Might Higgs boson be a time-traveling ne'er do well out to destroy the LHC?
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Oct 13th 2009 7:53PM
posted Oct 13th 2009 7:53PM
We've certainly seen our fair share of crackpot theories regarding the Large Hadron Collider, and quite frankly the whole thing is becoming rather old hat. That said, when the New York Times comes up with something as far out as this, we most certainly have to share it with you. It seems that way back in July, 2007 two theoretical physicists (Danish string theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen and the Japanese physicist Masao Ninomiya), proposed an unlikely explanation as to why the LHC and the Superconducting Supercollider before it seem to be particularly accident prone. According to science writer Dennis Overbye, the Higgs boson (which the collider has been designed to observe) "might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather." Makes sense, right? Of course, we don't have any idea how these elementary particles might actually conduct the business of destroying equipment, but that hasn't stopped the duo from proposing a novel way to test this theory.
According to a paper published earlier this month, a simple deck of cards could be made, either out of construction paper or, if you're feeling high tech, simulated on a computer. The deck would have one card indicating that the LHC should be shut down, and a much larger number of cards (maybe 100 million or so) that indicate that everything is good to go. If you draw the death card, as it were, you can bet that the shadowy hand of the Higgs boson is stretching back in time, telling you to halt the operation. Between all this and the proposed hyperdrive propulsion tests we came across a couple days ago, things are starting to get very Philip K. Dick over at CERN. Can we make one suggestion? Instead of a random number generator, why not Tarot cards? Or a Ouija board? You know, go for a Halloween vibe.
[Via New Scientist]
According to a paper published earlier this month, a simple deck of cards could be made, either out of construction paper or, if you're feeling high tech, simulated on a computer. The deck would have one card indicating that the LHC should be shut down, and a much larger number of cards (maybe 100 million or so) that indicate that everything is good to go. If you draw the death card, as it were, you can bet that the shadowy hand of the Higgs boson is stretching back in time, telling you to halt the operation. Between all this and the proposed hyperdrive propulsion tests we came across a couple days ago, things are starting to get very Philip K. Dick over at CERN. Can we make one suggestion? Instead of a random number generator, why not Tarot cards? Or a Ouija board? You know, go for a Halloween vibe.
[Via New Scientist]
1st haha sry had to do it. but seriously when are they gana shoot this thing off?
downrank haha sry had to do it.
Downrank you. Haha had to do it. Makes me think I'm cool cause I can prezz buttons.
can someone explain the latter part of this statement or am I just reading it wrong.
"It seems that way back in July, 2007 two theoretical physicists (Danish string theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen and the Japanese physicist Masao Ninomiya), proposed an unlikely explanation as why the LHC and the Superconducting Supercollider before it seem to be particularly accident prone. "
Why did you have to post this terribly constructed sentence? It gave me a headache reading it the first time, now I may have to go in for therapy.
MaX PL: got me scratching my head for a second, too... The sentence is just missing two dashes or commas: "proposed an unlikely explanation as why the LHC - and the Superconducting Supercollider before it - seem to be particularly accident prone"
Works now ? :)
Let's take a vote: all in favor of calling it the KICK ASS ASSASSIN TIME-TRAVELING PARTICLE, say I.
This whole theory makes no sense. Why would these particles stop at breaking the LHC(leaving CERN to try again) instead of causing some massive disaster to destroy the entire LHC/CERN/The country/The world/The solar system/etc/etc/etc? Why would a random number generator of any kind be able to show whether this was happening? Random number generators aren't really random(they typically rely on a function applied to the current number of system clock ticks) meaning that when you have it "randomly" choose a card, if you know the exact time you clicked it, you could 100% predict the outcome. Besides that, even if you could come up with a purely random way of choosing whether or not to proceed, what's to stop the particles from letting you get a non-"death" card and then just having it break again? Why are these particles apparently capable of the thought required to figure out a certain set of events that need to be changed in the right way to prevent them from existing? If the particles are going back in time to prevent themselves from existing then how do they exist in order to prevent their existence?
