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dreadgeek · 03-07-2013, 01:35 PM

So it appears that physicists are pretty close to confirming that the newly found particle really is the long-sought Higgs boson. However, they need to rule out one possibility which would be *at least* as cool as the Higgs, the graviton.

Haven't heard of the graviton before? It is a particle predicted to exist based on the following (simplified of course): All the other forces (electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) all have a messenger particle. The messenger particle for electromagnetism is the photon. For the strong force the messenger particle is the gluon. For the weak force it is a weak-gauge boson. For gravity it is the graviton.

The problem with the graviton is that it is carrying the weakest of the four forces (really, it doesn't seem like it but gravity is very weak, I'll get to that in a minute)*. It also has no mass (meaning it can move at the speed of light). So physicists have to find a very weak, mass-less particle. If the particle they've found has no spin** then it's Higgs and one kind of mystery in physics is solved. If the particle they've found has spin then it's the graviton and another kind of mystery has been solved.

* The weakness from gravity can best be understood like this. When you lift anything you are overcoming the force of gravity pulling on the object and your arm. The reason why you don't fall through the floor if you fall down is that the electromagnetic force is overcoming the strength of gravity quite literally all of the negatively charged particles in your body are being repelled by all of the negatively charged particles in the ground! While both gravity and electromagnetism have infinite range, electromagnetism is 10^36 times more powerful than gravity! (That's a ten with 36 zeroes after it. To give you a sense of scale, it's the difference between the size of a single helium atom and the size of the visible universe.)

**Spin is a characteristic of subatomic particles. You can, by way of analogy, think of it in the normal sense of rotation in a particular direction around an axis but this should not be taken too far. It is a quantum mechanical description using the language of classical physics but the spin of, say, an electron is not the same as a ball spinning.

Cheers
Aj

03-07-2013, 01:35 PM	#558
dreadgeek Power Femme How Do You Identify?: Cinnamon spiced, caramel colored, power-femme Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: Married to a wonderful horse girl Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Lat: 45.60 Lon: -122.60 Posts: 1,733 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,132 Thanked 6,841 Times in 1,493 Posts Rep Power: 21474852	It's almost certainly Higgs but maybe it's a graviton So it appears that physicists are pretty close to confirming that the newly found particle really is the long-sought Higgs boson. However, they need to rule out one possibility which would be at least as cool as the Higgs, the graviton. Haven't heard of the graviton before? It is a particle predicted to exist based on the following (simplified of course): All the other forces (electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces) all have a messenger particle. The messenger particle for electromagnetism is the photon. For the strong force the messenger particle is the gluon. For the weak force it is a weak-gauge boson. For gravity it is the graviton. The problem with the graviton is that it is carrying the weakest of the four forces (really, it doesn't seem like it but gravity is very weak, I'll get to that in a minute). It also has no mass (meaning it can move at the speed of light). So physicists have to find a very weak, mass-less particle. If the particle they've found has no spin* then it's Higgs and one kind of mystery in physics is solved. If the particle they've found has spin then it's the graviton and another kind of mystery has been solved. * The weakness from gravity can best be understood like this. When you lift anything you are overcoming the force of gravity pulling on the object and your arm. The reason why you don't fall through the floor if you fall down is that the electromagnetic force is overcoming the strength of gravity quite literally all of the negatively charged particles in your body are being repelled by all of the negatively charged particles in the ground! While both gravity and electromagnetism have infinite range, electromagnetism is 10^36 times more powerful than gravity! (That's a ten with 36 zeroes after it. To give you a sense of scale, it's the difference between the size of a single helium atom and the size of the visible universe.) *Spin is a characteristic of subatomic particles. You can, by way of analogy, think of it in the normal sense of rotation in a particular direction around an axis but this should not be taken too far. It is a quantum mechanical description using the language of classical physics but the spin of, say, an electron is not the same as a ball spinning. Cheers Aj __________________ Proud member of the reality-based community.* "People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up." (Terry Pratchett)