Why the Higgs Cannot Exist

Comment: look here for an analysis of the new particle which was found in LHC.

The Higgs Boson belongs to a family of particles which, by definition, are massive, elementary and spinless. So far it has been assumed that such particles really exist, and scientists even won Nobel prizes for allegedly finding a particle from this family.

Based on the knowledge existing today, this kind of particle has clearly not yet been found. This fact has now become common knowledge, as illustrated, for example, by the Klein–Gordon equation or Higgs Boson entry in Wikipedia. Are we about to witness the discovery of the first particle belonging to this family, as predicted by the Standard Model?

Can spinless, massive elementary particles exist at all?

Some definitions
There are particles which always travel at the speed of light, such as the photon, which have no self-mass because they are never at rest. Another kind of particles is called “massive”, they rest or move at a speed lower than the speed of light, and their mass is defined as their resting mass.

Experiments show that there are some particles in nature, with a volume smaller than the experimental detection threshold, and they are assumed to be point-like particles. These particles are called “elementary”, and the most famous of them is the electron. Various measurements show that the quark, residing within the proton, is a point-like particle as well. Today, there are 24 known point-like particles that have a mass: six quarks, three types of neutrinos, three types of electron-like particles, and their anti-particles. All of these particles have spin 1/2.

Some history
In the middle of the 1920s, Schrödinger tried to find an equation that would describe the electron’s quantum behavior. He used the experimentally well-known energy levels of the hydrogen atom to test the validity of his equation. He first tried to use an equation later called “The Klein-Gordon Equation” but realized that it did not yield the desired results. He thus developed the Schrödinger Equation, describing a massive elementary particle.

This equation, published in 1926, was considered as a breakthrough, but had a few drawbacks: it did not take the spin into account, and was not coherent with the theory of Special Relativity. In 1927, Pauli published the Pauli Matrices, which extend the scope of the Schrödinger equation and treat the electron as a particle with spin.

A year later, Dirac published the Dirac Equation, describing an elementary particle, while being coherent with Special Relativity. The Dirac Equation gave an excellent description of the electron, which was the only massive elementary particle known at the time. The Dirac Equation explains the spin of the electron, as well as the magnetic moment associated to it. Another outcome of this equation is the existence of an anti-particle for each of the particles the equation applies to. This result is considered today as an inalienable asset of particle physics.

The Dirac Equation minimized Pauli’s achievement. It is, therefore, easy to understand why Pauli used to tease Dirac in different occasions. He said about Dirac, who was atheist: “There is no God and Dirac is his prophet” ([1], page 138), and following the publication by Dirac of an article about magnetic monopoles, Pauli named him “Monopoleon” ([1], page 343).

In 1934, Pauli and Weiskopf revived the Klein-Gordon Equation, describing spinless particles. However, spinless particles were not known at that time. When publishing the article, Pauli himself admitted that he didn’t find any use for the equation, but that he was happy that he “can again cast aspersion on my old enemy – the Dirac theory of the spinning electron” ([2], page 70).

Dirac contested this equation, and published throughout his life several arguments explaining why it was invalid. But the scientific community ignored Dirac, whether for relevant reasons, or because they attributed his position to his rivalry with Pauli. Since the revival of the Klein-Gordon Equation by Pauli and Weiskopf, it has often been used to predict new elementary particles.

The Yukawa Particle
In his attempt to explain the “Strong Nuclear Interaction”, which is the force holding the protons together in the nucleus, the Japanese physicist Yukawa invented the idea of a particle carrying the force. According to Yukawa’s Theory, published in 1935, this force-carrying particle was elementary, massive and spinless, and therefore could be described by the Klein-Gordon Equation. Yukawa also gave an evaluation of the particle’s mass.

In 1947, a spinless particle was found, whose mass corresponded to Yukawa’s evaluation, and Yukawa won the Nobel Prize in 1949. But after the discovery of the quarks, it turned out that this particle, the pi-meson, is composed of a pair of quark and anti-quark, was not elementary, and could not carry the Strong Interaction.

Why can there be no Yukawa particle?
When Yukawa constructed the quantum function for his particle, he used a “real” function as a solution to the Klein-Gordon Equation. It is important to note here, that the notion of a “real” function was different from the admitted structure of Quantum Mechanics. And in fact, Quantum Mechanics uses what mathematicians call “complex functions”. These functions are used as solutions of the quantum equations and describe the physical properties of massive particles.

There is a profound reason for using complex functions in describing massive particles. A massive particle can be at rest, so that a real function describing its state should be time independent. On the other hand, in Quantum Mechanics, the particle’s variation with time is related to its energy. But for a particle which doesn’t change in time, a quantum function of real numbers implies that the particle’s energy (and mass) is zero. For this reason, a massive particle cannot be described using a real function, which means that the mathematical structure of Yukawa’s particle is wrong from the start.

This error may seem fundamental, and people may find it hard to believe that a major physicist such as Yukawa could have gone wrong. It turns out, however, that not only great physicists can and do make mistakes, but that this specific error is taught as a valid theory up to this very day and it features in the textbooks. A more precise and formal demonstration of this contradiction is brought in the first link on the page “A challenge to physicists” in the present website.

It would be plausible to assume that the source of the error was the application of calculation methods corresponding to the mass-less photon, to calculate a massive particle. But this shortsightedness, discovered by Eliyahu Comay over 60 years later, proves that major errors may find their ways into basic textbooks and remain in the foundations of entire theories. Comay admits that he himself took part in this shortsightedness for decades, and only after discovering additional contradictions in Yukawa’s theories, he decided to thoroughly examine the theoretical foundations of Yukawa’s particle.

The Klein-Gordon Equation in the test of experiment
In 1934, when Pauli and Weiskopf recycled the Klein-Gordon Equation, very little was known about elementary particles, and in this respect, theoretical physicists were groping in the dark. Even Pauli admitted that his revived Klein-Gordon equation “had little to do with reality” ([2], page 70).

In the 1940s, several such particles have been discovered, the most famous of which were a group of 3 particles called pi-mesons, or in short – Pions. The discovery of these particles was followed by a major rush of physicists toward the work of Pauli and Weiskopf.

