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Surely one of the most massive names in modern physics. RIP.
massive
I’m so happy he lived to see the discovery of the particle and the confirmation of his theory
It’s really quite astonishing.
Speaks to how quickly technology can advance over one’s lifetime and how much of a pioneer scientists are.
People will say his name for as long as our civilisation lasts. Like Volta, Ampere or Watt.
Tesla, Newton, Coulomb, Faraday
Albert Einstein, Immanuel Kant, Ron Jeremy, Mia Khalifa
…what were we doing again?
I thought we were about to break out into a verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
Just not the Fall Out Boy version, hopefully. They write it in chronological order.
TIL there was a Fall Out Boy version
I still have no clue what the Higg boson is or what it does. Something to do with gravity, probably?
No. There are two types of particles. Particles that go at light speed and particles that don’t.
The particles that don’t go at light speed don’t do this because they have rest mass. The particles that do go at light speed do so because they have no rest mass. They are massless.
Now what makes massless and massful particles different? This is where the Higgs Boson comes in. There is a field called the Higgs field, which is made by the Higgs Boson.
Particles that interact with the Higgs field are massful. Particles that don’t are massless. They thus can go at the speed of light.
For example, photons (that make light) do not interact with the Higgs Field. Hence, they go at light speed. Electrons however do interact with the Higgs field. They thus have rest mass. They thus do not go at light speed.
The Large Hadron Collider verified the existence of the Higgs boson. This is what the “god particle” stories were about in the past decade.
I think it also has something to do with mass creation which is probably just an even simpler version of what you’re saying.
Yes, that’s what the field does. When particles has certain properties then their interaction with this field effectively acts as a “dampener” and this effect creates what we describe as mass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism
I looked for a simpler but accurate description and found one above that matched my own intuition for it - the interaction with the Higgs fields restricts the particle wavelength, this directly restricts its propagation too and this is also what makes it travel slower than light. And by traveling slower than light while having energy / momentum it must also have mass. The section describing it is under the superconduction headline.
So, if we can somehow manipulate the Higgs field or the Higgs boson, we can make something “massless” and travel at speed of light? Maybe even with zero time dilation since they have no mass to cause a gravitational field to slow down time?
While my understanding of quantum physics is better than the average high schooler, it is still very limited (I possess no mathematical understanding of the standard model whatsoever among many things). Hence, you can gauge the probability of the correctness of my answer. Considering this, here’s my answer:
We don’t know. We lack a lot of experimental data in quantum physics to answer this question.
- First, we have never observed a massless electron. Hence, we have no idea about what would happen if we could do as you said.
- Then, we have no experimentally proven theory of quantum gravity. We simply have no idea how gravity functions at the quantum level. Let’s say we make the rest mass of a massful particle zero by manipulating the Higgs field. What would happen to its gravitational mass? All of general relativity is based on the assumption that inertial mass = gravitational mass. This is called the principle of equivalence. However, we don’t know if this stays true at the quantum level. We don’t even know if the goddamn graviton exists or not.
So the answer is this: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Wikipedia article says that at extreme temperature particles disconnect from the Higgs field and become massless. But note that we’re talking many many millions of degrees Celsius.
This is like asking if we could manipulate the gravitational field to make ourselves weightless on earth. Both are fundamentally impossible
Nothing is “impossible” in science. It’s difficult to experimentally prove negatives. Until we can experimentally prove something, we cannot pass any statements like these.
For manipulating the gravitational field, we don’t even have a theory of quantum gravity. There is no evidence suggesting that you cannot manipulate it. However, there is no evidence suggesting that you can either.
However, an absence of evidence for something does not mean that it cannot exist. It just means that we must not assume that it does exist.
You clearly don’t understand field theory and what a field actually is. You cannot manipulate a field to suddenly not exist or behave differently in a specific location, otherwise its not a field and would not be mathematically congruent with our existing observations. We have very much proved that you cannot manipulate fields.
Unless you feel like proposing a new model of physics that matches all of our existing observations and allows for your wacky nonsense, please stay quiet on the subject.
You cannot manipulate a field to suddenly not exist or behave differently in a specific location, otherwise its not a field and would not be mathematically congruent with our existing observations.
Correct. I never said you could do that. By “manipulating a field”, I meant causing excitations in the field. A moving a magnet causes excitations in the EM field (positive and negative) for example.
That being said, I still don’t say that you cannot manipulate the characteristics of a field (I think this is what your definition of “field manipulation” was). As I said in my previous comment, proving negatives is incredibly difficult. Einstein and his peers for instance did not believe that chain reactions involving nuclear fission were possible. This is because the neutron had not been discovered yet. Based on the data that they had at the time, would it be correct of them to say “fission chain reactions are impossible”, or would it be correct of them to say “we see no evidence for fission chain reactions being possible”.
please stay quiet on the subject
I don’t know if this is a figure of speech that I don’t understand or if it is you being rude. If it is really you telling me to be quiet, that’s not nice. From your response, I assume that you are a student of science. Scientific communication must be in good faith where personal ego is removed completely. If you meant it as a figure of speech, then sorry for being preachy.
Why do some particles interact with the Higgs Field while others do not?
Having spent the last thirty minutes reading answers to this question from people way better at math than I am, I can confidently answer this question with:
Magic
Also particles aren’t real and neither is electromagnetism, anymore, apparently, so that’s fun.
Follow the white rabbit
Lol, fun.
https://youtu.be/yzqLHiA0uFI?si=kRW8VswcOuR3D7tE
In short, we don’t really have a good answer for this. The standard model is a very incomplete theory of quantum physics. There are MANY predictions that it either gets wrong or cannot explain.
He fixed the standard model of particle physics. He was also the reason why this was built to prove his theory.
Godspeed, I hope you get to meet your particle.
I studied his work over 20 years ago. I had no idea he was alive at the time. I just figured he long gone like all the other pioneers.
I just got my master’s in physics, I also just assumed he was long dead.
Ok, now who will inherit all those bosons?