I'm sure some other people can think of other logical arguments pointing to the stupidity of this theory, but I'll leave it at that.
Of course! It all makes sense now!
Hey Mark, you forgot to think that all the cards are being picked all the time because time travels faster than light. Y'know Myself and a friend were discussing this topic just a few short hours. I hadn't been to the site yet today so I never saw this article. But I theorized that it was indeed a some sort of event in the future that was stopping it from happening today. I did explain the Universe to Her though and how to grasp the actual enormity of the cosmos....
Mark, it's not a stupid theory, you just don't understand quantum mechanics. But to be fair, the description is very poor.
To put it in very simple terms, consider that there are many different possible futures and which future we end up in depends on lots of little random events. The theory is that the Higgs boson cannot exist 'bare,' and so any 'sequence of events' which leads to the formation of a bare Higgs boson cannot occur. This isn't outlandish, very basic physics; electron orbitals - the foundation of all chemistry - is based on similar principles, i.e. that electrons have to exist in certain configurations because in any other configuration they destructively interfere and cancel their own existence out.
A bare Higgs being impossible simply requires that the experiment to produce one not occur. It doesn't require anything else, and doesn't impact probability in any other way. It's not sending back 'disruptor fields' or anything to mess with the soldering, it's just saying 'I'm impossible' and letting the universe figure out a way to prevent it from happening. And so the LHC fails due to bad soldering rather than blowing up the entire planet because all else being equal, bad soldering is FAR MORE LIKELY than the planet exploding. The universe is lazy, like the contractors who built the thing in the first place.
There is another possibility that does include the LHC blowing up the earth, but it's a based on a subtle argument called quantum suicide, and that has nothing to do with the Higgs boson.
@ MaX PL
I'm on it...
"In July 2007, two theoretical physicists -- string theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen and physicist Masao Ninomiya -- proposed an unlikely explanation for the problems with the LHC and the Superconducting Supercollider."
...but then Joseph goes on to direct quote the NYT writer, rather than attribute the theory he mentioned in the sentence before to the scientists who conceived it. It wasn't Overbye's idea, Joe, just his article.
Apparently, Engadget has a copy editor that found the story so boring that they couldn't be bothered to do the work.
This whole post is just poor altogether. Seriously, don't waste my time when talking about potential monumental revelations in Physics -- my brain is taxed enough as it is.
@jepzilla
I see some of the logic that you are using and don't disagree with all of it, but I do have a problem with your explanation of why the timeline disruption theory makes sense. The principle of Occam's Razor suggests that if multiple, competing theories exist to solve a problem or predict an outcome, the simplest theory is almost always the correct one. So if it is "impossible" for a bare Higgs boson to appear, then why would destruction of the LHC be the most likely thing to prevent that from happening. Wouldn't a more simple explanation to this problem of a bare boson existing be that when the LHC is fired up and is fully operational that no experiment will cause a bare Higgs boson to appear, that the experiment itself would just fail? I mean, it is a much simpler and more likely theory if the machine doesn't produce the theorized result rather than this wacky idea that the theorized result is somehow tied to a time disruption event designed to prevent the result in the first place. That's really pushing the boundaries of credibility and according to Occam's Razor that idea is far too complex to be likely, let alone possible.
Just saying...
Can someone please explain this post to me?
Engadget reports on reports of physicists coming up with random theories.
Yes - Scientists egos are so large that instead of admitting they fucked something up, they concoct some asinine theory to try and cover their asses. Imagine if Dick Cheney and Bush had majored in theoretical physics - there were no WMD's in Iraq because the earth was already destroyed by Saddam and that's why no WMD's exist.
Except that these scientists that are proposing this theory aren't working on the LHC. They aren't covering anyone's asses. They're just proposing theories.
Leave science alone. What did it ever do to you?
