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posted by azrael on Sunday November 09 2014, @04:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the never-seen-one-before dept.

Last year CERN announced the finding of a new elementary particle, the Higgs particle. But maybe it wasn't the Higgs particle, maybe it just looks like it. And maybe it is not alone.

Many calculations indicate that the particle discovered last year in the CERN particle accelerator was indeed the famous Higgs particle. Physicists agree that the CERN experiments did find a new particle that had never been seen before, but according to an international research team, there is no conclusive evidence that the particle was indeed the Higgs particle.

The research team has scrutinized the existing scientific data from CERN about the new-found particle and published their analysis in the journal Physical Review D. A member of this team is Mads Toudal Frandsen, associate professor at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology, Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Southern Denmark.

"The CERN data is generally taken as evidence that the particle is the Higgs particle. It is true that the Higgs particle can explain the data but there can be other explanations, we would also get this data from other particles", Mads Toudal Frandsen explains.

The researchers' analysis does not debunk the possibility that CERN has discovered the Higgs particle. That is still possible — but it is equally possible that it is a different kind of particle.

[Paper]: http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2097

 
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday November 09 2014, @08:39PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Sunday November 09 2014, @08:39PM (#114327)

    So this is quantum physics? They either found the Higgs boson, or didn't find it. Either is equally possible. They don't know until they look at the results. And even then the results are relative to each observer, so no one knows for sure what anyone else sees when they look at the results?

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  • (Score: 1) by quixote on Sunday November 09 2014, @09:12PM

    by quixote (4355) on Sunday November 09 2014, @09:12PM (#114336)

    (mod parent hilarious!)