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jfletch - Member
Science is only one of many thought constructs by which "the world we live in" can be analysed....That doesn't even mean anything.
to you perhaps, let me try to explain my viewpoint if I may....
...."Scientific Method" is a product of the human intellect striving to explain "stuff" by a system (usually reductionist) of observation, measurement and deduction.
It has, as you say, been successful in taking "us" beyond the [i]there be monsters[/i] stage of understanding the world/universe etc. It has also, via applied technology, made us more independent of (some of) the pressures of our physical existence. (It has also provided countless ways to frak up each other and our environment, but let's not digress too much)
I do believe however, despite a long, productive and modestly successful career as a "Scientist", that other intellectual methods are equally as valid at explaining many aspects of our existence.
To dismiss the findings of these methods on the basis of them being "unscientific" is a misunderstanding, and one which I think has been a failure of our (Western) society.
I guess if I were to try and sum it up, I'd say Science provides some answers, but not [i]the[/i] answers......
I prefer Bose-Higson:
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geetee1972 - MemberApparently they've invited a bunch of the people involved in the development of the theory, including Peter Higgs, to the presentation, hence the excitement that they are going to announce something big.
And co-inventor M Bison from Streetfighter II. Apparently he's going to Psycho Crusher everyone who mis-spells his name.
Bose-Higson:
*applause*
I though this was all sorted out on 25th May, 1977 and called "The force" 🙂
About time they started working on Starships and lightsabers much more useful 😀
Bindun?
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This thread cheered me up no end during a hard working day. I liked the way us 13yr olds giggled with silly jokes, those that berated religion got heated up trying to explain God "n" all and best of it all the closet scientists came out of the woodwork.
Just like being back at skool.
Perfect.
Carry on.
Please, do us a favour and **** off onto another thread. Leave those of us with an ounce of intellect to enjoy this discovery.
I'd agree and don't enter these threads except to announce that the usual drivel puts me off, then I realise how inane this type of comment is and just stay away and not say anything because it makes me look like a twunt.
Sorry.
PS. Pretty profound stuff that I'd love to understand. Hats off to CERN.
One thing I heard on the news that amazed me was physicists only know 4% of what makes up the universe. It's a pretty big discovery either way.
One thing I heard on the news that amazed me was physicists only know 4% of what makes up the universe.
The rest is turtles, all the way down.
Oh, and red elastic bands, fluff & old extention leads.
I do believe however, despite a long, productive and modestly successful career as a "Scientist", that other intellectual methods are equally as valid at explaining many aspects of our existence.
Is that "equally valid" as in "can correctly predict observable outcomes" or just "interesting philosophy and mental gymnastics"?
To dismiss the findings of these methods on the basis of them being "unscientific" is a misunderstanding, and one which I think has been a failure of our (Western) society.
What "findings" are these specifically? Is there any evidence they are correct or is that too scientific?
Please, do us a favour and **** off onto another thread. Leave those of us with an ounce of intellect to enjoy this discovery.
What like everybody does at (INSERT RELIGIOUS OCCASION OF CHOICE)round here?
One thing I heard on the news that amazed me was physicists only know 4% of what makes up the universe
Why is that amazing? Did you expect more? And besides I don't think they meant what you appear to think they meant.
Is that "equally valid" as in "can correctly predict observable outcomes" or just "interesting philosophy and mental gymnastics"?
Valid as in "of value to people"
If the Higgs Boson gives mass to everything - can we forget about "superstrings" and 15 dimensions of space now?
If the Higgs Boson gives mass to everything - can we forget about "superstrings" and 15 dimensions of space now?
No such luck - The Higgs accounts for inertial mass, not gravitational mass. The latter is the realms of relativity, which is not within the standard model. String theory is one attempt at unifying the standard model with relativity.
So - now we need some evidence of strings. Get to work, boffins...
One thing I heard on the news that amazed me was physicists only know 4% of what makes up the universe
So, 'we' know pretty much next to nothing, in the scheme of things. Still. I suppose they've got to start somewhere.
to you perhaps, let me try to explain my viewpoint if I may........"Scientific Method" is a product of the human intellect striving to explain "stuff" by a system (usually reductionist) of observation, measurement and deduction.
It has, as you say, been successful in taking "us" beyond the there be monsters stage of understanding the world/universe etc. It has also, via applied technology, made us more independent of (some of) the pressures of our physical existence. (It has also provided countless ways to frak up each other and our environment, but let's not digress too much)I do believe however, despite a long, productive and modestly successful career as a "Scientist", that other intellectual methods are equally as valid at explaining many aspects of our existence.
To dismiss the findings of these methods on the basis of them being "unscientific" is a misunderstanding, and one which I think has been a failure of our (Western) society.I guess if I were to try and sum it up, I'd say Science provides some answers, but not the answers......
Philosophy will always trump science when it comes to asking unanswerable questions but science will always win when it comes to finding answers.
Yesterday we found a fairly big answer.
I think the most amazing thing about knowing roughly 4% of how everything works is that it's only taken us about - what - 500 years give or take since Galileo Galilei more or less kicked the whole shebang off? Good stuff.
Before that, we knew zero for about 200,000 years and had to make up stories about it.
So - now we need some evidence of strings. Get to work, boffins...
Sadly the energy requirements to start to see the unification of gravity with the three other forces, are beyond current technology. About 14 orders of magnitude higher than those accessible in the LHC.
If you are old enough, you will recall in the 1980's that the new W and Z bosons were discovered at CERN by smashing electrons and positrons together (predicted by Weinberg-Salam model). To get to the predicted Higgs particle energies required that heavier stuff be smashed together - enter protons and antiprotons (1800x heavier). So the LHC can achieve energies of about three orders of magnitude higher than LEP.
Now to get another 14 orders of magnitude of energy, we need something 10^14 times heavier, charged and accelerated to all but the speed of light. That particle would weigh about 10^-15 grammes and would need a negative counterpart. Plus the energy of a billion billion more power stations to accelerate it...
Hence my comment about the end of experimental Particle Physics.
Some nice perspective on Nobel prizes from [url= http://blog.oup.com/2012/07/frank-close-new-boson-particle-higgs-find/ ]Frank Close[/url]. Sent Tom a congratulatory email already.
The Nobel is a shoe-in I guess, but in 3 months time like that author intimates? 2013 would be in line with the W and Z bosun discovery / award timeframe, and that was amazingly rapid by Nobel standards.
It's true though that the theoreticians are elderly, so maybe the Nobel committee will act decisively. One of the medicine prizewinners this year died the day before the announcement - only posthumous Nobel prize in history I think.
Anyone posted [url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/shortcuts/2012/jul/04/how-explain-higgs-boson-discovery ]"The Guardian guide to explaining the Higgs boson"[/url] yet?
The Nobel is a shoe-in I guess
Not so sure. Close's arguments are persuasive, but we shall see. It's been 45 years (and more) in the coming, after all. And yes [url= http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/10/03/a-posthumous-nobel-for-medicine/ ]Steinman [/url] is the only posthumous award. He was treating himself with his own dendritric cell therapy.
I think CERN would be up for the award once more confirmatory evidence of the nature of the Higgs-Kibble boson is described experimentally.
[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Smoot ]Smoot [/url] and Mather won for the Cosmic Microwave Background Explorer (COBE). But they didn't put that satellite up there, collect and anlayse the data and publish singlehandedly,
One thing I heard on the news that amazed me was physicists only know 4% of what makes up the universe
How do they know?
To know what 4 from 100 is they have to know what 100 is but they've already said they don't know becasue we only know 4%....
I'll leave it to the experts. 😕
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