Large Hadron Collider scientists discover new particles: pentaquarks

[Dannyalcatraz]

Imagine being able to manipulate the mass of people with musculoskeletal issues...

Or massive slabs of rock used in construction...

Prolly ain't gonna happen, tho.

 

[Kaodi]

Is assuming their are practical (everyday) applications for the Higgs Boson not kind of like assuming that since we can generate electricity and understand how lightning works that we can construct a remote control that will allow us to aim lightning bolts in a thunderstorm?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Is assuming their are practical (everyday) applications for the Higgs Boson not kind of like assuming that since we can generate electricity and understand how lightning works that we can construct a remote control that will allow us to aim lightning bolts in a thunderstorm?

A bit, yes.

That we can detect the Higgs Boson doesn't mean we can meaningful manipulate mass anytime soon. But it means that the theories we have that predicted it, and that predicted it "where" it was found, are pretty good. We can discard a few other theories, and maybe the one that got to stick around provides other predictions that will have a use - which might not at all be related to manipulating gravity.

Our understanding of electricity hasn't given us (practical) thunderstorm generators, but it's also something that lead the way to modern electronics. I don't think anyone in the 19th century that saw some street magician play around with electricity expected that that effect would in any way lead to a world wide communication and information sharing system and people being able to carry the knowledge of the world in somethnig that's not much bigger than a dime novel.

(Of course, finding the Higgs Boson is not that comparable to discovering electricity. The point here is just that the applications or consequences of discoveries like that are not very predictable)

 

[Umbran]

Is assuming their are practical (everyday) applications for the Higgs Boson not kind of like assuming that since we can generate electricity and understand how lightning works that we can construct a remote control that will allow us to aim lightning bolts in a thunderstorm?

Yes.

But then again - we have tasers.

What we dream of at first blush and what we get aren't the same thing, but that doesn't mean we never get anything useful.

 

[Bullgrit]

Is there ever a bottom?

It's turtles all the way down.

Bullgrit

 

[freyar]

in any event, why do they keep trying to find what stuff is made of only to then try to find out what that stuff is made of?

Yup, like MechaPilot says, trying to answer questions and find out how the world works is what science does. In this case, QCD -- the theory of the strong nuclear force -- is a very difficult theory to understand and calculate with, so it's really critical to get both the confirmation of a long-standing qualitative prediction (5-quark state) and some quantitative data (masses, etc) from the experiments. I don't specialize in this area, but I'm sure it will help refine calculations.

Is there ever a bottom?

We don't know! That's the great part. What we can be pretty sure of is that, if we were able to look at small enough distances, the nature of matter would look very different than standard particle physics. Of course, this particular result isn't about finding smaller components of stuff but rather finding new ways those components can fit together.

Is it going anywhere?

Is it useful?

Well, others have already mentioned that we can't necessarily know yet if this is useful directly or even how it might affect our understanding of esoteric things like neutron stars. But that's not the entire point. Trying to understand the universe is a part of humanity, and you can see the desire to make sense of the world even in ancient history. We'd lose something of who we are if we didn't do this. Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate, once wrote, "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." I find that really appropriate.

Can I get a PentaQuark pendant for my wife for christmas?

That's a very nice gift idea!

 

[freyar]

Look at the Higgs Boson. From my understanding of it, it is responsible for giving things mass. Imagine what we could do if we could manipulate the mass of objects. The ability to reduce the mass of a spaceship would make long distance space travel less difficult. The ability to alter the mass of an object could protect the Earth from asteroids and rogue planets. In a more mundane situation, imagine being able to change the weight on your weight bench by turning a dial and altering the mass of the weights on the barbell.

This is one of those things that some physicists said to the media that got carried too far. While it's true that the Higgs boson field is responsible for the mass of the electron (and related but unstable subatomic particles), the great majority of the mass of protons and neutrons is due to the kinetic and potential energy of the constituent quarks moving around inside of them (this is a little bit of an oversimplification, but still). So changing the Higgs field won't have too much of an effect on your mass (sorry!), but it will change the structure of protons and neutrons (a little) as well as the orbitals of electrons in atoms. For example, if you turned off the Higgs field entirely, electrons would be massless, so your atoms would all fly apart.

 

[Umbran]

in any event, why do they keep trying to find what stuff is made of only to then try to find out what that stuff is made of?

Because, if you don't, you won't know what it is made of!

Is there ever a bottom?

Don't know. Let's see if we can find out!

Is it going anywhere?

Don't know that either. Some things pay off, others don't. We cannot tell which will pay off, so we have to go with a shotgun approach.

Is it useful?

Not yet. But there's a lot of future out there.

Can I get a PentaQuark pendant for my wife for christmas?

They may have them at ThinkGeek....

 

[MechaPilot]

Is there ever a bottom?

There are lots of bottoms. I'm sure you can find some of them on Craigslist, or in your local personal pages.

 

[Umbran]

There are lots of bottoms. I'm sure you can find some of them on Craigslist, or in your local personal pages.

Don't trust those people on craigslist! You can't buy individual bottom quarks* anywhere! The force between them is so strong that by the time you've gotten them far apart to be alone, you've put in enough energy to create a whole new pair of quarks.




*They come in flavors: up, down, top, bottom, charm, and strange.