Ed wrote:
> For example, the CERN Hadron Collider is currently being used the
> attempt to find the Higgs Boson. If it is found, it will move from
> scientific theory to scientific reality.
My scientific study ran aground on the shoals of higher math somewhere
between statistical thermodynamics (which I got) and quantum physics
(which I didn't.)
So I don't understand the wave equation. But, eventually, I think I
may have gotten a notion of what the wave equation is *about*:
The wave equation is a *probability* wave. An electron isn't
*anywhere*. It exists, more or less everywhere, but it's not there,
not any place in particular. It's is just more probably in a certain
set of places, less probably in others with a negligible (but
non-zero) probability of being anywhere in the rest of the universe.
Until you observe it, that is, whereupon, it's precisely where you
observed it. Oy.
The scanning tunneling electron microscope works this way: You make a
very, very pointy thing and contrive that many electrons are very
probably near the point. Then you get that point very, very near to
something else, so near that there is an increased probability that
some of the electrons are on the other thing rather than on the pointy
thing. Then you try to observe them and, if the pointy thing is close
enough to the the other thing, some of them will be observed on the
other thing. Counting the electrons (if any) observed on the other
thing gives a measure of how close the pointy thing is to the other
thing and (by inference from some other constraints) the shape of the
surface of the other thing.
I don't know whether that's science, mysticism, metaphysics or just
rather arcane and high-brow humor.
If the Higgs boson is an object that, in some manner even more
incomprehensible that the above, causes other objects such as
electrons and neutrons to have mass but we can't observe one (if we
ever do) without expending enough money to repave all the roads in
Texas and enough energy to fire a 1959 Buick to the moon (not to
mention enough brain power to create a cure for cancer) then science
has gone beyond my reach as well as my grasp.
What does the existence of the CERN collider say about the status of
"Re-Designing Work, Income Distribution,Education".
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...
- Mike
There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that
remains is more and more precise measurement.
-- Lord Kelvin, 1900
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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