# A basic particle physics question \[Higgs Boson\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 26, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746 "2011-04-26T05:28:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/1 "2011-04-26T05:28:21Z")
Hello, I’m hoping one of our resident physicists will be good enough to explain to me in faitly simple terms why exactly it is believed that the Higgs Boson confers mass on the other particles. Have the other particles all been shown to have no mass on their own? Do they have an actual reason to believe that mass must necessarily have a specific carrier, and cannot somehow be a synergistic property of a whole proton? (i.e., the sum of all the particles.) Are there any other indications that there is a particle still “missing?” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/2 "2011-04-26T07:47:21Z")
[Higgsless models](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgsless_model) do exist, apparently many of them. But I don’t know enough of any of them to say whether they amount to your desired “sum of all particles” model. I don’t _think_ any do. How do you expect to explain massless particles in your model? ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/3 "2011-04-26T10:43:46Z")
I almost asked about this myself, but it would be pointless since I already know the answer is a definite maybe. There are rumors that the Higgs Boson [has been found](http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110425/sc_livescience/scientistsabuzzovercontroversialrumorthatgodparticlehasbeendetected). Scientists all over are quite certain that the data indicates the possibility that it may or may not have been found. ---
**Author:** ![vanotd21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/82dd89/32.png) [@vanotd21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanotd21)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/4 "2011-04-26T10:45:12Z")
any physics savvy dopers who can dumb down exactly what the “God Particle”, the Higgs boson, is in simple terms? there was this article i saw where physicists were getting excited because a questionable memo from a team in Switzerland was claiming that they may have found the Higgs boson particle. link is here: [http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110425/tc\_atlantic/possiblegodparticlediscoverygossipphysicists36989](http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110425/tc_atlantic/possiblegodparticlediscoverygossipphysicists36989) the most I got was that it’s a critical part of particle physics. the existence of said particle would fill in many of the gaps that exist today. other than that, i don’t understand the importance. heck, why is the higgs boson named “God Particle”? ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/5 "2011-04-26T11:01:48Z")
> [@vanotd21](#): > > any physics savvy dopers who can dumb down exactly what the “God Particle”, the Higgs boson, is in simple terms? there was this article i saw where physicists were getting excited because a questionable memo from a team in Switzerland was claiming that they may have found the Higgs boson particle. > > link is here: [http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110425/tc\_atlantic/possiblegodparticlediscoverygossipphysicists36989](http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110425/tc_atlantic/possiblegodparticlediscoverygossipphysicists36989) > > the most I got was that it’s a critical part of particle physics. the existence of said particle would fill in many of the gaps that exist today. other than that, i don’t understand the importance. heck, why is the higgs boson named “God Particle”? In a nutshell, the Higgs boson is what conveys mass to the other particles, and matter in general. The rest of the story goes over my head. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/6 "2011-04-26T11:11:06Z")
One of these might help: [http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs.htm](http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs.htm) ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/7 "2011-04-26T11:14:53Z")
One of my favorite books is called The God Particle by Leon Lederman which talks about his hunt after the elusive Higgs Boson particle. Here’s the [first chapter](http://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/Lederman.pdf) of the book and I highly recommend it. > [@](#): > > This invisible barrier that keeps us from knowing the truth is called the Higgs field. Its > icy tentacles reach into every corner of the universe, and its scientific and philosophical > implications raise large goose bumps on the skin of a physicist. The Higgs field works its > black magic through — what else? — a particle. This particle goes by the name of the > Higgs boson. The Higgs boson is a primary reason for building the Super Collider. Only > the SSC will have the energy necessary to produce and detect the Higgs boson, or so we > believe. This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final > understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: > the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call > it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its > villainous nature and the expense it is causing. But here’s a [good summary from the CSM:](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0330/What-is-Higgs-boson-and-will-CERN-scientists-find-the-God-particle) > [@](#): > > What is a boson? > > A boson is a sub-atomic particle. The atomic particles are protons, neutrons, and electrons. While the Greek word atom means indivisible, modern scientists found atomic particles divisible into sub-atomic particles. These include quarks, leptons, and bosons. They were only hypothesized and observed in the last century. > > This is according to the Standard Model of physics, the most accepted universal theory of everything. (The string theory is a strong contender.) > > What is the Higgs boson? > > But scientists aren’t entirely sure how these subatomic particles gained mass. They speculate that another boson (or bosons), named after scientist Peter Higgs who helped come up with the idea, imparts mass on other bosons and all quarks and leptons. > > Observing the Higgs boson would give credence to the Standard Model and help explain the origin of mass and the four forces of nature – (1) electromagnetism, (2) the strong force (which binds atomic nuclei), (3) the weak force (which governs radioactive decay and some fusion reactions), and (4) gravity. Observing the Higgs boson may also unleash a black hole or anti-matter that will annihilate us all, say a few. ---