In the 1960s, the existence of quarks was recognized and established. It turned out that these quarks actually compose the pions, among others, and that they were actually the building blocks of all the spinless particles discovered in experiments. Hence, no spinless elementary particle is known today. We are therefore back to point zero, when Pauli complained in 1934 that there are no known particles for which the Klein-Gordon equation can apply. On the other hand – the point-like massive elementary particle family grew substantially, and it turns out that they all have spin 1/2, as implied by Pauli’s “enemy”- the Dirac equation.

The errors of the Klein-Gordon Equation
The problematic nature of the Klein-Gordon’s Equation is not limited to the real functions used by Yukawa. There are fundamental flaws in the complex solutions of the equation as well. Some of these flaws had already been mentioned by Dirac.

Comay’s article ([3], chapter 4) mentions at least 3 additional contradictions. The most interesting of them shows how physicists, while being fully aware of the ensemble of Physics’ laws, fail to understand the deep connections between these laws. The point is this: the Lagrangian density and the Variational Principle yield a differential equation which constitutes a particle’s equation of motion. Another differential equation can be obtained from a quantity called “Hamiltonian”, which yields a first order differential equation in time.

A non-physicist reader should realize that Lagrangian and Hamiltonian are not simply the names of famous Armenian physicists. These are physical and mathematical notions, which yield two differential equations describing the same particle. Both are derived from the same original equation – but each of them is obtained from a different mathematical development. Fortunately, it turns out, that with the Dirac equation, these two equations miraculously unite !!

The Klein-Gordon Equation wasn’t as lucky. The two equations deriving from it do not unite, and even end up contradicting each other. Therefore, the Klein-Gordon Equation cannot be correct…

Another flaw specified in this article (understandable only to physicists) is that it is not possible to build a consistent inner product for Hilbert Space, because the density function of a complex Klein-Gordon particle depends not only on its wave function, but also on the potential defined by an external source. This potential can vary with time and disrupt the definition of the Hilbert Space inner product.

One of the common features of natural laws, is that if a theory is wrong – nature has many ways to show it.

Why can there be no Higgs
The Higgs Boson is a massive, elementary, spinless particle as well, predicted some 50 years ago and not yet found. Its existence is crucial for the Standard Model Theory. Many billions of dollars have been invested until today in order to find it, and many billions are still expected to be spent for the same purpose in the few coming years.

The Higgs Boson Equation is a kind of an extension of the Klein-Gordon Equation. Both equations describe a spinless particle. And the flaws characterizing the Klein- Gordon equation apply to the Higgs equation as well. The reliance of Physics on the Mathematical sciences is deep and fundamental (cf. discussion of this issue in Mario Livio’s book: “Is God a Mathematician“?). Therefore, the Higgs boson, predicted by a flawed mathematical instrument, does not exist.

The W and Z Bosons
The W and Z bosons are two spin-1 massive particles. The Standard Model assumes these two are elementary particles that carry the weak force. The Standard Model equations of the two particles suffer from similar problems as the Higgs boson equations. The issue can be noticed once one considers the classical counterpart of these equations, namely the Proca Lagrangian. The theory associated with this Lagrangian describes a massive photon. The matter described by the Proca Lagrangian is fundamentally different than matter as is known to science [4]. This casts doubt on its validity, and may be one theoretical reason behind the failure to find such matter. Indeed, the experimental upper limit of the photon mass is 23 orders of magnitude lower than that of the electron.

Electrodynamics and the strong force are the domains of Comay’s main scientific work, leaving the weak force domain to others. However, as you may have noticed by now, he likes asking questions when he notices theoretical difficulties. Comay recommends that the scientific community keeps an open mind when interpreting the W and Z bosons findings. As an example, the theoretical issues described above stem from the assumption that W and Z are elementary particles. Dropping this assumption opens the door to other interpretations, such as that W and Z particles are not elementary Bosons, but Mesons of the Top quark. The fact that the Top quark is more massive than the W and Z particles serves as a positive sign regarding such a direction, and so is the absence of any Top quark meson from the PDG table of Mesons. Comay believes that the last word has not yet been said regarding these questions, and it is worthwhile to leave it open for a further consideration in the future.

[1] G. Farmelo, “The Strangest Man” (Basic Books, New York, 2009)
[2] A. I. Miller “Early Quantum Electrodynamics” (University Press, Cambridge, 1994)
[3] E. Comay, “Physical Consequences of Mathematical Principles“, (Progress in Physics, October 2009 Vol 4)
[4] E. Comay, Nuovo Cimento, B113, 733 (1998)

160 thoughts on “Why the Higgs Cannot Exist”

1. Robert says:

Its about money. The discovery took place to insure funding.. Do you really think they care? Who can prove them wrong when they own the system.. They sculpted the math.. They say who is a nut job… Its a cult. They can’t think for them selves.. Can’t figure out how math was developed. They are book worms that feed off welfare..

• Right on Robert. You should get the Nobel

2. Allien from Grlkuntaxp know on Earth as Andromeda says:

Funny discussion,

Sadly I have to report all of you are wrong, as earthlings current physics is based on the idea that the speed of light is a constant.
Our spaceships how ever use the LQ-field wich determines the speed of light over long distances in space and makes us able to travel at a multiple of Earths light speeds constant, to go on a holiday here on your planet. We use bosons as confetti when we trow a party, wich seems to be their most use full use on a space ship.

All your physics are belong to us, as its all based on the presumption that the speed of light is a constant. We will continue to follow your funny infant physics though on our comedy channel. ^.^

Greatings from Grgrtzxdrtsed, from Grlkuntaxp know on Earth as Andromeda.
May all Earthlings prosper in peace.

• Maggy Brown says:

Yes, very good. Shows signs of a primitive humour too.Now jog on cos it’s time for uncle Scottie to beam you up now…lol
Is there any one out there who can give me straight forward answers to help me build up a basic picture of the Higgs particle polava I can understand without requiring a Phd in Quantum maths/physics, Or are these people rarer than the Higgs appearance itself? Ok, yes, I get it. The relativity, it’s all done by numbers. Your as bad as Pythagoras and his incessant preoccupation with triangles, bless him.
Consequently, I’ve had to sift through pages and pages of scientific jargon and pick out the bits of relevant info here and there. I wouldn’t mind but I’m as passionate as these boffins are about the whole subject. so it’s not fair on people like myself. However, this is what you find. Things could be worse lol, from me. xxxx

3. Gerardo W. Físcher says:

Just a question: if q tau-quark is heavier than its combination with its antiquark, what is it that makes that rest-mass disappear? Two photons were observed – did they bear all the mass of the supposed higgs boson or beit the tauantitau meson? Or was it possible in spite of the enormous relativistic effect to calculate the paths of perhaps a tau neutrino and its antiparticle to carry off some missing mass?

