Friday, December 18, 2015

Cern? New Particle? Maybe....


Not so long ago we were watching CERN do it's thing and crunch it's numbers - hunting for the elusive Higgs Boson particle.   When confirmed it seemed most of the research community had a collective release, followed almost immediately with a "now what?"

I have to step back here with an observation.  Many of the news outlets treat a possible discovery as the real thing.  Not a maybe but an IS.  

Case in point.  Once the H.B. was confirmed, the data was re-examined for data that seemed to point towards another much more complex particle.   Nothing was confirmed but the data suggested a follow on particle, nothing was confirmed though.   So you can imagine my consternation when I was informed that CERN indeed HAS discovered a new ultra dense particle, leaving Higgs Boson in some sort of particle physics, jerk water by-way, buuuuuuuuuuut..... 

Reading the Wired UK article  - The team at Switzerland's Cern Large Hadron Collider may have discovered a new particle.

Since it's upgrade earlier this year, LHC researchers have observed spikes that could be the
result of particle collisions between a new boson even larger than the Higgs.  In my book, this is a MAY have not an HAS made a discovery. 

The particle -- if truly a new discovery --  would be about four times larger than the top quark,
the heaviest particle so far discovered. And it would be six times bigger than the Higgs. 

In any event, this is still an amazing piece of research on a totally amazing machine. 

To read the complete Wired article  Click Here

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