**Author:** ![BACI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@BACI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BACI)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/8 "2011-04-26T11:48:45Z")
All well and good, but how does a particle “impart” mass - by what mechanism? If I think of a particle perhaps as a small stone I carry in my pocket, it imparts its mass to me by adding its mass to my own - is it the same sort of thing? Og, this stuff makes me feel stupid… ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/9 "2011-04-26T12:56:59Z")
I would object to the Christian Science Monitor’s statement “Observing the Higgs boson would give credence to the Standard Model …”. The standard model has been tested to an incredibly high degree and is the current default theory around which particle physics is based. It isn’t, of course, complete and the discovery and characterization of the Higgs boson would either firm it up or kick of a rush of expanded models. However, given its success it would be replaced in much the same way Newtonian physics was replaced by General relativity. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/10 "2011-04-26T13:11:00Z")
But in what way does it impart mass? Here is an unsatisfying explanation I got from a friend. Mass is, among other things, resistance to acceleration. F = ma and all that. Now a bowl of jello resists motion. If you put a raisin in it and give a push, it will move a bit and then stop. Aristotle believed that mass was like that, but Newton set him straight. Although friction is like that. Anyway, according to my friend, the Higgs boson causes the universe to resist not motion but acceleration. Does that help? Didn’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/11 "2011-04-26T14:41:57Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > Hello, I’m hoping one of our resident physicists will be good enough to explain to me in faitly simple terms why exactly it is believed that the Higgs Boson confers mass on the other particles. > > Have the other particles all been shown to have no mass on their own? > > Do they have an actual reason to believe that mass must necessarily have a specific carrier, and cannot somehow be a synergistic property of a whole proton? (i.e., the sum of all the particles.) The basic idea is that the Higgs must be there for mathematical consistency. It turns out that it’s impossible to write down a theory in which the electron (say) has an inherent mass on its own and which still satisfies the symmetries of the [weak interaction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_interaction). Basically, if you try to transform the electron under one of these symmetries, you don’t get the same mathematical respresentation back. Saying that the electron couples to the Higgs boson allows you to do an end run around this — while the mathematical representation of the electron changes under one of these weak-interaction symmetries, the combo of Higgs & electron together doesn’t. The energy of this interaction between the Higgs field and the electron then manifests itself as the mass of the electron. More or less. The proton, by the way, is a bad example for your argument above — the mass of the proton _is_, in fact, largely due to “synergistic properties”. The sum of the masses of the three individual quarks inside the proton is something like 1%-2% of the actual observed mass of the proton; the majority of the mass is due to the interactions between the quarks. The Higgs is only needed to give mass to “fundamental” particles, those which (as far as we know) don’t have any sub-constituents; these are the electron, muon, tau particle, the neutrinos, and the quarks. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/12 "2011-04-26T15:08:57Z")
Well, you need something to mediate the Higgs field. Electromagnetism has the photon. One charged particle can ‘feel’ the other one because they exchange photons. The weak force has the W and Z boson. The weak interaction is just a consequence of the exchange of these bosons. The strong force has the gluon. Two quarks ‘feel’ each other by exchanging gluons. But what’s gravity got? We know that gravity is caused by mass…but how does one mass know that the other is out there? What causes the mass in the first place? No one knows. So they’ve given it the place-holder name of Higgs boson. It’s kinda like the X-ray and dark matter. There’s this effect, and no one knows/knew why, so it gets a name until we figure it out. Of course, in the case of X rays, the name never goes away. The Higgs will probably do the same. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/13 "2011-04-26T16:42:45Z")
**Chessic** , you seem to be conflating the Higgs boson with the graviton. The graviton is the hypothetical quantum carrier of the gravitational field. The Higgs boson is the carrier of a different, universe spanning field that grants mass. And “Higgs boson” is not just a placeholder - it corresponds to a very specifically defined theoretical mechanism in particle physics. “Graviton” used to be a placeholder, but now some of the properties have been defined. Much is still not known about them. ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/14 "2011-04-26T17:04:25Z")
**Hari Seldon** is close. The Higgs boson provides what is called _inertial mass_, i.e. the mass that produces the effect of inertia. Yes, good old Newtonian inertia, that gives us F = ma. That m there is the inertial mass, defined as the ratio of an applied force to the resulting acceleration. All elementary particles have it, and the Higgs mechanism, manifested in the eponymous boson, is the best idea we have for the origin of inertial mass. Each type of elementary particle would have a different coupling constant with the Higgs field - a different likelihood of stopping along a given path to interact with Higgs particles. The stronger that constant, the more a particle stops to show the Higgs boson police its papers, the slower it goes. Consequently it accelerates less under a given force, and we perceive this as a larger inertial mass. Note that not once in the above paragraph did I use the word “gravity”. Gravitational mass is subtly different from inertial mass, although there’s strong evidence that for some reason they always have the same value. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/15 "2011-04-26T17:39:34Z")
Here’s an analogy that might help. Have you ever mixed cornstarch with water? You get a white fluid that responds strangely when a force is applied to it. If you poke it quickly it feels like a squishy solid that resists the poke. But if you push your finger into it slowly, the liquid flows smoothly around it. How hard you poke determines how much resistance the fluid provides. Imagine the universe is filled with an invisible fluid. This is the Higgs field. Particles with mass interact with the Higgs field. The Higgs field doesn’t resist motion, only acceleration. A particle that’s already moving will coast smoothly through the field without resistance. But if you “poke” the particle – if you try to accelerate it – the field “stiffens” like cornstarch in water. This “stiffness” is inertia, the resistance of mass to acceleration. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/16 "2011-04-26T17:40:06Z")
I’ve heard that explanation a lot, but it doesn’t really hold up. You don’t need to invoke a new particle or field to explain the _existence_ of inertia. If anything, you’d need to invoke a new field to explain why we _didn’t_ have inertia, if we didn’t. It’s not that the Higgs mechanism causes inertia to exist at all; rather, it is one of the things which governs _how much_ inertia each particle has. In any event, in simplest terms, the significance of the Higgs is just that it’s the only remaining fundamental particle predicted by the Standard Model which has not yet been detected. Of course, the “Standard Model” is kind of fuzzy around the edges: There are particles now considered part of the Standard Model which were not yet predicted several decades ago, and there are a number of possible extensions to the Standard Model, which people consider likely to various degrees, which predict yet more particles which have yet to be detected. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/17 "2011-04-26T17:50:06Z")
To elaborate on that, the Higgs boson is spin 0 (that is to say, it has no intrinsic angular momentum) and is extremely massive, by fundamental particle standards (somewhere in the vicinity of a few thousand times the mass of a proton). It would interact with other particles at least via the weak nuclear force, and possibly (I’m not sure about this) the strong force. There’s hope that a few Higgs bosons might be detected at the LHC, or possibly (if the rumors are true) already have been. The graviton is spin 2 and appears to be massless (if it has a mass at all, it must be billions of trillions times lighter than what we believe to be the mass of the neutrino, the lightest known massive particle). Gravitons interact with absolutely everything (that’s what gravity is, after all), but only extremely feebly. A gravitational wave can be considered to be a stream of a great many gravitons, and it’s hoped that LIGO will detect gravitational waves within a few years, but we will probably never (and I mean that literally) detect an individual graviton. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/18 "2011-04-26T17:57:20Z")
The story I heard went like this: The Higgs-boson walked into a church. The priest says, “You call yourself the ‘God Particle!’ Get out of here with your blasphemy!” to which the particle replied, “Okay, padre, but if you don’t allow the Higgs-boson, how you gonna have mass?” ---
**Author:** ![Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a8b319/32.png) [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spatial_Rift_47)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/19 "2011-04-26T17:57:23Z")
**Chronos** , the Higgs boson everyone goes on about is for the electroweak force only. I was listening to one of my fellow grad students describe the Yang Mills mass gap problem for QCD (the strong force theory, for those of you following along at home), and on his authority, the Strong Force Higgs boson would have to have a mass of 200 MeV, and has been definitively ruled out. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746/20 "2011-04-26T18:51:03Z")
> [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](#): > > **Chessic** , you seem to be conflating the Higgs boson with the graviton. The graviton is the hypothetical quantum carrier of the gravitational field. The Higgs boson is the carrier of a different, universe spanning field that grants mass. And “Higgs boson” is not just a placeholder - it corresponds to a very specifically defined theoretical mechanism in particle physics. “Graviton” used to be a placeholder, but now some of the properties have been defined. Much is still not known about them. Well if gravity is a property of a system with mass, and something has to provide mass to objects, then can’t we say that the Higgs field is “responsible” for gravity’s existence? And isn’t the Higgs boson, by definition, the mediator of the Higgs field? That’s why I said: > [@](#): > > What causes the mass in the first place? No one knows. So they’ve given it the place-holder name of Higgs boson. As I understand it, you can conceivably have a universe with mass, but no gravity (the masses would just sit next to each other without any attraction) but you can’t have the opposite (gravity without mass). I should say outright that I’m way over my head in basically any particle physics discussion on this board. I’m a learner, not a teacher, so I’m genuinly asking you: Is the Higgs field, or is it not, responsible for the existence of gravity, at least indirectly? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-basic-particle-physics-question-higgs-boson/579746.md?page=2)