Comments on: Sean Carroll, Marie-Claire Shanahan, and the Higgs https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/08/sean-carroll-marie-claire-shanahan-and-the-higgs/ Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:39:48 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: mcshanahan https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/08/sean-carroll-marie-claire-shanahan-and-the-higgs/#comment-496660 Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:39:48 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14808#comment-496660 Thanks for the kind write up, Greg. Hope you enjoy the episode once the podcast is out!

]]> By: rpenner https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/12/08/sean-carroll-marie-claire-shanahan-and-the-higgs/#comment-496659 Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:54:48 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/?p=14808#comment-496659 All fundamental particles (gauge bosons, electrons, neutrinos, quarks and other leptons) are modeled as quantum fields, like the Higgs quantum field. The difference is that these other fields have zero expectation value, which means only their excitations (i.e. particles) are objects of study. The Higgs quantum field has non-zero expectation value which is what gives rise to mass terms for various particles (but not the photon, gluon or graviton) via the Higgs mechanism, and also has excitations. That’s what a Higgs boson is, an excitation of the Higgs field.

I thought Higgs interactions were the cause of 100% of the mass of neutrinos and electrons and the W and Z bosons, but only about 1% of the mass of protons and neutrons (which are made of quarks), and therefore regular neutral matter. But since the W and Z bosons would be massless in a universe without the Higgs field, neutrons would decay to protons much more easily. Since the mass of electron figures prominently in the math of the hydrogen atom, chemistry and spectroscopy would be nothing like our universe, even if elements past helium could exist.

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