Mass Explained By Someone who knows about Science

[Twiglet]

ABC science (the national Australian broadcaster) published an article recently explaining how scientists understand mass, relating it to the standard model, the Higgs boson, and what we know so far about experiments. You can find the full text here

I've extracted some of the key parts below:

Gained a few kilos? Don't be too hard on yourself - an invisible force field and a boson called Higgs could be the real culprits.

Newton thought he had gravity nailed when the apocryphal apple fell on his head in 1665. But 250 years later a young upstart called Einstein declared that gravity wasn't a property of the Earth or any other matter — gravity is what you get when matter distorts space-time.

Mass is one of those things that we inherently 'get' — some things are heavier than others, and the mass of things doesn't change from one day to the next (crash diets aside). We know or can work out the mass of everything on the planet, from a hydrogen atom to a jumbo jet.

But in the 1960s, British physicist Peter Higgs came up with an idea that took mass from being something completely obvious, to something as trippy as the decade itself. He said mass isn't a property of matter. Instead, an invisible field fills every corner of the universe, and things acquire mass by interacting with the field. The more strongly the field (called the Higgs field) interacts with a particle, the heavier it is.

Electrons are really light (don't get excited farsight, the author just means they aren't heavy), so the Higgs field hardly interacts with them at all. The quarks that make up protons and neutrons are much heavier than electrons, because the Higgs field grabs onto them a lot better, making them harder to move or slow down. Photons, the packets of energy that make up electromagnetic radiation, don't have any mass at all. So they scoot through the universe as if the Higgs field wasn't there at all — photons and the Higgs field completely ignore one another.

Higgs' idea was met with a chorus of "brilliant!" from most physicists, and a resounding "what the …?" from everyone else. Why would he mess with an idea like mass that already worked so well? Well, someone had to.

//

If the Higgs field really is behind mass, it's OK for subatomic particles themselves not to have mass because they'll acquire it just by interacting with the field, and the Standard Model still stands. But if it turns out there's no Higgs field, we've got no way of explaining mass and particle physics will be left with a very Sub-Standard Model. So how do you find an invisible field that occupies every bit of space in the universe? You hunt for its boson.

This is one of the core aims of the LHC

Which is exactly what's been happening in Europe's Large Hadron Collider. If super-fast protons (a type of hadron) crash into one another with enough energy, a Higgs boson could form.

And if after all the billions of dollars we don't spot a Higgs boson? The particle physics community will be far from disappointed. That's their cue to come up with a model that works as well as our current one, but has room for mass, dark energy, dark matter and a little thing called gravity.

The full text of the article is here

[newolder]

Good stuff.
Peter Higgs helps too.

[Farsight]

Sorry guys, but you're wrong. I recommend you buy a book called A Zeptospace Odyssey: A Journey into the Physics of the LHC by Gian Francesco Giudice. The guy is at CERN and he knows what he's talking about. You don't have to buy the book, you can "search inside" on "Higgs sector" and read pages 174 and 175. It tells you the Higgs mechanism accounts for 1 per cent of the mass of ordinary matter. Newolder, I've already told you this in this post. Note the quote: "It is sometimes said that the discovery of the Higgs boson will explain the mystery of the origin of mass. This statement requires a good deal of qualification".

Twiglet, you don't know much about science at all.

[Twiglet]

Sorry guys, but you're wrong. I recommend you buy a book called A Zeptospace Odyssey: A Journey into the Physics of the LHC by Gian Francesco Giudice. The guy is at CERN and he knows what he's talking about. You don't have to buy the book, you can "search inside" on "Higgs sector" and read pages 174 and 175. It tells you the Higgs mechanism accounts for 1 per cent of the mass of ordinary matter. Newolder, I've already told you this in this post. Note the quote: "It is sometimes said that the discovery of the Higgs boson will explain the mystery of the origin of mass. This statement requires a good deal of qualification".

Twiglet, you don't know much about science at all.

I didn't write the article farsight I'd rather be in Peter Higgs intellectual company than yours on this topic though.

What flew over your head about the whole article is the acknowledgement at all levels that the standard model will stand or fall, and certainly evolve, as experimental results come in which affirm it, contradict it, or suggest the need for inclusions. The people writing the article posted, and Peter Higgs - are and have been closely invovled with that process.

By the way, I agree with what the chap from CERN said, the origin of mass will require a good deal of qualification if the Higgs boson turns up. That's what his job is about. Finding out how it behaves from collision tracks and fitting those into theory. That's what he means when he says "qualification". He doesn't mean appealling to random wibble from people with nothing better to do with themselves.

I'd have a real hoot farsight if you end up quoting one of my papers without knowing I was the author, that would be high on my "hoot for today list". I might just circulate your threads to some old friends at CERN.... it will make a change from the usual beer and bumcrack jokes.

[Farsight]

Read what I told you to read. Guiduce says the Higgs sector is arbitrary. Basically he's saying it's the weakest part of the standard model. There's plenty of bona-fide physicists who aren't happy with it, who feel it diminishes the standard model, and feel uncomfortable with the overhyped Higgs boson "mystery of mass" moonshine because

the Higgs mechanism accounts for 1 per cent of the mass of ordinary matter.

Please do circulate my threads to some of your friends at CERN. Go get some help, because you need it. And if you think it's funny, be warned that I and relativity+ will have the last laugh.

[Twiglet]

Read what I told you to read. Guiduce says the Higgs sector is arbitrary. Basically he's saying it's the weakest part of the standard model. There's plenty of bona-fide physicists who aren't happy with it, who feel it diminishes the standard model, and feel uncomfortable with the overhyped Higgs boson "mystery of mass" moonshine because

the Higgs mechanism accounts for 1 per cent of the mass of ordinary matter.

