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back to article Joe Public invited to hunt God particle

The atom-smashers down at CERN have invited Joe Public to lend some computing power to the search for the elusive Higgs boson – the "God particle" which theoretically gives mass to all other particles, but has to date proved elusive. Scientists are hoping that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will finally nail the Higgs boson, …

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  1. <shakes head>

    so someone

    is stealing the data with out spending billions bulding the experiment in the first place

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Nope...

      Noone is stealing data as no data is being put out onto this system. It is purely simulation.

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  2. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Boffin

    Ruh-Roh!

    So what are they actually doing that can be separated-out in portions manageable by non-communicating classical computers? Statistics?

    AFAIK, computing anything quantum on classical machines needs very tight coupling between the nodes.

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  3. Morteus

    Sounds familiar...

    ... SETI did something similar back in the 90's.

    I expect the result will probably be just as conclusive.

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    1. Richard 81
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      Not quite

      Since SETI was essentially trying to find patterns in that static you see on an untuned TV, CERN have a slightly better chance I feel.

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  4. Flugal

    'God' particle

    'No god' particle, surely?

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    1. Evil Auditor Silver badge
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      @Flugal

      If they find it, you're right. Until then 'god particle' will do for it's existence is mere believe.

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      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
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        Trollface

        If they don't find it

        It will be the "dog particle"

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    2. Steve Knox
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      Facepalm

      Worst-named Particle Ever

      Physics is all about mechanics. Theology is all about motive.

      They are two distinct fields, and those who believe the fields intersect are either short on sense or heavy on hubris.

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  5. UKLooney

    They'll never find it...

    Particles don't exist, we are all waves, the 'boson' phenomenon of waves exists in another dimension.

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  6. Pen-y-gors

    Forward thinking

    20 years ago CERN launched the WorldWideWeb (Thanks to Sir Tim and friends) - obviously it was a cunning long-term plan so that now they can save a fortune on super-computers by using their offspring to do their number-crunching for them!

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    I'll get my coat...

    ...wait I don't need my coat.

    I'll check the BOINC site instead. LHC@Home 2.0 you say? Hmm...

    Since my country runs 90% + on hydropower and my leccy bill ain't that expensive, I'll give it a go.

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  8. anadish

    No Higgs - but gravitation deciphered already

    Cern sounds quite like the medieval church in some ways. Although, much more benevolent in behaviour. Except may be their cruelty in guzzling up billions of public fund.

    Finally, like the Church managed to produce a mammoth global network of Christianity, Cern would succeed in producing a universal 'Cretinatti' of persons blowing with the 'cloud' and oblivious of their physical existence.

    The Church too verified so many physical science facts and indulged in so much of 'nail pulling' research in those days; Cern keeps on verifying so much of SM and does merely with a lot of nail biting!

    But where is the last piece in the SM puzzle or is it like I Ching says in image 64 (wei ji, before completion)-- the ship of the state had almost crossed the ocean when it got sunk and they had to start all over again?

    Why not a bit of voodoo and to push in the last piece? Mercifully, our modern folks sound to be a bit more sophisticatedly honest than to attempt that!

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    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
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      Thumb Down

      No.

      Just no.

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    2. Ru
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      Meh

      No advertising of your incoherent theories this time?

      Do let us know when you've got some concrete, replicable results.

      Until then, hush.

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      1. anadish
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        Some gag order?

        Or a kind of Stalinism on web? Thanks.

        It's a free society, at least, free enough to speak. Of course, you will know as soon as the USPTO publishes the disclosure.

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    3. Jean-Luc
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      Thumb Down

      @anadish

      Dude, stop trying.

      You're trying to out-stupid amanfrommars. Unfortunately, while stupid, his comments are sufficiently hard to understand that most people give up trying.

      Yours are more clearly written, so the lack of meaningful info in your drivel is all the more apparent.

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  9. Naughtyhorse
    Mushroom

    data getting sucked out of cern??

    so that'll be the black hole all those tin foil hatted 'experts' warned us all about then.

    oh noes!!!!1!

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  10. ian 22

    For the disCERNing computer user

    Please explain why CERN require these simulations. Do they not have the means (LHC, etc) to perform actual experiments?

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    1. Stratman
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      title

      One thought would be to discover exactly what set of circumstances would produce the observed results.

      In other words, "We have the answer, now what's the question?"

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      You are trying to test theories with the actual experiments

      To work out which theory is correct, you need to model & simulate all the theories and exclude those that the data does not match.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      hypothesis

      You make a hypothesis and then you test it.

      In this case the hypothesis is used to create simulated results, often monte carlo production, which are then compared to the real data.

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  11. scarshapedstar
    Joke

    Oh noes!

    Sounds like the data is being sucked into a black hole. The foilies were right!

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    title

    would this work on EC2?

    I have a free instance going begging.

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  13. wired_retired
    Stop

    Are all these people El Reg staffers..??

    How come no matter which story I read in El Reg ALL the comments come from the same few people...??? Are they all staffers at El Reg..??

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Are all these people El Reg staffers..??

      Hmm - we have about 5000 regular commenters - and of course a few hundred who are part of the furniture, almost.

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      1. Winkypop Silver badge
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        Happy

        Yay!

        I'm the tired old hat stand over in the corner.

        :wave:

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  14. anarchic-teapot

    Signups are on hold

    It's still in beta test and being actively debugged, so right now they really only want people who're prepared to help with that process.

    If it's just to clock up WU points on BOINC, better look elsewhere. I haven't had a valid work unit yet, although the task crash logs did help pinpoint a problem with the VM.

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  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't sign up to anything like this

    It sounds far too much like a 419'er

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