[QUOTE=retina;282163]I'm also a bit muddle headed about the Higgs mechanism. So I did a bit of reading and found this comment on a blog:Spelling, capitalisation and formatting as per the original.[/QUOTE]

The Higgs mechanism is a bit difficult to explain without the mathematics, IMO. That's why all the semi-popular explanations feel so unsatisfying.

The underlying problem in quantum field theory is that you cannot create a renormalizable theory (one that is constructed so that the infinities cancel out nicely) for the Standard Model in which the fundamental particles have mass. If you add an intrinsic mass term to the SM lagrangian, it blows up (i.e., the infinities cannot be "regulated".)

So Higgs came along and showed that it is possible to assign all the fundamental particles zero mass, and then introduce a new scalar field which couples to the fundamental particles in such a way as to produce an effective mass for each based on its interaction strength with this background field. Furthermore, this effective mass term does not lead to any uncontrollable infinities in the field equations.

It's the static part of this field that gives particles their effective masses. The particle excitations of this field are what we now call Higgs particles. The loose analogy that people sometimes make is that the Higgs field creates a kind of drag, like dropping a marble into a jar of honey, that gives particles inertia.

Assuming that the Higgs mechanism is the right answer, nobody knows the structure of the Higgs sector, i.e., how many particles of what types , are responsible for generating these effective mass terms. In the simplest explanation, there is a single scalar Higgs particle, H_0. If I recall correctly, the minimal supersymmetric extension to the SM requires a Higgs triplet. And things can get more complex as well. In some models, a top quark condensate acts as an effective Higgs field.

Right now, what's being searched for at the LHC is the simplest case of a singlet Higgs scalar. If they don't find it, it won't kill the Higgs mechanism, but it will simply drive researchers to search for more complex Higgs multiplets that can have evaded the current searches, which are based on assumptions about the nature of the coupling of a single Higgs scalar to the known particles.

[QUOTE=davieddy;282197]
Galileo/Newton/Euler/Gauss/Maxwell/Einstein* thought that an isolated object moved with constant velocity.
Aristotle ... thought it would stop.
Why do folk these days seem to think that relativity
means that the natural state of things is to travel at c?

*et al: e.g. Laplace, Riemann, Boltzmann, Bernoullies....

How would you describe inertia/mass to a 12 year-old?
[/QUOTE]

The smaller the mass, the faster an object imparted with
some specified force will travel, acc.to Newton or Einstein.

That's why neutrinos generally travel FAST.
Neutrinoinos travel even faster, i.e. closer to c.

When they get down to the really small neutrinoinos,
they travel so close to c they are indistinguishable
from photons, which have a zero rest mass but
relativistic energy (and which travel at c, never at rest).

As to inertia/mass, to a 12-year-old mass is weight and
inertia is drag.

To an adult or a scientist, I know it's complicated, but
a good physics text is satisfactory for current understanding.
The monograph only challenges current theory about
gravity in the proposal that gravity does not propagate
(see the monograph).

[QUOTE=davieddy;282227]Stick to hardons.[/QUOTE]

[CODE]b=0;s=0;a=vecsort(concat(vector(1,c,0),concat(vector(12,n,1/2),vector(4,m,1))));for(x=1,#a,for(y=2,#a,for(z=2,#a,if(eval(eval(a[z]*1.)+eval(a[y]*1.)+eval(a[x]*1.))%1==0,print1("boson,");b=b+1,print1("fermion,");s=s+1))));print(b","s)[/CODE]

The attachment is what I could gather from Wikipedia (although I did mess up making it at first,admittedly).

As I was saying before these commercial interruptions,
part of this monograph's inspiration was (is) an attempt
to put one or two of Asimov's ideas into a scientific cosmological
framework. However, Asimov's "subspace" was never explained
(by him), whereas the monograph explains the fourth spatial dimension
mathematically as a Riemann-fold of the three primary spatial dimensions,
permeable to the smallest particles and to EM, and which, when combined
with relativity, might (would?) enable travel FTL.The foundational part of
the monograph is interesting, and excludes mysticism by simply describing
the Universe as a whole.

You should read it. Really.

[QUOTE=davieddy;282162]I'd love to hear davar-sm-cmd explain the Higgs particle to me.
[/QUOTE]That was tempting fate:smile:

Since higgons and cern are related (as you kinow),
the results of those high energy collisions will provide
more data about the sub-atomic sub-strata, i.e. what
are little particles made of.