• The tt is lighter than the sum of its components based on the same principal that makes helium nucleus lighter than its components. The binding energy is responsible to this difference. In the case of quark-antiquark pair – the binding energy is huge and therefore it reduces the mass of the tt dramatically compared to the sum of the masses of t and t.

• Gerardo Físcher says:

Thanks for the answer. And sorry for confusing names, i.e. tau (lepton) and top (quark).

4. A shaggy quark story

A Higgs boson goes into a bar, and immediately he is accosted on all sides by party workers, ex-conservative cabinet ministers bearing bottles of champagne, Margaret Thatcher and even Peter Higgs himself, and they all get weightier by meeting him. Suddenly he spots a neutrino, which though female are known to be very flighty, have but a particle of fluff in their heads, have no charm, but aren’t strange. So he goes up to her and says :

“Would you like to continue where we left off?”

“What after last time? That was nearly 15 billion years ago. And a trillionth of a second was quite long enough for me”.

And off she fled, masslessly.

Charles Norrie

• Maggy Brown says:

Hello Charles, thank you for passing my way. I really appreciated bumping into you. Loved your take on this subject cos it was funny, yet cleverly interwoven with useful and relevant info. You are one of a dying breed. Much appreciated.
lol from me. xxxxxxxxx

5. melvin Goldstein says:

Numbers are the Supreme Court of science. However Godel proved that we may not prove everything using numbers. Physics needs numbers. There must be Physics Foibles. Always more to prove.

• Paul T. says:

More and recent Higgs info:

Higgs Boson May Be An Imposter, Say Particle Physicists –Monday, July 9, 2012

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428428/higgs-boson-may-be-an-imposter-say-particle/

At least two other particles could be masquerading as the God particle, according to a new analysis of the data from CERN

A later down partical quote:

In fact, its existence is so fleeting that the only way of spotting the Higgs is to look for the signature of particles that it produces, such as pairs of photons or pairs of other heavy particles called Z bosons.

The trouble is that this signature is not unique, at least not given the amount of data that CERN has so far collected.

Low and co say that given various assumptions about the data, there are several theoretical possibilities. One of these is that the data shows the Higgs boson as predicted by the Standard Model.

But another equally likely option is that the data is evidence of a more exotic theory in which the Higgs boson exists in several different forms. So the new particle might be one of these, examples of these are a generic Higgs doublet or a triplet imposter.

A final option is based on the idea that particles can exist in mixtures. So the new data does not show the Higgs but a mixture of it and some other particle.

• OK for the benefit of those who are reading this blog and are totally pised off with the elitism of it contributors, here is a great youtube post that explains the Higgs in “Real Human” (i.e non-sandal-wearing, pointy-headed hippie – format)

• The new particle, what ever it is, exist for the LHC -detectors Atlas and CMS with a decay in a photon pair. And there is the question : What are photons?
We read : A photon has the pulse h /Lambda.
We read also : Lambda = h/p = h / m * c
Rearranging the equation : Lamda * c = h / m. Impossible!
The fact is :There is about the speed of light .
But the new proposal, a magnetic photon pair =
2h/e = 8,271335024 *10^-15 Vs, without pulse.
Frequency is nature of mass
Lambda is nature of mass
Frequency and Lambda are no natures of light.

• Paul says:

Why is lamda*c=h/m impossible. m is the total mass of the photon, not the restmass and therefore not zero

6. James Webb says:

Articles on the Higgs boson assert that it only exists for 1 divided by 10 to the power of 24 seconds. That is a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. The speed of light is 299 792 458 m / s (call it 3 to the power of 9 m / s). If I calculate correctly that means that a Higgs boson travelling at the speed of light will only travel 1 divided by 10 to the power of 15 metres before it expires. That is a millionth of a millionth of a millimetre. How can that possibly add up to an explanation of the force of gravity acting over near infinite distances? Based on this, it looks as if the Higgs boson is another physicists mathematical construct developed in order to maintain the standard model’s fiction that gravity (and by extension the whole of reality) is a result of “particles”. The original Higgs hypothesis talked of a Higgs field, but the cultural momentum of the science community cannot come to terms with this non-materialistic notion.
Can anyone tell me what I am missing here?

• Look at my comments. Indeed a kind of Higgs field installs intertia and is abundantly present. However, that does not yet cover gravitation (space curvature). The Hilbert Book Model tells you more. http://www.e-physics.eu .

• James Webb says:

Thank you for directing me to your material on the Hilbert Book Model etc. I am not a physicist, being centred on information science. However, my interest here is on the way the leading edge of fundamental physics feeds back into popular culture, and particularly on the way it influences ideas about what we are made of, and consequently “who and what we are”.

The 19th century notion of the universe dictates totally separate particles with no action at a distance, no field dynamics, and causation purely by local impact. I had understood that the notion of gauge bosons allowed the continuation of this view by proposing all field forces to be transmitted via force-carrying particles. (thus my misunderstanding of the role of the Higgs boson in the action of gravity.) The particle model implies that consciousness is purely an emergent property of the organisation of material particles in the nervous system (the popular biologists view). This idea is amplified by the physicists insistence on talking about particles. As Feynman said on the subject of Quantum Electrodynamics: “Electrons and photons behave a bit like particles and a bit like waves. In order to avoid inventing a new name like ‘wavicles’ we call them particles”. So even though particles do not exist in a common-sense meaning, the public still thinks they do because physicists use ambiguous and probably inaccurate terminology on the public stage.

You yourself have written that “Light is nothing else than oscillating space.” Given this, is it reasonable to express the nature of fundamental reality as a field of energy that self-focuses (perhaps through the constructive and destructive effects of wave harmonics) into points of high density probability amplitude (the mathematical constructs that express the ensembles of behaviour that we know as conventional particles)? If so, this would seem to allow action at a distance through the fluid dynamics that shape the field continuum, and consequently to the conclusion that we are not necessarily limited to a purely local causation model of human consciousness.
I would greatly appreciate your views specifically about the viability of a “focused-field” model, because, as must be obvious, I am inexpert in this area.

