🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <MATT.92Nov6134743@physics3.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:
>In article <1992Nov6.201950.26221@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>
>>      Hindsight may well be deceiving you.
>> 
>>      I await with interest the discovery of the Higgs' boson.
>
>Oh, I agree with Scott that consistency is a powerful tool for telling
>that a model might be correct.  (Surprisingly few models pass this
>test, and it isn't in the least trivial.)

     I don't disagree that it is important.  And certainly the number
     of applicable and appropriate models is probably very very small.
     I still disagree that such ruminations constitute much of a 
     scientific 'test'.

>So, along those lines, you should be aware that there are a great many
>people who think that a theory with a Higgs boson in it might not be
>self-consistent.  The argument along these lines is called
>"triviality."

     None of our current models may be ultimately 'self-consistent'.  I was
     under the impression that we were discussing a somewhat weaker
     kind of consistency that current models were held to have.
     I was also under the impression that, among other things, Higgs bosons
     were invented to address some of these concerns.

>These arguments aren't completely solid, and, even if they are
>actually true, something that looks like a Higgs might exist; it just
>might not be a fundamental particle.

     This does, however, effectively illustrate the point that 
     the 'test' of a priori consistency does not necessarily have
     anything to do with science.  It is a prejudice that seems to work.

>Still, the point is that not everyone believes in a Higgs boson.  (I'm
>one of the people who is rather skeptical.)  It is quite certain that
>there is *some* new physics below or at the 1 TeV scale, and that it
>has something to do with electroweak symmetry breaking, but the Higgs
>boson is only one of the possibilities---and not necessarily the most
>plausible one.

     The point was not actually the existence of the particle.  The point
     was that the 'test' of consistency is moot compared to the cold
     hard reality of experimental results.

     Humans are very inventive creatures.  I have no doubt that there
     are any number of consistent (assumed the weaker form of domain dependent
     consistency) theories that do not fit observations.

                                dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                          crb7q@virginia.edu        
Department of Mechanical, 
     Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering
University of Virginia                              (804) 924-7926