60 minutes and the Higgs Boson

[cwjohn]

I dont know whether any one watched 60 minutes last night. A feel good piece with Fred Watson at CERN and the big bang story and so on. The interesting aspect was that there were 5 enthusiastic particle physicists from Melbourne Uni interviewed and the presenter asked the question "Put up your hands if you believe we will find the God particle (the Higgs boson)" and there were only two of the five who did so.

This surprised me as I would assumed amongst particle physicists this would be a given.

Any comments?

[astroron]

I wanted to watch it but Chanel Nine was playing up so missed out :mad2:
Cheers :thumbsup:

[Dave2042]

It's a bit of an odd question, maybe.

Either it will be found or it won't, and we'll see in due course. The idea of 'believing' it is strange.

And I do wish people would stop calling it the God Particle.

[Suzy]

Thanks Chris, for the heads up.:thumbsup:

I missed it last night but I found it here (http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/videoindex.aspx)on the nine.msn site. :D

Very beautiful scenery as Fred Watson and the 60 Minutes presenter travel the highest rail line in Europe to visit the observatory built high amongst the Swiss Alps.
Then onto Cern where the Australian physicists who are involved in the elusive Higgs Boson particle research are interviewed. Fred Watson is interviewed through out.

The particles in the LHC travel the 27 km journey at an incredible 11,285 timers per second!!!

[astroron]

Thanks Suzy, The Super Sleuth.;)
Cheers :thumbsup:

[JB80]

I think between the LHC and Tevatron they should know one way or another fairly soon, possibly even just a few months away.

Either way this will be big, to nail down and confirm the existing theory to what give mass to the universe or possibly even bigger to not find Higgs and have to rethink the whole ordeal.

[GeoffW1]

Ha,

I recorded it! Serendipity! Thanks for the tipoff as I might have deleted it unknowingly.

Well, the Higgs Boson, it is an avenue of investigation, like the inquiry into Craig Thomson, but more expensive than him :rofl:.

It is predicted by the Standard Model, which is one of the better constructions we have, so we look around for it. If we don't find it, then, on to Plan B. It is fairly routine scientific procedure in a way, but very very spectacular stuff the way it is done.

I'm sure to live long enough to see some sort of outcome there, and I'm quite pleased about the timing :lol:

Cheers