The “god particle“ catch phrase sounds like a piece of New York Times Magazine B.S.

It’s interesting that the people who make careers in this field rarely stick their neck out by speculating on the effect the finial outcome of this work will have.
The “god particle” what a load of egotistical crap! To seek enlightenment and insight the first thing a person needs to do is humble themselves.

From earlier particle accelerator experiments the fundamental results have already been obtained. When you see particles disappear and reappear, what you are seeing is a zone between two separate universes. This is the microcosm.

From the macrocosm the effects of this other universe can be seen as dark matter. What keeps galaxies from spinning apart is this “other universe” exerting an effect on our own.

What’s interesting about the new machine is its power and that it’s completely frozen with liquid helium. Thus freezing the particles to take on crystalline properties before they’re smashed together.

also, while watching "the elegant universe" (i think it was on their) someone said on it that trying to understand the universe may be like trying to teach a dog trigonometry, no matter how many times you try to make him understand, he just wont get it because his brain isnt wired to understand it.



Well, I think first you're going to have to teach the dog your language first so it can understand you. That being said, if you live forever (or at least a very long time) and you keep breeding that dog and it's offspring while you keep trying to teach them language and then trigonometry, you'll eventually get there.

So I think if we keep at it, on a long enough time line humanity will eventually understand, when our brains are the size of watermelons and provided we survive for that long.

The “god particle“ catch phrase sounds like a piece of New York Times Magazine B.S.

The name comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Universe_Is_the_Answer,_W hat_Is_the_Question%3F , which mentions the wonderful tidbit of Higgs has stated that Lederman originally wished to label this particle as "the goddamn particle".

Also:

What’s interesting about the new machine is its power and that it’s completely frozen with liquid helium. Thus freezing the particles to take on crystalline properties before they’re smashed together.

You are right that the machine is "frozen" (more like: cooled so everything superconducts), but that does not mean the particles are. At least, I don't think you can consider as frozen particles moving at 99.9999991% of the speed of light.

No, it's the other way around. The Standard Model hinges on the Higgs Boson's existence, in essence. It's an asssumed subatomic particle that gives the others their mass, but now we have the instrumentation to detect such a thing. If it isn't detected at the LHC it's bad news for the model.



I don't think it's a waste of our lives; it's the only rational way to spend them. Otherwise we're wandering aimlessly, care-free as to man's place in the universe. That we're pondering such things is itself an example. We can be sufficient unto ourselves.

Science is inherently progressive, and a theory proven wrong is a catalyst for that progression. In fact, everything is progressive whether we accept it or not.

And you're right, our technology will eventually merge and exceed our biological capabilities. We're projected -- according to Kurzweil -- to achieve the computational capacity of the human brain by around 2025. A generous estimate of our processing power is 10^16 cps (calculations per second). IBM's Blue Gene/L has achieved 3.6 x 10^14, and personal computers at the time the book was published (2005) average 10^9.

He goes on to predict that by 2045 nonbiological intelligence will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today. All of his projections are based on exponential trends that are fairly substantial.









.


So who the fuck is going to make the machine that is so much more clever than us? The machine itself? The standard model is THE model, the higgs boson has no effect on it what-so-ever.

If there is no Higgs Boson then scientists are going to have to work out another way for the universes energy level to be "topped up" about 1x10^-10 of a second after the big bang. If the higgs boson is found then the theory is one step closer to being confirmed.

Also a question for OND, if human "processing power" if measured using CPS (calculations per second); why is the world still using the term "IQ" to gauge how clever someone is?

IQ is only how much you know about a certain few select subjets.

CPS is how many calculations per second you brain can do. Dont forget it regulates breating, heart rate, cell growth, etc.

It also has to process all the information we see, such as faces, names, numbers, random stuff you see, and store it as such, at the same time as it's doing all of the above.

It's going to be very had for someone to make a computer that is as small as the human brain, and still have the same power. Dont forget our brain can learn, and to some extent it can repair itself. I dont think theres a computer in existence that can perform once you damage it's cpu(such as a hammer, bullet. People have survived damaged to their brain by these 2 things)