• James Web
The explanations of inertia that I have seen so far all make use of a field that is everywhere present in universe and represents the influence that particles have on each other. You may call this action on a distance. it is due to the fact that all wave functions (I call them quantum state functions) have a parameter domain that extends over all of universe.

The influence of the particle via this quantum state function reduces with distance, but it does not go to zero. Since the number of particles that contribute to the influence at a given location grows faster than the inflence wit distance reduces, the total effect at that location is huge. As a consequence at every point in space the influence represents an enormous potential. However, this potential is isotropic. The corresponding forces compensate each other. So nothing happens as long as a considered particle does not accelerate. Field theory now tells that when the considered particle accelerates, this goes together with the existence of an extra vector field that counteracts the acceleration. This is the action of inertia!

What I just told you is the idea that is explained in the paper of Denis Sciama that was published in 1953 and is called “On the origin of inertia”.

• Explaining curvature, thus gravitation runs different from explaining inertia. If you want to explain curvature, then you must take a daring step. You must accept that space can expand and compress like our atmosphere does. It means that tiny patches in space get a kind of identity and carry properties. It also means that you can speak of density distributions of these property carriers. An since te carriers can move, will carrier currents and current densities exist. These phenomena can be described and they will be controlled by equations. Like in fluid dynamics these phenomena will be described by balance equations. The carrier density distributions and current density distributions can be brought together in quaternionic distributions, where the carrier density distribution forms the real part and the vectorial current density distribution forms the imaginary part. In fact the currents are not actual. They form corridors, where the carriers can be moving. Thus the quaternionic distributions are in fact probability amplitude distributions. This means that they can be used as quantum state functions. This introduces a very important notion, because this interpretation says in fact that quantum state functions can control the local density of space. Or otherwise formulated: the quaternionic quantum state functions that we just defined are capable of influencing the local curvature of space!
Note that this step requires the switch from complex number based quantum physics to quaternion based quantum physics. It also appoints the balance equation as the major controlling equation in quantum physics.

• negrüj says:

James Webb wrote :”The original Higgs hypothesis talked of a Higgs field, but the cultural momentum of the science community can not come to terms with this non-materialistic notion.Can anyone tell me what I am missing here?”

Non materialistic notion, perhaps with this way?

E = Ekin + Epot

E = h*f + e*f (1)

E = h/e * e*f + e* f (2)

E/2 = h / e * e * f = h*f (3)

E = h* c * v² / Lambda (4)

E is not = mc²

Lambda = Epot is the mechanical wavelength of 2 distant electric half-wave dipols.

Lambda is electric mass, part of heavy mass.

E = energy

h/e = magnetic Quant

e*f = Epot

h*f = Ekin

Question :

Have 2 protons at LHC CERN the mass of 125 GigaeV or is a force
beside the protons working?

• MDave says:

Hans, James, Negruj,
A few to many typos, please reread and correct. e.g. “Have 2 protons at LHC CERN the mass of 125 GigaeV or is a force
beside the protons working?”
I am a scientific proofreader and can make corrections and recommendations to help you. I presume that you are sincere in your questions (quests i’m on) but I do not presume that you have truly sought to seek answers here, and that is OK because, maybe you did not know that answers might actually be available. IF you are up to the task of understanding the search for the Higgs Boson, then, surely you can explain the cause of gravity beyond and aside from the faulty “curved space theory” That is: What is the cause of gravity.
-MDave

• MDave
What do you mean by your criticism?
What is faulty?

• Harfer says:

You are right, Higgs bosons are so short-lived that they do not travel any measurable distance before decaying, as we call it, into different particles. We can thus only ever see them indirectly, through reconstruction of their decay products. Higgs bosons have nothing to do with gravity. Higgs bosons give rise to mass, and then mass (or, to be precise, it is actually energy) is subject to the gravitational force. But the two things are quite different. It’s like gravity is the engine that makes your car accelerate, and the Higgs boson is the fuel you need to actually make it work in the end. 🙂

7. Interesting how Chauvinistic physics has become! Two independent experiments at LHC discover the same particle at a mass of about 125GeV each with a certainty around 5 sigma. CERN hold a conference to announce the discovery of the Higgs Boson and yet? This blog post still exists, without a formal retraction from its original author.

Now we have experimental evidence to support the “missing link” of the Standard Model, methinks it’s time to do the honorable thing and admit you got it wrong.

• Harper says:

You are overlooking that this new particle is not proven to be an actual Higgs boson yet, e.g. the spin has not been measured. So, let’s wait until that is settled before demanding a retraction.

• OK so let’s say that no spin is measurable (that’s not to say that no spin exists – of course) what’s the “ex-spin” explanation for the experimental results that have been achieved so far? You can’t dismiss evidence just because it doesn’t fit with your (possibly) flawed assumptions about measurable (actualised?) spin!

PS I’m an OR scientist with extensive experience in mathematical modelling. Admittedly my background is in “real” world systems rather than quantum mechanics. BUT QM actually IS the real world! (Discuss)!

I detect a degree of mathematical “bullying” in the comments to this post! As a mathematician myself I’ve seen this many times. Use some pseudo-intellectual arguments backed by a few equations that very few readers can challenge and it begins to sound as if you are not talking out of your ar\$e
BUT nevertheless you are !!

• Harper says:

You clearly have no clue. We barely see this particle, and thus there is no way we can measure its spin yet. We will need a lot more data in order to be able to do that. All we can say is that is is a boson, i.e. has integer spin, because we can deduce that from the spin sum of the final states it decays into. Comay’s claim is that there cannot be scalar bosons, i.e. bosons with spin 0. Thus, only once we are able to measure the spin of the new particle and find it to be zero, we have proven Comay wrong. Sorry if this is too hard to understand, I know logic is not everyone’s thing, but in this case it seemed straightforward to me.

