Hole in Texas and Higgs Boson
Name: Len W.
I am reading "A Hole in Texas". My teenage kids and are
likely to read it too and we will discuss.
As you probably know, "A Hole in Texas" is about the "discovery" of this
Higgs Boson, in a fiction treatment. Is there any validity to the physics
discussed in that book? Or about the idea that the superconducting
supercollider might have detected the Higgs Boson? Has anyone in fact
detected the Higgs Boson?
No, it is not at all a silly question. In fact it examines an important
step in the reduction of American science from the premier level in the
world to second class.
There is validity to the physics discussed in the book. With the "standard
model" now generally accepted as describing in detail the world of
elementary particles, but requiring numerous numbers to be input arbitrarily
before calculations can be done successfully, the question of how to extend
the standard model is the forefront question and the Higgs Boson is the
clearest direction indicated by what we now know to make further progress.
High energies and high intensities are needed to discover the Higgs (named
after the British scientist who first proposed it, Peter Higgs). The SSC
(Super Conduction Supercollider) would almost certainly have been able to
discover and study the Higgs and was the focus of the research of most
elementary particle physicists (myself included) until the SSC was cancelled
by congress in 1993 after around $3 billion had been spent. Almost another
$2 billion was spent to terminate the project (including filling up the
"hole in Texas"). The total cost to complete it would have been something
like 6 or 7 billion. The spotlight of research in this field (including my
interest) was then turned to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) then being
proposed at the CERN lab outside Geneva, Switzerland. Though somewhat
inferior to the SSC design, it is probably adequate to make the next giant
step in this field. I and my colleagues at Rutgers are and have been
members of one of the giant experimental teams there. The money going from
America into these experiments would probably have been enough to complete
the SSC and keep the US at the top of this field. Too bad!
The Higgs Boson, by the way, is expected to be the source of mass and
hopefully will lead to explanations of why elementary particles (and thus
all matter), such as electrons and protons, have the mass they do. Exciting
Best, Dick Plano, Professor of Physics emeritus, Rutgers University
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Update: June 2012