Higgs (mechanism/field/particle) is about giving mass to elementary particles. Should I go on and try to describe the actual process? There's a high risk that it would be a waste of time ;) It's also another piece of evidence supporting the Standard Model ("theory of almost everything") which predicts Higgs boson to exist.

My 'blue sky' view:
Particle Physics is complex as fuck. The Higgs-Boson was a theory that helps with some of the math. It has been used in particle physics and discovering it means that physicists can say "All those formula's we did that used the Higgs-Boson are not invalid! YAY!"

It has nothing to do with God and certainly doesn't help solve the theory of everything (putting all the forces into a single, neat formula).

I wouldn't get too focused on the term "god particle". That's all media hype.

The Standard Model, which I don't pretend to know much about, aims to describe the fundamentals of the universe. One prediction the SM has is the existence of the higgs boson. A boson is a class of elementary (cannot be further broken down) particles that has certain properties. The higgs boson explains why particles have mass. Being able to locate a higgs boson would give even more credibility to the SM, just like detecting electrons and atoms gave credibility to our model of chemistry in the 19th(?) Century.

Sorry, I meant to say that it doesn't solve the theory of everything. It does help solve, but doesn't outright allow physicists to solve it.

@obi

Take a look at the following chart:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg/556px-Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg.png

These are the elementary particles predicted and already observed by the Standard Model. Purple are Quarks (which you may have heard of). Green are Leptons (which you probably haven't heard of, but note that the Electron is a Lepton). Both Leptons and Quarks are classified as Fermions (because they share properties irrelevant to this discussion).

There are 4 Fundamental Forces in the universe: Electromagnetic Force, Gravity, and the Strong and Weak Forces (you probably haven't heard of the last two). Bosons (the Pink on the chart) are known as Force Carriers and are responsible for these forces:
Photon-Electromagnetic
W and Z Bosons-Weak Force
Gluons-Strong Force

You'll note that there has been no observed particle that is responsible for mass (gravity). You'll also note that the Higgs Boson is not on this chart yet. Once it is, we will have a particle for each Fundamental Force, which would be very nice.

neat post abgemacht, re the no observed particle responsible for mass, where do the good old proton & nutron fit in ?
i actaullly like the notion that "solid matter" is actually more "space" than matter,
in that the "mass" of an atom is in the nucleus & then there are the electrons in the different "energy" levels, so it's mostly "space" in a way

errr yes I typo'd nuetron, how shocking

Proton and neutron are 3 quarks bound together by the strong interaction.

For a longer explanation, here's a youtube presentation by a friend of mine. It's an hour long and not the most exciting thing (to me), but how often do you get to pimp your friend as a theoretical physicist? I'd skip to the 5:00 mark to avoid the introduction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqrwtQcrNBI&list=UUKzqyRUej9BI5dhdjwF09vQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Huh...

So it's about finding proof of a field...kind of? And the field determines how subatomic particles move? Or at least that's what I got from this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RIg1Vh7uPyw

I thank you for the YouTube link, The Hanged Man, but I doubt if I'd understand the complexities of that video...

I'm afraid I don't know a lot about physics beyond the famous names...because the actual ideas require math, and I'm famously poor at math, so I've never taken a physics class.

Took some Bio classes, and a Chem class because I had to back in HS (again, interesting, but the numerical failings held me to a "C" in that class, I recall, and I was glad to get it) but never a Physics class.

Maybe someday I'll take one, they sound interesting...but with budget cuts and all, getting my English and Poli Sci classes so I can graduate with a degree that will likely be nowhere near as valuable as the ones you all hold is difficult enough without taking stray classes.

But still...

I didn't know there was a "Standard Theory," though, I thought there were a whole bunch of theories...are we really close to having a single theory that explains why...particles move as they do?