The universe is probabilistic. Nothing occurs with certainty, only with some given probability. These physicists theorize that the probability of a bare Higgs boson existing is 0. Therefore, the most probable sequence events which leads to the failure of the LHC is what is likely to occur. What's interesting about this theory is the researchers originally published it in 2007, before all the problems started occuring...
@jepzilla
Sorry to challenge your statements again but what you are saying about the universe being probabilistic is based on the 'theories' of quantum mechanics, which are generally concerned with the laws of physics at the sub-atomic level. Fields in the areas of macro-level physics, which are generally outside the realm of quantum mechanics, mainly rely on definite outcomes, not probabilistic outcomes, and many things in these large systems are accurately and precisely predictable.
To be absolutely truthful at the most basic level, many of these ideas will not be understood and actually cannot be understood until such time as a unified 'theory of everything' is proposed, tested, and generally accepted by the greater scientific community. We are a long ways from that happening, as is apparent in theories proposed by major offshoots from String theory and 'M' theory which take completely different paths to propose their solutions to these problems.
Wait- if it destroys the Earth then who is coming back in time to stop it??
*bum bum bum...*
Sharks with lasers...that's who.
@ Badger_badger_badger
Umm... did you read the article?
Tachyons.
I for one welcome a resonance cascade....i think
"might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one"
Either that or they aren't able to make it work. Don't know why, but the latter strikes me as a bit more probable.
+1 for your avatar. That was a fun game.
Yeah occam's razor..
Well then shouldn't the Higgs have killed off Mr. Nielsen and Ninomiya before they can even came up with this theory? Or better yet, just prevent the Big Bang.
Right on. There is no reason to believe that if the boson has this power it would limit its destructiveness to the LHC. Many other events led up to the LHC and it could just as easily go back further in time to any of the other events. It could, for example, go back to the primordial soup and prevent the proper amino acids from combining to create life on earth.....
Someone remove this dick.
Okay, man... But you know it's going to hurt, right?
If it fails to pervent the LHC being repaired, HIGGSNET will send back the HIGGS-1000 to kill the parents of Nielsen and Ninomiya.
If that doesnt work, it'll be a Female HIGGS-X going back to kill Einstein...
Ding ding! We have a winner! Your prize is the WIN cookie! :D
It'll be up to Bose Bonner to stop HIGGSNET...
Some believe in him...others are more skeptical.
Nah, it's obvious that John Titor sabotaged the LHC.
I'm with the Higg-Boson particle, I would do anything to stop a large hard-on collider.
Personally, I love my large hard-on collider, thank you very much.
p.s. in case you didn't get it, it's Hadron, not hard-on.
If you have to explain the joke, it's not funny.
ohhh...haha, my bad
They are really confused - it is not Higgs that is doing this. It is Higgins from Magnum P.I.
You win!!!
One word: Skynet.
Don't ask me about the relevance of it.
Question.... Skynet... why is it relevant?
I better analogy would be traveling back in time to stop your grandfather from being murdered. Not the other way around.
In this scenario, a future society would realise how close we came to destroying ourselves and continually sabotage attempts to discover the Higgs boson. Now you might ask, why didn't they stop the atomic bomb? Well, maybe the knowledge gained from making the bomb helped to make time travel possible. But the knowledge gained from discovering the Higgs boson destroys the universe.
I like it! +1
Question-- is there a boson's mate?
sry had to do it.
In the parallel universe theory this is not too far out. Imagine if the LHC actually destroyed everything (aka the entire universe) every time it DID work. Then only those parallel universes are left in which it fails.
"Of course, we don't have any idea how these elementary particles might actually conduct the business of destroying equipment, but that hasn't stopped the duo from proposing a novel way to test this theory."
It's because these particles, along with nature itself apparently, obviously are capable of logic, reasoning, and cognitive thinking. Duh.
Seriously, though, has the New York Times really come to this?
i know thats what i dont understand. are Nielsen and Ninomiya suggesting the Higgs Boson is a god?
really tho, is the second half of the article a mockery or just a lack of detail, both of which confusing people.
The NYT fell off the ledge of reason long ago