• And you prove my point exquisitely! You try to patronise and insult me because you are (perhaps) burried alive in the detail – whereas I’m just a lay person willing to trust CERN more than I trust a failed theorist wedded to an idea that’s almost certainly wrong. Where’s your evidence? You don’t actually have any. Just a prejudice. As you demand – the evidence will be gathered and in 1 or 2 years CERN will confirm the results – just as they prediceted last December that they would with the 5 sigma degree of confidence.

Just to give you back the same degree of irreverence that you are trying to give me, do you still think the world is flat?

• The most reliable outcome of the LHC is the fact that the standard model is now very well and very accurately established. No signs of super symmetry are detected. it is odd that most people seem to chase the Higgs particle, while the Higgs field is the item that implements its function. It is everywhere present while the particles are very sparse. A century ago Dirac devised his equation of motion for the electron. It contains two fields, a quantum state function and a field that establishes inertia. In fact the Dirac equation is a balance equation. In order to see this you must convert it to quaternionic format. if you do that two linear equations result; one for the electron and one for the positron. In 1953, ten years before Higgs et all published their ideas, Denis Sciama published his “On the origin of inertia” in that paper he describes a field that has all aspects of the functionality of the Higgs field. Thus the Higgs is in fact ancient history.

• Jeff Hall says:

Thanks for the explanation, Hans. Until we have a means of detecting the Higgs field directy experimentally we are stuck with working on Higgs Boson particles. Theoretical physics is littered with theories that were abandoned due to contradictory experimental evidence. If CERN’s new boson turns out to have no spin we will need a new theory to explain it. My guess is that the 15000 (?) scientists who have devoted their careers to these experiments will be way ahead of any arguments posted on this blog.
I look forward to announcements in my lifetime of the discovery of supersymmetrical particles at LHC. I predict the next two announcements will be (1) confirmation of the Higgs boson and (2) circumstantial evidence for the graviton.

• Harfer says:

The Higgs particle is not sparse. It is everywhere where the field is, i.e. really everywhere! It is just difficult to produce it directly in a way we can see it. You complain that nobody is looking for the field itself. Well, we don’t need to. The effect of the field is that particles have mass. And we’ve known that for a while. Thus we do not need to look for the field, we need to find the Higgs boson in order to verify our understanding of what the nature of this field is, or that it is a field in the first place!

• It is worthwile to look at the fields. For example it is possible to use quaternionic rather than complex probability amplitude distributions as quantum state functions. This converts the quantum state function into a set of fields. This change offers an unprecedented view onto quantum physics. It also throws a different light onto the (equivalent of the) Higgs field.

8. Have any of you considered the thought of trillions of Universes in the great void that has no definitions, no time, no start no end, and cannot be described by earthly language.There is no answer (in earthly speaking) to when it was born, or if it’s ever gonna end. Seen from the outside of our own Universe, which was created in a collission of mass and antimass, totally compressed, that opend up a tiny gap for as many atoms a man can count in his lifetime, trhat also was compressed, and broke through the magnetic field and the centrifugal field (that drivs everything spinning in order to stay in place. When the tiny gap was locked and the compressed mass of atoms at thousand times faster than the earthly constructed constant speed of light, which don’t and even cannot be proven. Everything is relative, and we don’t have equipment that far out that substanciate the equation. History’s faults will always repeat itself. And nature has in its nature the ability to fool men.

• Maggy Brown says:

Hi Paul, enjoyed your piece which inspired me with this idea, which may be irrelevant or stupid but who knows? When I first heard how Boffins had built their particle accelerator It blew my mind. I laughed because I was reminded of the old saying; “If you cannot get to the mountain, then bring the mountain to Mohamed.” This is just what they’ve done and it’s worked out. So I wondered if the same or similar method might be used with the Higgs particle. What if they could bring the Higgs to them in some way, rather than seek it out. I agree that at this time, we don’t have the right tools in hand yet for such a colossal job. What do you think? Don’t be scared to be honest.
Lol from me. xxxxxx

9. pritam barman says:

why it is invisible

10. kane says:

nice ideas its a shame the higgs was found today lol

• Already a century long, an equivalent of a Higgs field is hidden in the Dirac equation. It is hidden because the alpha, beta and gamma matrices together with the spinors hide that this equation in fact stands for a pair of quaternionic balance equations. This insight can be obtained in two steps. First the complex quantum state function must be extended to a quaternionic quantum state function. The basic functionality of the quantum state function as a probability amplitude distribution stays the same. However, the extension introduces the real part as a “charge” density distribution and the imaginary part as a “current” density distribution. The second step concerns the conversion of the spinors into pairs of quaternionic probability amplitude distributions (QPAD’s). Now the equation for the electron runs as:

∇ψ = m φ

Here ∇ is the quaternionic nabla. ψ is the quantum state function of the particle. m is the coupling factor. m φ is the source term. ∇ψ is the corresponding drain.

It is a full quaternionic balance equation. Usually only the real part is taken as a balance equation. The Dirac equation also covers the imaginary part.

The source part φ can be interpreted as a QPAD that consists of the local superposition of the tails of the quantum state functions of distant particles. In that way it acts as an anchor that couples the quantum state function of the electron to all particles that exist in universe. This coupling establishes inertia. The principle of this coupling is treated in “The origin of inertia” by Denis Sciama (See: http://www.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1953MNRAS.113…34S )
The factor m can be computed by multiplying both sides of the equation with the conjugate of φ and then taking the integral over the whole universe.
According to this view the QPAD φ has a functionality similar to that of the Higgs field.

The most intriguing step in the reasoning in the Hilbert Book Model is the interpretation of what the carriers of the charges are. The Hilbert Book Model considers them as tiny patches of the parameter space of the quantum state functions. The quantum state functions share their parameter space. In this way the coupling of the QPAD’s can influence the density (read curvature) of its surround.
See the free accessible manuscript at: http://www.e-physics.eu for more details.

11. Clive Dudley Ward says:

Today’s revelations prompt me to ask
“Does this forum exist?”

• Harper says:

Haha, good point, I was thinking of this forum as well today. But so far we have not been able to measure the spin of the new particle, i.e. we do not know whether it is really a Higgs. Everything we know about it so far indicates that it probably is, but the spin measurement is absolutely crucial. This will take another few months to settle, probably.

