destination? Or would the probe regain its mass as it passes through the Higgs Field? Matter requires mass, I'm not sure what would prevent the probe from demolecularizing without a force to hold it together.

Maybe Quantum Entanglement.

So, all we gota do now is...
1) Conform that it is actually true.
2) Find a way to locate it on all atoms without smashing them together.
3) Come up with a theory to extract Higgs.
4) Test the theory and conform it works.
5) Come up with a theory to enact Quantum Entanglement.
6) Test and conform it.
7) Make a giant probe out of it.
8 ) Send it to the stars...

Seems simple enough.. .

Should be ready to launch by about 3350 A.D.

[Maineiacs]

Someone had to say it.
Of course the zealots will now be shouting how it cannot exist because all they saw was the name...

I doubt they'll say anything. They probably won't even understand what is going on.

I sure don't.

Since when did not understanding something stop religious zealots from blathering about it?

[Sakkra]

The major question here is ... how can I make a buck off it?

[Four-sided Triangles]

The major question here is ... how can I make a buck off it?

Is that all you care about?