Higgs Boson Discovery Proves Standard Model: Exciting News from LHC

[Char. Limit]

You'll never believe it, but physicists at the LHC have discovered the Higgs Boson! It has the expected properties, and many physicists say that this proves once and for all the Standard Model.

"This truly is a momentous discovery," Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy for the U.S. said. "Now our physicists can get to work on more important things, like a cheap alternative to gasoline."

President Obama, in jubilation, has declared March 31st "National Elementary Particles Day" and declared that schools and work will be henceforth closed on this day to honor the completion of Physics.

"The only problem," he said, "is that soon all of those physicists will be out of a job. I mean, physics is done now. Right?"

Steven Chu reminded Obama about the many remaining challenges in physics, and the President quickly fell silent.

In other news, physicists are wondering if light energy exists to counterbalance dark energy.

"Newton's Third Law says that for every action, you have an equal and opposite reaction. So there may be light energy out there too," renowned physicist Steven Hawking was heard to say in a private interview.

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[chiro]

lol I guess its "that time of year" again

 

[jtbell]

Actually, Fermilab scooped CERN by nearly three years with their discovery of the http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNewsiggs-Bozo_particles_detected_at_FermiLab.

 

[Helios]

This is an old one, but should not be missed.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-finds-error-in-fermilab-calculations,1463/

 

[russ_watters]

Yawn.

 

[zomgwtf]

I hate this day.

 

[Kronos5253]

I hate this day.

Me too... I was really excited for like, 3 seconds before I remembered what day it was...

 

[MotoH]

I had like 10 texts last night from the LHC that looked exited in my sleepy state. I came on here and saw this, checked twitter to confirm. Sadly I was let down.

Good joke char.

 

[dacruick]

Unfortunately for you char, I read the newspaper today and there was an article about CERN. They have set the record for highest energy collision, previously beating the last one by 3.5 times. They say it will be another two or three years until they run it at full power.

 

[fourier jr]

Unfortunately for you char, I read the newspaper today and there was an article about CERN. They have set the record for highest energy collision, previously beating the last one by 3.5 times. They say it will be another two or three years until they run it at full power.

i was just thinking of that. they sounded really excited on their twitter feed a couple days ago. example:
http://twitter.com/CERN/statuses/11305883697

here's their press release
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2010/PR07.10E.html

Geneva, 30 March 2010. Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme. Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator.

*snip*

CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have "re-discovered" the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run.

For supersymmetry, ATLAS and CMS will each have enough data to double today’s sensitivity to certain new discoveries. Experiments today are sensitive to some supersymmetric particles with masses up to 400 GeV. An inverse femtobarn at the LHC pushes the discovery range up to 800 GeV.

do little femtohorses live in a femtobarn? & do they eat femtohay? they probably get that a lot

 

[Char. Limit]

I had like 10 texts last night from the LHC that looked exited in my sleepy state. I came on here and saw this, checked twitter to confirm. Sadly I was let down.

Good joke char.

Well, as long as I got at least one person, I'm happy.

Of course, it was 1:30 AM when I wrote this. I'd probably change President Obama's comments on the matter if I really wanted to spread this.

 

[dacruick]

20 bucks says that if you approached Obama with the discovery of a Higgs-Boson particle he would laugh and say something deflecftively funny like, "Lets leave that to the smart people".

 

[IMP]

It seems the Higgs Boson was found in a small group of three surrounded by several very large and scary looking monopoles...