12. We need an entirely new approach to looking at the Higgs. Here’s mine –

I began by writing the following email to America’s Discover magazine (it was about an article of theirs concerning Julian Barbour). Unintentionally, my email started talking about a subject which fascinates me – the Higgs boson/field (I’ve been thinking about this for years, and I spent hours deciding on the best words to use in a short email). I used Albert Einstein’s theories to come to the conclusion that what we call the Higgs is our name for ALL particles (not simply this one or that one) being composed of quantum mechanical “wave packets” formed by the union of gravitons and photons – the notion of the Higgs actually being all particles implies that its possible discovery by the Large Hadron Collider would be another experimental verification of the existence of quantum entanglement in time and space and on Earth. In turn, gravitons and photons – along with all time and space – are composed of electronic binary digits (this may be termed the Higgs field).* I suspect this idea of binary digits composing space-time is highly unfashionable in the present worldview of quantum fluctuation. Also, people believe in strictly linear time where effects do not influence causes, but the “binary digits” idea requires a looping subroutine where electronics from the future is transmitted nearly 15 billion years into the past in order to create the subuniverse we currently inhabit (on a separate note, I believe we live in an infinite universe made up of subuniverses shaped like figure-8 Klein bottles that are made flexible enough to seamlessly – except for wormholes – fit into each other by their construction from binary digits). Dark matter could be explained as matter travelling from future to past, or past to future, which is invisible but still has gravitational effects. Dark energy could be explained as gravity or space-time (i.e. the product of binary digits) being programmed to accelerate and expand (I prefer to regard acceleration/expansion being the result of more space-time continually being created, which is what the Big Bang’s rival – Steady State theory – proposes). Anyway, the unfashionableness of my ideas does not automatically make them wrong.

* The University of Edinburgh scientist Peter Higgs pointed out that the Higgs field would produce its own quantum particle (the Higgs boson) if hit hard enough, by the right amount of energy. The Higgs field is the name given to the unification of space-time by the binary digits creating it. Therefore, the Higgs boson would necessarily indicate this unification and “…its possible discovery by the Large Hadron Collider would be another experimental verification of the existence of quantum entanglement in time and space and on Earth.” Why does data from the LHC “… see tantalising hints consistent with making Higgs bosons with a mass of around 125 times as heavy as the proton?” (http://www.ph.ed.ac.uk/higgs/laypersons-guide) I don’t know why there are hints at this specific mass. I can only suggest that we use quantum physics’ wave-particle duality and think of all the subatomic particles in the universe – and throughout all time – as a beam of light from a torch. If the circle of light cast by the torch represents all subatomic particles, then the centre of that circle (which is its brightest part) represents the masses’ energy of 125 billion electron volts (125 times as heavy as a proton).

Here’s the email I sent to Discover –

I’d like to comment on the article “Is Einstein’s Greatest Work All Wrong—Because He Didn’t Go Far Enough?” by Zeeya Merali (March 2012 issue).

“Long before Einstein, (Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst) Mach had advocated a ‘truly relative’ theory, in which objects were positioned only in relation to other tangible objects—Earth relative to sun, pub relative to farmhouse—and not against any abstract background grid.” (“Is Einstein’s Greatest Work …”)
This makes sense as long as we assume that space-time is an unverifiable abstract grid and matter, such as objects, is the only component of reality.

“When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence, Einstein said: time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.” – PHYSICS: ALBERT EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY at http://www.spaceandmotion.com
Einstein’s thinking claims that space-time is as much a part of reality as matter is, and his thinking can potentially be verified by the Large Hadron Collider. This is because the Higgs boson/field sought by the LHC could turn out to be a non-Standard-Model Higgs where subatomic particles are composed of quantum mechanical “wave packets” formed by the union of gravitation’s gravitons. To give matter a different appearance from gravity, this union could include electromagnetism’s photons. The amplitude of gravity waves might taper from a central point to the sides while the amplitude of electromagnetic waves remains constant – in which case electromagnetism would be modified gravitation and Einstein would have been correct when he said gravitation and electromagnetism may be related.

Since the great physicist claimed gravitation is the warping of space-time, time and space would have no separate existence from matter and would be the ultimate composition of the non-Standard-Model Higgs particle. Continuing from Einstein’s deductions, space-time cannot simply be an abstract background but must be composed of something, or else it could not give rise to the matter we see, touch, and probe with instruments. But that something also gives rise to immaterial space, time, and gravity. What could be the source of things we see, and also of things we do not see? Why not the electronic binary digits of 1 and 0? After all, we can view a webpage but can never view its ultimate composition.

So Julian Barbour’s approach is only good for people who only believe in what they can see. Albert Einstein’s approach is the one to follow if we ever hope to achieve a Unified Field Theory or Theory of Everything which has meaning in physics, as opposed to purely in mathematics. A mathematically defined unified field could be accurate and detailed, but it would only be relevant to mathematicians and would therefore be somewhat abstract. A physical unified field would be relevant to everybody, enabling us to understand and manipulate both what we can and can’t see in the universe.

• In fact Denis Sciama in his article “The origin of inertia” has paved the way for a good explanation. The local superposition of the tails of the quantum state functions of distant particles forms an inertial anchor for a local particle. The Dirac equation brought in quaternionic format shows this. It is a balance equation in which two quaternionic distributions figurate. The first is the quantum state function of the local particle. The other acts as source term and represents the mentioned local superposition. The quaternionic Dirac equation can be used to compute the corresponding mass of the particle. This consideration does not need a Higgs field or it must be the mentioned superposition of tails of the quantum state functions of distant particles. See: http://www.e-physics.eu for more details.

13. Dirty Higgsy says:

I know what you’re thinking: “Did we find five Sigma, or only four?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is the LHC, the most powerful collider in the world, and would blow your mind clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well do ya, punk?

14. You see………………………..there we have it. A great comment by Steven. We now have two madmen with the idea that maybe………………just maybe there are more of us about with something to say on the matter of why we are here…………….if indeed we are……………….and what makes us tick.
Also I note that Steven has been taking too many trips on the LHC………….his comment is dated March 11th 2012 at 6.45 p.m. and mine is coming in now at………………………March 11th 2012 times at 16.46. Alhough I write mine after Steven, his arrives before mine.

