LHC - The Higgs jig

The Higgs boson. The physics community requires unanimity to accept the presence of the Higgs boson, but it doesn't have it yet. Mainly, of course, because nobody has found one to prove that it exists. That might happen at the LHC, due to be cold and vacuous enough soon enough - sometime in September. Or it might not. Happen, that is.

The "Higgs boson" is not a gauge boson. The gauge bosons are the photons, gluons, W and Z bosons. The Higgs field, as distinct from a Gauge field, is that theoretical realm which is responsible for the mass which particles possess. The Higgs boson would be that particle which mediates the interaction between all the other particles that have mass, and this field, in doing so, confers upon those particles that property of mass. That's why it has been called the God particle by some.

Others snub those who say that, because they have a deeper perception of how a Higgs boson does that. It's all about that quantum scale where there is no diffusion of possibilities, but where things happen in quanta of events - thin lines of opportunity in that infinite spectrum of probabilities. They see the Higgs field as a sort of three-dimensional grid or matrix wherein probability determinations are a function of a particle's orientation to the grain, or nap of this fundamental fabric. Now, mass is a relative thing, so they argue that just because we cannot observe or measure a photon's mass does not mean that it doesn't have any. It's just so very, very light (pun unintended).

There are alternative ideas that might merit some consideration. Imagine the "Whimsical Particle", one that turns back into itself after some kind of double-looped phase transition. I think that this "Wh", or "whimsy" particle has an equal probability of being found compared with the Higgs boson, because in my opinion the presence of the Higgs field would make such a particle possible.

In my opinion, the Higgs field is really the photon background. Occasionally, electron-positron pairs are observed to spontaneously generate from the photon background. To my mind, this pretty much sums up the limit of finesse which particle nature can achieve in this quantum Universe. A photon's kinetic energy, when subtracted from its mass, probably yields zero. The photon is only responsible for propagating the waves that define reality, a perpetual process in this physical realm where conservation of energy and mass is the law. That makes the preceding a very logical assumption.

I say this because I think that it is that since mass is a function of velocity that particles have mass. That they have motion is established by Werner Heisenberg's thinking. He said it is just so impossible to pin a nuclear particle down, that entirely new mathematical methods would be required to extrapolate what cannot be put into the temporal framework as we know it to be, that is we cannot take a still life photograph to study the relationships of all those particles. We must deduce that about them, because they move so fast. Einstein said that when an object's velocity approaches the speed of light that its mass increases. Sometimes I think that Al is still waiting for the world to catch up. Me too.