And there are FOUR forces that hold the universe together? O.o

I feel very much "Down the Rabbit Hole" right now in terms of getting all that, haha. But it sounds very interesting...and meaningful, that's always good. :)

No, we are not much closer to having one united theory than we were decades ago. Grand Unified Theories (there are more of such models, no prevailing over others as of now) offer explanations that unify the 3 fundamental interactions - electromagnetic, weak and strong - at high energy, compared to Standard Model, where the interactions are independent.

However, the way of adding gravity to the unified bunch is so mind-boggingly difficult that no significant process has been made for such a long time. So no Theory of Everything for us yet.

Also, don't be so timid in regard to the power of ToE - any experiment's outcome that could be fathomed in our universe could be predicted in advance thanks to it, since it would completely explain and tie together all physical stuff we know about.

Gravitation is NOT a force. It's the space itself which is curved and every object is simply moving straight and consistent.

Until phisycist try to unite the 3 forces with gravitation, they'll fail.

I'm not quite sure that is the entire picture rokakoma... Enter the Graviton:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

That's the approach of general relativity. QFT approach postulates gravitons and since we don't have a working theory of quantum gravity that would reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity yet, the forces remains disjointed. Saying that it can't be done though, is pretty serious business.

yep I know, but I simply don't think/feel gravitation is a force. For me, everything add up, when I think of it as a curved space. I hope Quantum approach will fail on this one :)

Nothing bad with that but saying physicists will fail because you think so is not really nice or even scientific :)

I know, I just don't like that theory. Curved space is much more simple, I prefer to acknowledge that one. Actually my brother is an astrophisicists, having a PhD from Caltech, I used to be very good at physics too, so we have had a couple of discussions about this, and we both agree on that, it's not aforce.

Meanwhile, his roomate at Caltech wa s a String Theorist, so I assume, he wasn't on our side on this one :)

@ basvanopheusden, thanks for that explanation
although from what I have seen on the news, they "smash" protons to find the elusive
Higgs Boson, so along with the quarks, a proton must also have some of these Higgs Boson's.

I love the stupid Media, I saw brief clips of physicists saying " we'd rather not call it the "God" particle" etc and the silly Media would play the clip & then keep calling it the
"God" particle, like they don't even get that basic point, its the same old "never let the facts get in the way of a good beat up "

This "God" particle name apparently comes from physicists calling it the
"God damned particle" because it has been extremely "elusive" and has nothing to do with God

According to the Melbourne newspaper, The Age, it has just been announced that Higgs Boson has been confirmed.

http://m.theage.com.au/world/science/confirmed-the-higgs-boson-does-exist-20120704-21hac.html

Of course mainstream newspapers are not very good at science usually. So I have no idea if they have their facts straight (and even less idea about the implications). Then again it is 2012. Its time for a new scientific revolution.

The only reason the Higgs was confirmed today and not some half a year ago is because of that artificial Chinese wall between CMS and ATLAS teams. Still a great victory for the Standard Model.

@MajorMitchell: A proton is made up of three quarks

Obiwan, the "Standard model" of particle physics was developed mostly in the 1970s. It does explain how almost all of the different particles we know of interact and, as you say, "move" -- though most physicists would probably not use quite the term "move," since it implies more classical behavior than particles actually engage in. (In many cases, a particle acts like it's several places at once, etc., like a wave).

The thing is, when they were putting together the standard model, it didn't quite work out with just what they knew. The math did not fit together. And then, somebody had the idea that if there were this additional field/particle, the Higgs boson, the rest of the math would all work out. So they posited it, and everything was great, except there was this additional particle that had never been seen. As you can imagine, that was a substantial loose end. So today vindicates that bold hypothesis, and along with it, vindicates the standard model. (Well, almost. While they seem to have found the Higgs, one part of the data is not quite what was anticipated, and this might suggest an additional particle they didn't quite expect, but hey, that's exciting, right?)

Now, the Standard Model is, itself, not _quite_ complete. While it fully describes the interactions of almost all particles and "forces" -- the electromagnetic, the strong, the weak -- as others have said, it does not incorporate gravity. Gravity is expected to work, from a QFT point of view, through the graviton (as ulytau pointed out), but the graviton / gravitational field can't be incorporated into the Standard Model through any means yet discovered. Consequently, nobody can fit the gravitational force between particles into the picture.

