Re: What if the higgs don't exist....

From: Mike Helland (mobydikc_at_gmail.com)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: 28 Oct 2004 14:34:17 -0700

jameslandle@yahoo.com (James Landle) wrote in message news:<86901f7b.0410271453.7dc7595c@posting.google.com>...
> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991649
>
> What if the Higgs don't exist. What would be an alternative theory that can
> replace or explain the Standard Model. Anyone got a idea?

If the Higgs doesn't exist then a likely alternative is that there is
no such thing as a massless particle.

For example, let's say that we take the interpretation of quantum
mechanics that reality is created by observation.

Ask yourself, how do we observe?

For the most part, we observe something by interacting with it,
usually electromagnetically, or in other words, usually through the
exchange of photons.

So if photons are the particle that allows us to observe other
particles, it seems pretty obvious that even if the photon particle
had mass, it isn't likely that we'd be able to observe that.

You can't look at a picture and tell me the weight of the camera.

So if Higgs isn't found, its likely that the idea of a "massless"
particle is flawed from the start.

This is testable, by the way. If we assign an arbitrary value to the
mass of a photon, we can use Newtonian physics to show that the photon
will be affected by the force of graviton. We know from Einsteinian
physics that this is true, therefore, it seems as if a photon with
mass passes at least one test we can throw at it.

The tricky part is to think of more. 

--
http://www.techmocracy.net/science/time.htm