Please do circulate my threads to some of your friends at CERN. Go get some help, because you need it. And if you think it's funny, be warned that I and relativity+ will have the last laugh.

[Farsight]

LOL, caught out bang to rights and Twiglet's only response is an attempt at comic relief. What a turkey.

[Twiglet]

LOL, caught out bang to rights and Twiglet's only response is an attempt at comic relief. What a turkey.

Well, what's the point in arguing with you farsight? You quote things without understanding their meaning, dismiss articles out of hand by people in the field, can't answer A level standard problems, demonstrably don't understand relativity or quantum physics.

The main difference between you and the Benny Hill theme tune is that the theme tune is funny. Despite how often it repeats itself while going nowhere.

[Farsight]

LOL, caught out bang to rights and Twiglet's only response is an attempt at comic relief. What a turkey.

Well, what's the point in arguing with you farsight? You quote things without understanding their meaning, dismiss articles out of hand by people in the field, can't answer A level standard problems, demonstrably don't understand relativity or quantum physics.

What's the point when I understand their meaning and you don't? And you can't be arsed to check it out because you're filled to the gills with intellectual arrogance, only your head is full of intellectual vacuum. You haven't even got the sense to read the Zeptospace Odyssey pages I referred to, where Gian Francesco Guiduce, CERN physicist says:

The Higgs substance provides for less than a kilogram of our body mass

Did you get that? Less than a kilogram. Now go and square that with your opening post:

Gained a few kilos?

You numpty. You don't know what you're talking about. Your knowledge of physics is scant, and you pretend to be an expert. Pah.

[Twiglet]

LOL, caught out bang to rights and Twiglet's only response is an attempt at comic relief. What a turkey.

Well, what's the point in arguing with you farsight? You quote things without understanding their meaning, dismiss articles out of hand by people in the field, can't answer A level standard problems, demonstrably don't understand relativity or quantum physics.

What's the point when I understand their meaning and you don't? And you can't be arsed to check it out because you're filled to the gills with intellectual arrogance, only your head is full of intellectual vacuum. You haven't even got the sense to read the Zeptospace Odyssey pages I referred to, where Gian Francesco Guiduce, CERN physicist says:

The Higgs substance provides for less than a kilogram of our body mass

Did you get that? Less than a kilogram. Now go and square that with your opening post:

Gained a few kilos?

You numpty. You don't know what you're talking about. Your knowledge of physics is scant, and you pretend to be an expert. Pah.

My understanding of the subject has been verified with an honours degree in physics from the Victoria University of Manchester where I graduated in the early 1990s, specialising in particle physics, nuclear physics, quantum physics, lasers physics, advanced computers, hardware & software as my third year options. Easily enough validated by anyone else attending the same university at the same time. I can say which lecturers taught which courses and in what lecture theatres. Information certainly not available on the web for the period I attended.

You might be aware of the department farsight. Rutherford, Moseley, Blackett, Bragg, JJ Thompson and Neils Bohr, who first formulated quantum theory taught there. The physics department has had 10 Nobel Laureautes. And you studied where?

Special relativity was taught as a first year course, 20 lectures in total. I got over 80% in that exam, I forget the exact figure, it was almost 20 years ago now... anyway, special relativity is one of the first undergraduate courses to be taught because the maths is so simple, and because the course sits in isolation to pretty much everything else.

Who has formally validated your understanding of any of this farsight?

All I see is a word salad of wiki quotes coupled with a gleeful need to repeat every known flaw in scientific theory and fill the gaps with unsubstantiated untestable BS.

In this and other threads, I have been explaining existing theory, not pushing my own. And exposing the glaring holes and inconsistencies in your ...ideas... about the most polite term I can find for them. They don't predict anything, lack internal consistency, have no formulation. Just and appeal to time being a property of space.

[mistermack]

The more strongly the field (called the Higgs field) interacts with a particle, the heavier it is.

Isn't that a bit like saying : ''the heavier it is, the heavier it is''?
Presumabley m is still proportional to e, so the more energy a particle has up it's sleeve, the more massive it is. Isn't it the other way round then, that the more massive a particle is, the more strongly the higgs field interacts with it?
.

[Twiglet]

The more strongly the field (called the Higgs field) interacts with a particle, the heavier it is.

Isn't that a bit like saying : ''the heavier it is, the heavier it is''?
Presumabley m is still proportional to e, so the more energy a particle has up it's sleeve, the more massive it is. Isn't it the other way round then, that the more massive a particle is, the more strongly the higgs field interacts with it?
.

It's formulated in a manner which is subject to experimental validation, but no data conclusively supports it yet.

To answer the broader question, fields are used extensively to model interactions in both e-m and QP.

[ChildInAZoo]

It's formulated in a manner which is subject to experimental validation, but no data conclusively supports it yet.

Additionally, there should be properties of the HIggs field, and its boson, that can be measured in different ways other than simply those pertaining to mass.

[colubridae]

The more strongly the field (called the Higgs field) interacts with a particle, the heavier it is.

Isn't that a bit like saying : ''the heavier it is, the heavier it is''?
Presumabley m is still proportional to e, so the more energy a particle has up it's sleeve, the more massive it is. Isn't it the other way round then, that the more massive a particle is, the more strongly the higgs field interacts with it?
.

Yes yes yes yes..

Can I use this quote in my sig now. pretty please.

If the difference between one of your numbers and the preceding one is D, then
infinity x D = 1. Therefor D = 1/infinity which equals 0.
.

[/quote]

[Tigger]

The main difference between you and the Benny Hill theme tune is that the theme tune is funny

You numpty. You don't know what you're talking about.

Ahem! One all. Not really up there with calling someone a twat, but bordering on the not being quite the way one should.