Sorry, just wanted to see that phrase again...

Paris, because she knows what do do with a heavyweight boffin!

I was explaining to the missus that, in a sense, it's more exciting if they *don't* find the Higgs boson, because then they'll have to re-draft the standard model.

So... she says, does that mean they'll have to spend another fifty billion?

No, says I, because all those years of data from CERN and Fermilab could be re-examined.

But hang on. There must have been monstrous amounts of data collected over the years. How much of it has been kept, and how much discarded because it was deemed not to show anything interesting?

Vector Bundles at Dawn!

http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/8962/susyzr5.png

Of course, there is the possibility that neither of these two "boffins" are correct. Scientists who treat theory like fact are no better than anyone who believes in a religion. It's not a fact if it's based on faith and flimsy rationalisation.

The last thing science needs is "My God's better than your God" type arguements.

Have been discovered when people were looking for something else/ accident.

I'm looking forward to my anti-gravity, zero-point powered, flying car with my sat-nav able to negotiate all 14(?) dimensions.

Hmm - time for a lie-down now..

hmm Paris, lie down

ttfn

...it is there but they miss the data, or its not even detectable....

who wins then? hrmmmmmm

paris, with the quizzical look of nuclear questioning plastered all over her face like concrete...or makeup...I can never tell the difference.

is to not turn on the LHC. Until we do both Hawking AND Higgs are both right. And my cat is both alive and dead.

Sincerely,

Schroedinger.

To try and answer your question...

CERN have a very strange data retention policy. Basically they back up data using in-house software to tape and hope it gets saved. As they collect so much data the loss of one, or more, sample(s) isn't considered significant (unless it's the one with the Higg's Boson in it!!). Recovery is a word and nothing more...

They try and keep the data for many years so that as new data theories are developed they can re-analyse their data against the new theory.

One big problem is that tape technology is rapidly changing and they may not have the ability to recover all of the data they want. Also tapes deterioriate and CRC errors can occur effectively destroying a data stream. But, as mentioned, the loss of some data isn't considered significant so they don't really care...

If only life was so easy in the real world.

I don't know about elsewhere, but our particle physics group has rooms full of data on film, magnetic spools, dats etc mouldering in the basement.

You're gonna need some more legos...

were reputed to have a 180 degree bend in the barrel: not good for snipers.

The CERN duelling rules: each professor sits in one of the detection chambers, and fires off a proton shot at his opponent.

Isn't that a piece played on two Theremins?

*ahem* the one covered in curious particles please....

it seems to me far too trite and trivial that the Grand Theory Of Life The Universe And Everything is all tied up and a done-dusted deal by discovering but 1 particle. What would we do with the hordes of redundant beardie-weirdie particle physicists?? We need two more desktop PC maintenance techs here, but that's about it...

ONLY ONE CAN LEAVE - LHC TLC SHOWDOWN PPV

...

id pay to watch the two of them beat the snot out of each other... imagine the spectacle of the victor throwing the other into the LHC and...

wait,

what would happen if you put someone inside the LHC?

I mean... some people think it exists... others not. So proton 1 hits proton 2, smaller particles go everywhere... assuming 'new' undiscoverd particle(s) pop up on the scanner... how will they know it is the one their looking for ? Will god vanish in a puff of logic ? will man be able to prove black is indeed white ? Just curious.

The anti-gravity invisible one...

they're both wrong...

See that Higgs Boson particle.

That's *you* that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UMedd03JCA

...he won't be pacing any time soon.

Please, not the hair.

I understand the Heisenberg insecurity principle, and I get it that the LHC is stationary. but this is ridiculous.

I have seen his Exoskeleton (And that was in 1997)

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39133

It's depth is for shielding purposes, so the results aren't tainted.

Reminds me of the joke about the irish firing squad.

In the past (when LHC was just LEP), all the data from recorded "events" was backed up on two copies of Cipher tape (3600 bpi). Each truck load of backup sets was stored in two off-site locations, one in the US and one in Gloucestershire, UK.

With the advent of the LHC plans were afoot to pick a different backup technology, but retain the same off-site storage locations; the chosen backup storage method was Toshiba’s HD-DVD technology and the two-off site storage locations were SecureVault Corp, floor 42 in World Trade Center Building No.2 and the underground storage facility at Tewkesbury.

These plan are now under revision.

Bill 'cause his head's so big, the LHC can just about fit on it!

'Empirical' means 'we don't understand it and just keep tweaking the parameters to fit the results as more data comes out'

He was funny as hell on Futurama... anyone that can laugh at themselves is okay by me - this Higgs fellow sounds like a git

"Fry: Steven Hawking, aren't you that guy who invented gravity?

Steven Hawking: Sure, why not."

"Before the "big bang" there was nothing, not a single electron. Yesterday, the worlds best super-scientists "pretended" they were looking for a "god-particle". Unfortunately those super-scientists started with matter in this "so-called" experiment. RETARDED! It's ridiculous to think you can duplicate the big bang with matter, when in the beginning, there was no matter; I repeat: "not even a single electron".

Some scientists have no idea what they are looking for, because they don't know how to ask the 1st question. SAD REALLY!"

You must have been reading the Vulture Central abridged description of the LHC. I'm pretty sure the unabridged version said the LHC is trying to simulate energy densities a short time AFTER the big bang. I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure the term AFTER is significant to the concepts involved.

Sarcasm warning: Do I need to define "after" verses "before"?

"The Higgs Boson is supposed to be the "thing" that gives other particles their mass, begging the question... where does it get its mass from? Some other particle?"

Simple:

http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs1.htm

Complex:

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0703280

Can't remember whether the neutrino masses are included in there or not. Also, most of the mass of hadrons (protons, neutrons, mesons) comes from their bound energy, namely the supposedly massless gluons gluing the quarks.

"Have been discovered when people were looking for something else/ accident."

Quite right.

I was looking for my socks this morning, and found a fountain pen!

Woooaahh, sod Hawkins, Higgs & Heisenberg, that defies explanation.

OK, I'm gone :-)

Before the big bang there was nothing, not even time. So if there was no time there was no "before". I think you should go off and watch Songs of Praise before you give yourself a headache.

He must be cleaning up his bets a bit. He's been known to bet for a subscription to "Playboy". Even strapped, a man needs porn.