Dec 5, 2012

Maybe Good - Maybe Not

Here's the headline:  "Physicists Bummed That Physics Is Pretty Much What They Expected" (The Atlantic)
The Large Hadron Collider discovered the Higgs boson. Hooray! Success for the big machine!

But not really.

The discovery of the Higgs means that an entire era of physics -- in which the so-called Standard Model of particles was theorized and then proven -- has come to an end. And the LHC is not creating any new mysteries to investigate. Physics is following the predictions too closely.
I think I realize that a lot of people were anticipating some surprises when they cranked up the LHC, and I think I understand the disappointment when "all you get" is confirmation of things you expected to happen all along.  Not to mention the difficulties you'll have now that the very large piles of money spent on the very large project might disappear if you can't come up with some new shit to theorize about.

I'm just really hoping the reaction to the results coming out of Lucerne isn't something like, "Well, we know it all now.  It's not possible for us to learn anything else because there's nothing more to learn."  No matter what, guys, ya gotta keep working at it.

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