As rokakoma points out, of course, there is some chance -- though I think most physicists would say a small one -- that gravitation isn't supposed to be folded into the theory in the expected way, and that they interact in some other, so-far unanticipated way. One thing for sure is that the geometric aspect of gravity / general relativity is one of the factors that substantially complicates working with it.

Abg implies that the Higgs boson has a role on gravitation but I dont see that elsewhere. Mistake or am I misinterpreting things?

Kinda wish I spent more time with particle physics.

You're correct, Yonni, the Higgs boson is not related to gravitation.

(Well, I mean, I'm sure it is, like every fundamental particle is, but it is not related in any simple way).

When people say that the Higgs is responsible for adding mass to the standard model -- well, first of all, they're making a deceptive statement and vastly oversimplifying a complicated situation. But in any case, they're talking about inertial mass, not gravitational mass. Those two happen to be the same thing, of course (or so measurements and GR lead us to believe), but they won't be the same thing in quantum field theory until we have a theory of quantum gravity.

Oh, did I mess that up? Sorry, I'll reread where I got that from and try to correct myself.

@ semck83
whilst I appreciate your informative post, the statement you made:
"....and then somebody had this idea that if there were this additional field or particle, the Higgs Boson, the maths would work out.."

how about "....and then English scientist Peter Higgs had this idea...field or particle, which has Higgs as part of it's name to recognise the idea of Peter Higgs.."

I wonder where the Boson bit of the name comes from,
was there another chappy called Boson ? is it a misspelling of Bosun ?

other than that minor detail, i liked your post.
particularly the points about it not being a simple particle, having some characteristics of a field, and the points on mass.

I have been trying to keep up (poor old clockwork brain)
apparently Peter Higgs suggested a "simple" extra field/particle and in the 50 years since he first predicted his extra field/particle, other physicists have refined his ideas and there are several ( I heard up to 5 different ) types of "Higgs Boson" particle/ field
that have been "theorised"

Isn't it great when the answers to a series of questions in science provide a "fuzzy" answer and provoke more questions

OK if a proton is made up of three quarks & maybe a Higgs Boson or two,

what is a nuetron composed of ? quarks as well ?
( I am much more in favour of nuetrons than protons )

err so that means Roger Ramjet's Proton Pill is actually a quark pill ???

Thanks, MajorMitchell. I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

With respect to your suggested correction -- true, I could have given Higgs credit. However, it's more complicated than that. The idea was first suggested by Philip Anderson; and then three groups simultaneously (but independently) did the further work: Peter Higgs; Englert & Brout; and Guralnik, Hagen, & Kibble.

You're quite right though that credit should be given. :-)

As for the Boson, it was named after Indian physicist Satyendra Bose, who developed Bose-Einstein statistics (which apply to Bosons) along with Albert Einstein.

Yes, neutrons are also composed of quarks.

Saying Higgs and omitting others (especially Englert IMO) is a shame. Sure, that's what the kids will be taught to keep it simple but meanwhile, Englert deserves his Nobel as well.

I am still getting annoyed every time I hear / see this "God particle" phrase in the media, it's not mentioned in any Bible and it's existence was suggested by intelligent persons and now with a man made machine ( paid for by taxpayers, not the Churches )we are "on the hunt".

True, MM. In fairness, though, it was an agnostic physicist who coined the word, and I'm not aware of any serious religious body (or other physicist) that has been fond of it. The mystery is why the press keeps using it when it annoys pretty much everyone.

I don't like that Mitchell is getting the abbreviation "MM." I was deceiving into thinking that Mad Marx had posted in this thread by that abbreviation. Mitchell is undeserving of such a highly respected and honored abbreviation as "MM."

I DEMAND JUSTICE

Hang on, but aren't all particles God's particles?