15. At the risk of overstaying my welcome – Why is science so elitist in this country?
If you do not have reams of qualifications then you are not welcomed into the scientific conference. I have only basic qualifications in radio engineering, transmission systems, antenna theory etc but some of the best ideas in my realm of science have come from those outside it………….Automatic Gain Control (AGC) for example was the idea of a famous explorer

16. I am drawn to a comment by Steve Walkey (mainly because I do not understand some of the other comments.)
Albert Einstein was a window cleaner……..so don’t underestimate yourself, Steve. If he had not cleaned some of the windows and pointed out some of the more obvious ideas, like e=mc2, giving us an idea that energy may not always be in the foreseeable and quantifiable amount that anyone can see, then we would still be back in the 1800s scientifically.
I have had an idea for some years. It is that ordinary people should get involved with soem of the more scientific developments. MAD?
Suppose a group of people were to put forward ideas, and counsel some of the more mad professors in the world. Maybe they could ask some questions that had not been asked. Maybe put forward some ideas on the end results of some of the more outlandish proposals by qualified scientists. We could do with more informed discussion on many ideas. China is introducing 25,000 engineers to the world this year. British people, and I am one of them, seem to think that binge drinking will solve everything. Higgs? Maybe…..maybe………..maybe.

• steven says:

I agree totally, i only a lowly removal man but with a passion for physics i just couldn’t afford university fees but i have a lot of ideas and questions needing answered

17. Rod says:

The biggest problem facing Theoretical Nuclear Physicists today is their own intellectual inertia.

In spite of the fact that most of Einstein’s theories have been proved wrong, they still can not let go, like monkeys caught in a “Monkey Trap”.

The image of an atomic explosion is just too compelling and so they assume that Einstein’s equation, E=MC2, is correct and fail to look any closer. Instead of seeing what is obviously happening, they just take him literally and fail to question his interpretation of that famous equation.

In a nuclear event like an atomic explosion, massive amounts of Alpha, Beta and Gamma particles are released, all of which have mass and so the original mass is conserved. If the original mass is conserved then no matter was converted to energy, so all of the energy released, must have been present along with the original matter, just in a very condensed form. In other words, matter and energy are not transmutable and Einstein’s famous equation tells us not, how much matter is converted to energy but how much energy is resident along with matter.

Once one understands this very simple concept, all subatomic structure becomes self-evident and the nonexistence of the Higgs Boson becomes obvious.

• Paul says:

A very interesting thought pattern ! The above statement begs the question of energy storage.

• Rod says:

Simply put, it means that energy or more specifically photons are compressible and all subatomic particles like protons, neutrons and electrons are very condensed composites of both matter and energy. That means that there is a lot more energy present in the universe than modern science is aware of and explains why our universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate.

• akos says:

excellent thought, consistent. however we experience mater indirectly, by forces generated by particles. therefore particle based physics is speculating on particles based on the forces they exert. one must wonder if particles can be replaced by a completely different construct in order to make the theory fit the observations.

speculating: if gravity is a wave at some level and it acts by resonance then at any given time and point the amplitude would be constant. in order to study the effect one must step beyond gravity and observe the whole wave not just a point on one of the slopes. stepping beyond gravity is kinda an issue especially if Einstein’s curvature of space-time analogy is true.

• Rod says:

It is my contention that as you say, theory should be based on observations of fact (make the theory fit the observations) and that is the problem with modern Physics, that contemporary theory, often as not, is based solely on wild speculation, with no basis in fact.

I would point out that there is no evidence to suggest that gravity is a wave or far that matter, exhibits wave behavior. So I suggest that you rethink your speculation, if your purpose is to truly understand.

• MDave says:

Thanks Rod,
BEST COMMENT YET. Most interesting and thought provoking anyway. I would like to see more comments like this. Thank You -Mdave

18. j says:

spinless is the graviton more then likely, can be considered closed loop. spinless can not be seen nor detected with proton collisions. new physics must be brought to light with new ways of experimenting on atomic scales in order to understand the thresh hold between a classical 3+1 dimensional matter and n+1 dimensional matter. Matter has mass from oscillating factors between dimensions, no permeating wave or its particle that interacts but a new form of harmonics that instruct at the plank scale by plank time intervals building up to infinite energy that turns into mass once it leaks from the bulk where it confines its energy in but hides its mass from.

• Ron says:

Learn how to spell for God’s sake. A class in basic grammar might be in your future.

19. A photon is only a massless particle when it is freely propagating. If it is confined in a hypothetical 100% reflecting box, then it exhibits inertia (rest mass). When the box is accelerated, then there is unequal photon pressure on the reflecting walls of the box. There is a net force on the box that is the photon’s inertial force. It can be shown that the conservation of both momentum and energy require that this force MUST exactly equal the inertia exhibited by a fundamental particle of equal energy. For example, an electron with energy of 511 KeV must have the same inertia (rest mass) as confined photons with total energy of 511 KeV. If a Higgs field is required to give inertia to an electron, then it must be explained why the Higgs field gives exactly the correct amount of inertia to matched the inertia of an equal energy confined photon.

This and similar problems are analyzed on the website:
http://www.onlyspacetime.com/
Not only does a confined photon exhibit inertia, but it also exhibits 7 other particle-like properties. These insights ultimately lead to a model of the universe constructed out of only 4 dimensional spacetime. The spacetime used is a combination of Einstein’s general relativistic spacetime on the macroscopic scale and the quantum mechanical spacetime with its vacuum fluctuations and zero point energy on the quantum mechanical scale. It is shown that fundamental particles constructed from 4 dimensional spacetime must have angular momentum and must exhibit intrinsic inertia without a Higgs field. Therefore, coming from a completely different perspective, there is agreement with this website (Eliyahu Comay) that there is no Higgs boson, no Higgs field and no fundamental particle with spin zero.

In the spacetime based model of the universe, the vacuum is a sea of vacuum fluctuations that are wave distortions of spacetime with displacement amplitude permitted by the uncertainty principle. These waves lack angular momentum and have the large energy density required by QED and QCD. While this may have some similarities to a Higgs field and perhaps fulfill some of the functions of the Higgs field, it is not the same as a Higgs field. In fact, it is shown that these vacuum fluctuations are the physical cause of the uncertainty principle but they do not impart inertia.

