It is hard to explain how big those detectors are. Watch this until you get a sense of the size (290 tonnes, 16 meters diameter): Now, watch this: Edit: Why thank you Yosho!
I don't know why people are afraid of black holes, when it is clearly Satan that they should be afraid of: Edit: No, I will not "put in a good word" with the masons for any of you. The coordinates for the escape shuttle can, however, be purchased from me for a moderate sum.
I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions.
Um, can you explain the Higgs Boson in [quasi] simple terms?
I tried to read the Wikipedia page on it and I couldn't follow it for the life of me.
Easy: The Higgs Boson is like chocolate cake; it makes particles massive and the more massive a particle is the more it likes the cake. Sometimes when particularly heavy particles collide they may whisper to each other about the cake, which makes their collision slightly different than if they wouldn't. By looking at collisions closely, we can determine whether they talk about cake or not. Ideally we would like to collide them so hard that actual cake comes out... OK at this point the analogy breaks down and lends itself to disturbing mental imagery.
Slightly more technical: In the 60's some very smart people figured out how to mathematically describe particle interactions in a unified way. This is called the Standard Model (SM). They did this, basically, by looking at lots and lots of particle collisions. They then would take the model, calculate what should happen in a particular collision (even if they had never actually seen it before), build a machine to replicate the collision, look at it and voila the calculation would match up with what they saw.
There was one problem. If you upped the energy of the hypothetical collisions, at some point the total energy coming out of the collision would surpass the energy you put into it. This is called a violation of unitarity and very, very unphysical. Peter Higgs (and some other chaps) came up with the idea of adding a new particle to the theory; the Higgs boson. Once you redid the calculations and allowed the Higgs into the mix you got rid of the unitarity violation.
In all of this, however, the mass of the Higgs boson remains unspecified, so we have no way of knowing where to look for it. What we do know, is the energy at which unitarity would go haywire without the Higgs -- and the LHC, coincidentally, is designed to operate at that energy . This is why physicists are positively sure that we will find something at the LHC, even if it is not the Higgs.
Uber technical: One of the main concepts in modern particle physics are symmetries. Take a round plate, close your eyes, have someone rotate it, open your eyes and you won't know the difference. If there is a crack in the plate, however, you would know, and we'd call that a broken symmetry. Things viewed in a mirror obey the same laws of nature even though front and back are reversed (and charges actually). If we could switch positive and negative charges with each other all across the universe all at the same time we changed the universe into a mirror image, no-one would know the difference (well almost, CP is not exact). The mirror and the switching are examples of global symmetries.
Local symmetries mean something can change differently from place to place, but still without having an observable effect. Local symmetries differ from global ones in that they come accompanied by what is called a gauge field and are associated with a fundamental force of nature. Now, if the symmetry is unbroken the gauge field is massless. The photon is an example of this.
In the 60's the creators of the Standard Model knew that there must be a broken symmetry which is associated with the weak force (responsible for nuclear decays). The Higgs mechanism provided an explanation of why and how that symmetry got broken. The fact that it can be used to give ordinary particles mass as well is an incidental bonus.
Ideally we would like to collide them so hard that actual cake comes out... OK at this point the analogy breaks down and lends itself to disturbing mental hilarious imagery.
No, but there is a design rule that whenever something is modifiable enough by the users, someone will draw a penis with it.
Lies.
Is there an internet rule about how if something exists it will be drawn as a girl? Because it seems like that should be just as prolific as Rule 34.
Refer to rule 63 on this list: "63. There's always a female version of a male character. No Exceptions." If an artist were to draw a male version of the LHC-tan, he would also have to draw a female version. The internet is filled with lazy, fat, furry-loving nerds, this includes the artists of these tan images. They thus could be smart and just draw a girl instead of a guy and then a girl. Were it of course not for the fact that they're guys and they prefer to drool over images of girls instead of guys. It's connected to rule 37.
Do not inquire about rule 40. Zippo Cat is to Goatse (in terms of shock value) what Goatse is to a blank piece of paper. Also, LHC-tan: Lights are in the wrong places.
Comments
Now, watch this:
Edit: Why thank you Yosho!
Edit: No, I will not "put in a good word" with the masons for any of you. The coordinates for the escape shuttle can, however, be purchased from me for a moderate sum.
Edit: I just saw the end of the video. ROFL?
I tried to read the Wikipedia page on it and I couldn't follow it for the life of me.
Slightly more technical: In the 60's some very smart people figured out how to mathematically describe particle interactions in a unified way. This is called the Standard Model (SM). They did this, basically, by looking at lots and lots of particle collisions. They then would take the model, calculate what should happen in a particular collision (even if they had never actually seen it before), build a machine to replicate the collision, look at it and voila the calculation would match up with what they saw.
There was one problem. If you upped the energy of the hypothetical collisions, at some point the total energy coming out of the collision would surpass the energy you put into it. This is called a violation of unitarity and very, very unphysical. Peter Higgs (and some other chaps) came up with the idea of adding a new particle to the theory; the Higgs boson. Once you redid the calculations and allowed the Higgs into the mix you got rid of the unitarity violation.
In all of this, however, the mass of the Higgs boson remains unspecified, so we have no way of knowing where to look for it. What we do know, is the energy at which unitarity would go haywire without the Higgs -- and the LHC, coincidentally, is designed to operate at that energy
Uber technical: One of the main concepts in modern particle physics are symmetries. Take a round plate, close your eyes, have someone rotate it, open your eyes and you won't know the difference. If there is a crack in the plate, however, you would know, and we'd call that a broken symmetry. Things viewed in a mirror obey the same laws of nature even though front and back are reversed (and charges actually). If we could switch positive and negative charges with each other all across the universe all at the same time we changed the universe into a mirror image, no-one would know the difference (well almost, CP is not exact). The mirror and the switching are examples of global symmetries.
Local symmetries mean something can change differently from place to place, but still without having an observable effect. Local symmetries differ from global ones in that they come accompanied by what is called a gauge field and are associated with a fundamental force of nature. Now, if the symmetry is unbroken the gauge field is massless. The photon is an example of this.
In the 60's the creators of the Standard Model knew that there must be a broken symmetry which is associated with the weak force (responsible for nuclear decays). The Higgs mechanism provided an explanation of why and how that symmetry got broken. The fact that it can be used to give ordinary particles mass as well is an incidental bonus.
Seriously though, good explanation.
Yes, it is the LHCtan! Praise teh interwebs!
"63. There's always a female version of a male character. No Exceptions." If an artist were to draw a male version of the LHC-tan, he would also have to draw a female version. The internet is filled with lazy, fat, furry-loving nerds, this includes the artists of these tan images. They thus could be smart and just draw a girl instead of a guy and then a girl. Were it of course not for the fact that they're guys and they prefer to drool over images of girls instead of guys. It's connected to rule 37.
Also, LHC-tan: Lights are in the wrong places.
Edit: Of course sometimes the "unwitting" part could be taken care of by judicious use of the write command.
Edit: Ok, here is some real ASCII porn (nsfw).