Higgs on the Higgs Boson

Peter Higgs is "more than 90% certain" it will show up.

It's not within my area of strong expertise - but...
To my mind it's a bit of an anomaly. It's been postulated to explain the way mass behaves, because no other realistic explanation has been proposed. But it seems that there has been no realistic theory that predicts much about its behaviour other than that is the source of mass.
This has vague resonances of a construct from another age - the aether that was thought to be needed to allow the propagation of light.

I'm not saying that such a mass-carrying particle does not exist - merely that I don't think we can yet know, nor what it would be like. It may even have a counter-particle, in which case it could be more massive than the coming generation of collider can identify.
Whatever the result, it seems to me that nature could have plenty more surprises in store...

Yes, this is outside my area of expertise as well.

There are some useful overviews for anyone interested:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/forces/higgs.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/Higgs-en.html

For me it is not the theory but the potential applications of the theory. If there is a field that assigns mass to particles, if there were a way to disrupt, interfere, or otherwise disable such a field one could do some serious science. For instance, lets say the Higgs field exists, then it is the reason the strong force is so short ranged and the electromagnetic force is long ranged (since it is the mass of the force carrier that determines how far a force can operate).

If there were a way to reduce the mass of a gluon, one could hypothetically make the strong force longer ranged resulting in larger nuclei. I know I'm dreaming here but with such manipulations, who knows what we could build or learn.

Anyway, I agree that there could be other explanations and until there is proof from CERN, we have to wait and see. Still, it is exciting to think about.

When you say that no other realistic explanation for "mass behavior" has been explained, do you include the graviton? Which, agreed, has never been "found".

The graviton is the theoretical force carrier for gravity. A force carrier is a particle that mediates a force, in this case the force of gravity between massive objects. However, the question remains where mass itself comes from, and that's where the Higgs Field and it's particle, the Higgs Boson come in. Mass is supposed to be a measure of a particles interaction with the Higgs Field, which is mediated by the Higgs Boson.

So the graviton doesn't assign mass to particles like the higgs boson theoretically does, it mediates the gravitational force between objects with mass which is a different process altogether (in the Standard Model).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton

Wikipedia:

"The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge... While running, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ, and in the beam 725 MJ. Loss of only 10⁻⁷ of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while the beam dump must absorb an energy equivalent to a typical air-dropped bomb. For comparison, 725 MJ is equivalent to the detonation energy of approximately 157 kilograms (350 lb) of TNT, and 10 GJ is about 2.5 tons of TNT."

I'm guessing that would keep the lights on in many of the homes in Geneva for at least a few days!

Those fine people at the LHC are making sure that high energy physics is accessible to everyone. Could this be the forerunner of the use of rap as a medium for teaching subjects that leave many kids with glazed expressions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

It would be natural to call the antiparticle of the Higgs "the Dog particle", and of course the Higgs is its own antiparticle. How many billions of dollars of funding could be found for a new facility to find the Dog particle? I hope they find a good lead to solve this mystery.