What is a Higgs Boson?
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0:01 - 0:12[music]
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0:12 - 0:15If you've had any interested in physics at all you've heard about a thing called the
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0:15 - 0:17Higgs boson.
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0:17 - 0:20But just what is it then why is it interesting?
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0:20 - 0:24In 1964 a physicist by the name of Peter Higgs
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0:24 - 0:27took some ideas that were floating around at the time,
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0:27 - 0:31added an insight or two of his own, and proposed that there was an energy field
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0:31 - 0:33that permeated the entire universe.
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0:33 - 0:37This energy field is now called the "Higgs field."
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0:37 - 0:40The reason he proposed this field was that nobody understood why some
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0:40 - 0:43subatomic particles had a great deal of mass
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0:43 - 0:46while others had little and some had none at all!
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0:46 - 0:49The energy field that Higgs proposed would interact
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0:49 - 0:52with the sub-atomic particles and give them their mass. Very massive particles
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0:52 - 0:58would interact a lot of the field while massless particles wouldn't interact at all.
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0:58 - 1:02To better understand the idea, we can use the analogy of water and swimmers.
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1:02 - 1:05In our analogy the water serves the role
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1:05 - 1:06of the Higgs field.
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1:06 - 1:10A barracuda, being supremely streamlined, interacts only slightly with
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1:10 - 1:13the field and can move through it very easily.
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1:13 - 1:17The barracuda would then be similar to a low-mass particle.
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1:17 - 1:21In contrast, my buddy Eddie, no stranger to doughnuts
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1:21 - 1:24can only move very slowly through the water.
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1:24 - 1:28In our analogy, Eddie is a massive particle made massive by interacting a lot with
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1:28 - 1:29the water.
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1:29 - 1:34The lightest of the familiar subatomic particles is the electron, while in the subatomic
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1:34 - 1:37world the king of mass is the top quark.
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1:37 - 1:40It weighs about as much as an entire atom of gold,
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1:40 - 1:43about three hundred and fifty thousand times more than the electron!
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1:43 - 1:47I'd like to stress that we believe the top quark is not more massive because
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1:47 - 1:48it's bigger. It's not!
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1:48 - 1:52In fact, we believe that both the top quark and the electron are exactly the same size!
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1:52 - 1:56Indeed, they both have zero size!
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1:56 - 1:59The top quark is more massive than the electron simply because it interacts
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1:59 - 2:01more with the Higgs field. Actually,
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2:01 - 2:03if the Higgs field didn't exist,
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2:03 - 2:08neither of these particles would have any mass at all!
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2:08 - 2:09Now, in the press
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2:09 - 2:13you don't hear about the Higgs field but rather the Higgs boson.
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2:13 - 2:15How are these two things related?
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2:15 - 2:19The Higgs boson is the smallest bit of the Higgs field.
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2:19 - 2:23To understand how that works we should again return to water.
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2:23 - 2:25Everyone knows what water is.
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2:25 - 2:30If you're immersed in it you know that water is everywhere. It's a continuous medium
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2:30 - 2:32and there are no holes in it.
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2:32 - 2:38We also know that water is made of molecules - specifically H20.
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2:38 - 2:41If you hold these two ideas in your head with the realization that water consists
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2:41 - 2:45of countless individual molecules you can now begin to appreciate
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2:45 - 2:47the Higgs boson.
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2:47 - 2:51The Higgs field that gives subatomic particles their mass is made of countless individual
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2:51 - 2:56Higgs bosons, just like water is made of individual molecules.
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2:56 - 2:59You should keep in mind that the Higgs boson hasn't been discovered yet, and
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2:59 - 3:04what I'm describing is simply the most popular idea as to why subatomic
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3:04 - 3:07particles have the masses that they do.
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3:07 - 3:08As I speak
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3:08 - 3:13my colleagues and I are studying data taken at huge particle accelerators to see if
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3:13 - 3:15this idea is true.
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3:15 - 3:19Stay tuned!
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3:19 -[music]
- Title:
- What is a Higgs Boson?
- Description:
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Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson. Several large experimental groups are hot on the trail of this elusive subatomic particle which is thought to explain the origins of particle mass
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 03:27
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