According to the monograph, protons, neutrons, and
electrons are actually constructed out of neutrionic material,
By intentional omission, the fact that other small particles
have a similar (neutrionic) substructure was not mentioned.

These other than the three most impoortamt particles
were not explicitly named so as not to encumber the SM
or the monogrtaph. Nevertheless, and here is where
physics and the necessary math come in, (which I have not
completed and leave open) the exact number
of neutrionic particles that compose each particle type
and generate its particular properties (mass, charge, etc.)
might be determined by considering the set of known and
accepted particles and determining the number of neutrinos /
neutrinoinos that would produce the measured mass. There's
more to that briefly mentioned in the monograph.

I'll add that I expect the numbers calculated will result in
a geometric/combinatorial explanation for why each particle
has its particular mass.

The higgon, if it exists, would fit into the same mold.

if higgs gives mass than each one would have to give the same mass or would have to be different in some way like speed etc. if they are at rest then that would seem to me that 2.2 ev is the maximum one of them could impart as mass. the minimum being almost unbounded they are all even so any with a last digit of 2 might work.

[QUOTE=davar55;282180]I was explaining cosmological red shift, not Doppler red/blue shift.[/QUOTE]No, you were not!

Your own posted words in post #253,
[quote]There is a minor red or blue shift due to relative velocities of
the distant objects which must be factored in, but it too is
relatively small compared to the distance factor. [/quote] are talking about the Doppler shift, not the cosmological red shift!! I directly quoted your words in post #254 just before I wrote
[quote]1) This isn't even true! There is no restriction on the Doppler red- or blue-shift that compels it to be "relatively small compared to the distance factor". It is quite possible for a particle to have a relative velocity of 0.9 c when it is only 0.9 meter away from the observer.[/quote]You and I _were_ referring to the Doppler shift, but now you're dodging and dancing by trying to pretend that your Doppler-shift words were about the cosmological shift.

Stop trying to deceive us.

Answer my challenge about the Doppler shift, without changing the subject.

[quote]Are you perhaps in your example trying to have me explain
the recent cern neutrino-faster-than-light result?[/quote]No, _you're_ the one who's trying to deceptively change the subject.

I'm just trying to get you to tell the truth about your theory's failure to explain Doppler shift observations.

[quote]What's hard to understand about Doppler and light?
It's just the big bang / Hubble / expansion confusion that
makes intergalactic measurement in any way confusing.[/quote]No, the Doppler blue and red shifts are not the same as the cosmological red shift.

My example of 0.9 c relative velocity at a distance of 0.9 meter is Doppler shift, not cosmological shift. Either tell us how your theory is compatible with such Doppler shift observations, or admit that it fails in that respect -- without trying to change the subject.

[QUOTE=davar55;282048]Let's see ...
According to the monograph, and in fact, there is no expansion of
space-time, the universe is a 4-d sphere of fixed, finite size.
Cosmological red-shift is explained as being caused by an across-
the-spectrum "leakage" of photonic (EM) energy into and through
the 4th-dimensional fold ("the skin"), diminshing the received light
both intensitywise and, because of the small porosity of the skin,
in a skewed frequency distribution that results in a red shift which
is approximately proportional to the DISTANCE of the far object
and hence is linear, corroborating (I think) Hubble's formula.
Relativistic red-shift, due to gravity against photons, is small.
There is a minor red or blue shift due to relative velocities of
the distant objects which must be factored in, but it too is
relatively small compared to the distance factor.[/QUOTE]

As you can see, I explain cosmological red-shift here and in more
detail in the monograph. The Doppler red/blue-shift is simple and
standard. The relatiivistic red-shift is even smalller.

One shouldn't personalize when discussing science, even new
conjectures and new explanations. Not that anyone here has
ever personalized anything.

If you're claiming that your theory incorporates the standard explanation of Doppler shift, without referring to the "skin", then you [U]still[/U] have a really big problem reconciling/combining/comparing the Doppler and cosmological shifts. Your explanation of the cosmological shift fails to explain why emission and absorption lines, not just maxima/minima of general spectral intensity, are shifted in frequency in a way that is wholly compatible with Doppler shifts.

A 5% Doppler redshifted spectrum with no cosmological shift looks exactly like a 5% cosmological redshifted spectrum with no Doppler shift - how do you explain that?

- - -

BTW, [I]have[/I] you been claiming that your theory represents reality (which is the impression I've had), or are you treating it as a science-fictional idea only?