No Higgs yet! (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, May 06, 2012, 14:32 (4584 days ago) @ David Turell

According to an article in today's Sunday Times, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, director of the laboratory conducting the hunt for the Higgs boson ("one of the longest and most costly in scientific history") thinks there may be up to five such particles. This could keep his team in work for 20 more years.-I'm sure we'll all rejoice with Herrn Heuer at the prospect of his team's job security. ("Heuer", incidentally, is a North German word for a seaman's pay.) But what really took my eye was his concluding comment: "We will know if the Higgs exists at all by the end of this year. That I can pledge." -They will know, of course, if they find it. But if they don't find it, they will not know that it doesn't exist, and so they will not know if it does exist. As with God, so with the God particle. Ah well, perhaps in the next 20 years his team will have time to study a bit of philosophy.