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→Is it real? Is it the Higgs?
I may be confused, but I think a recent edit may be wrong. I'm not an expert on this, and my knowledge comes from the popular press. But I thought that what they announced, with 5 sigma / 1 in a million possibility of being a fluke was that ''the blip in the data at 126 Gev is real'', and hence that there is a particle in there. This was the announcement that was made with such fanfare on the 4th. The particle has the properties that the standard model predicts for the Higgs, that it decays into bottom quarks, etc. etc. This makes it very likely, ''but not 5 sigma likely'', that it actually is the Higgs. So the announcement came in two parts -- it is a particle, for sure, and it is the Higgs, most likely. A recent edit went in the opposite direction. Since I'm not an expert, I'll defer to LucoDaw on this. But please have a second look at this issue. [[User:JudyJ|JudyJ]] 22:16, 11 July 2012 (EDT)
I may be confused, but I think a recent edit may be wrong. I'm not an expert on this, and my knowledge comes from the popular press. But I thought that what they announced, with 5 sigma / 1 in a million possibility of being a fluke was that ''the blip in the data at 126 Gev is real'', and hence that there is a particle in there. This was the announcement that was made with such fanfare on the 4th. The particle has the properties that the standard model predicts for the Higgs, that it decays into bottom quarks, etc. etc. This makes it very likely, ''but not 5 sigma likely'', that it actually is the Higgs. So the announcement came in two parts -- it is a particle, for sure, and it is the Higgs, most likely. A recent edit went in the opposite direction. Since I'm not an expert, I'll defer to LucoDaw on this. But please have a second look at this issue. [[User:JudyJ|JudyJ]] 22:16, 11 July 2012 (EDT)
:Scientists tend to avoid making conclusive statements when they're not sure. Unfortunately, "we think this might be the Higgs, assuming certain other conditions are met and we get more data" isn't as quotable in the popular press as "SCIENTISTS FIND GOD PARTICLE". There are other particles that the new data might represent, and [http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428428/higgs-boson-may-be-an-imposter-say-particle/ THIS ARTICLE] has a pretty good layman's overview of what other things the new discovery could be. Cheers!--[[User:Guitarsniper|Guitarsniper]] 12:28, 13 July 2012 (EDT)