Thank you all, especially blechman and bapowell, for having replied and explained so well something that I wanted to understand that essential bit better because it is so characteristic of our times.
Have a merry, festive season all!
Yes, I became vaguely aware of my non-scientific interpretations a minute after I posted it. I did a similar error in chemistry when I initially believed that the metals must be the solid stuff and the non-metals the, well, non-solids. "Common sense" vs science.
Glad the rest of my post made...
Sorry, I misinterpreted the term. An algorithm in this context is then not so much a function as a description.
If I understand this halfways, the mechanism changes one thing into another by breaking up the original symmetry, then reassembling it so that there is a new symmetry? That's...
I guess in my world it would be said that the machine which produces mass has been found but that the engineers have not yet found the engine that drives the machine.
From what I just looked up to quote properly, bosons are usually considered massless and all 'observed bosons have integer...
Thanks for the reassurance, I'm really out of my depth.
If I understand this correctly the Higgs mechanism is believed to produce the mass without which the particles that need mass could not be, that this mechanism relies on a mathematical algorithm and that the LHC tests the correctness of...
Do I understand correctly from this that the Higgs boson has mass itself and that this mass is required for the function of the Higgs which is to generate mass for other particles? In other words, the Higgs is something of a mass generator mechanism?
(The rest of your reply is beyond me)
I usually visit this forum as a guest. I am not a physicist but these visits always teach me something and keep me somewhat informed of what goes on in the world of physics. But now I have a question which will probably seem stupid to you all. It is apparent that the Higgs boson plays a most...