20. oscar says:

perhaps we have to consider that time itself can be : T+it…..this changes a lot

21. If Higgs boson is confirmed by LHC, the problem of mass and inertia of particles can be solved based on Higgs theory. Nevertheless according to H particle-paths hypothesis in site H-particles.com/, an alternate postulate for particle mass and inertia can be down. According to that, the mass or inertia is the competition of reversible moving H particle-paths respect to single direction (or non-reversible one)

22. It seems I got it wrong when I suggested that physicists might do what they did with quarks, and declare the Higgs undetectable. Rather it appears that somebody at Cern has twigged that if they end the search by Christmas, then they will be out of work in the new year. So they have now announced that they need another year to complete the search. What’s the betting that this time next year they will still need another year?

23. Eliyahu Comay says:

Dear Ben (answer to your post from October 19, 2011),
Your first argument is incorrect. Please have a look at the following expression enclosed in square brackets:
H\psi = i[\hbar d\psi/dt] (1)
Plank’s \hbar is real.
\psi is real (because books claim this property).
t represents time and it is real.
Hence, the quantity enclosed in the square brackets is real. Now, if a real number is multiplied by “i” then the result is a pure imaginary number. This outcome justifies the claim of http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/Appetizer.pdf and denies your argument.
Next, the Hamiltonian is a Hermitian operator and there is a theorem stating that all eigenvalues of a Hermitian operator are real.
The energy of a physical particle takes a positive value.
Here we arrive at a contradiction: a non-vanishing number is both real and pure imaginary.
In your counterexample (found after “…done):”) you use a complex function. This is inappropriate. You cannot deny my claims about real functions by showing an example of a complex function!
My “Appetizer” which is the subject of your Comment protects quantum physics of massive particles as a theory that uses complex functions. It denies the introduction of real functions as legitimate elements of this theory. In your second argument you use (again!) complex functions and thereby you provide an implicit support for my claim.

• Gravitas Shortfall... imminent. says:

Apart from the fact that H\psi = i[\hbar d\psi/dt] is *not* the definition of the Hamiltonian. It is the definition of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation (TDSE).

The fundamental definition of the Hamiltonian is H = T + V, with appropriate operators for T and V. All you have shown is that the Klein-Gordon equation is, in fact, not the TDSE.

Which I can tell by the fact that they have different names.

• Eliyahu Comay says:

Dear Gravitas,
Please note the following points which refer to your Comment on the contents of the link http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/Appetizer.pdf (hereafter called (A)):
1. Item 6 of (A) explains why any quantum theory must have an expression for energy. The corresponding expression is called Hamiltonian.
2. In a relativistic theory the Hamiltonian must be a 0-component of a 4-vector.
3. The De Broglie principle relates energy and momentum to the wave nature of a quantum mechanical particle.
4. Eq. (1) of (A) follows from the points mentioned above. It is not a definition of the Hamiltonian but a relationship that the Hamiltonian satisfies. Evidently, I have the right to use (1) in my analysis.
You should also note that your linguistic argument is not completely correct. For example, the Dirac equation also takes the form (1) of (A), although its different name indicates that it differs from the Schroedinger equation.
BTW. It can be shown that any form of the Klein-Gordon equation leads to contradictions (see sections 1-4 of http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf). However, (A) is dedicated only to real functions.

• Ben says:

Hello again! I appreciate you taking the time to rely so swiftly and I need to explain myself more verbosely! Here goes!

Let us remember the eigenfunction theory from mathematics textbooks. If H is a operator we have an eigenfunction b, with an eigenvalue v only if:
Hb = v*b. If Hb is not proportional to b then there is no eigenvalue defined! So there are two cases, the right handsde is not an eigenfunction so no eigenvalue exists for it and there is explicitly no problem OR one exists and we must look at it.

For the equation you state the right hand side is indeed imaginary. For the RHS to be an eigefunction it must be linearly proportional to psi. Here dpsi/dt is the only non constant term.

FIRST CASE: If dpsi/dt not lineary dependant on Cpsi, in this case one can NOT infer the eigenvalues as Hpsi and it is NOT an eigenfunction. So there is no issue.

SECOND CASE: At this point we need to explicitly use beginning assumption the field is pure real, which is not generally the case (imaginary parts are phases in QM) but one can indeed follow it through, so let us do that!
If dpsi/dt proportional to psi, we indeed have eigenvalues, plugging in the Hamiltonian form (in 1d for ease) T + V = -(hbar^2)/2m*(d^2/dx^2) +V (which can be found on Wikipedia) for a general case one finds the only solution is the case I said, ie the time part is e^(-iCt) (non exponential terms mean probability is not conserved so are disallowed). BUT we want psi to be real and so our only choice is that C=0, ie time component is e^(0) = 1 and dpsi/dt = 0.
Hence the eigenvalue equation is Hpsi=0*i*psi, with eigenvalue 0*i=0, which is real (as the imaginary component has length 0) but not interesting! I was lazy to simply states the e^(iCt) part, I assumed it would follow this must be equal one in our scenario. Sorry about that!
In general interesting scenarios have complex wavefunctions. Here, when one differentaties with respect to time a imaginary factor comes down and one has an i come down. So we have real object * i * i, which is real!.

You seem to be claiming that you can do all QM without any complex fields which is not true. Anyway, I’ve got pogo sticks to attend to, bye!

• Ben says:

One more thing fella:
In point 5 of the yummy appetizer you say
‘As of today, all kinds of massive point-like particles found in experiment are Dirac particles’.
Dirac particles as in fermions, you mean? The W and Z bosons have mass, aren’t fermions and were seen at LEP. The plots have nice resonances.

• Eliyahu Comay says:

You said about my short article (A) that “You seem to be claiming that you can do all QM without any complex fields which is not true.” This shows that you do not understand the issue which is described in (A) in general and my point of view in particular. Indeed, text books [1-5] of (A) (and not myself) claim that real field can be a legitimate element of quantum physics. You should also know that nobody claims that all QM can be formulated by real functions only. Contrary to your statement, the arguments presented in (A) show that I disagree to the idea of including real functions in QM and that I provide appropriate proofs that substantiate my claims. Therefore, your statement makes no sense at all.

Regarding your comment about W,Z bosons – see the last paragraphs in this post.

24. Harfer says:

Higgs and quark masses are free parameters in the Standard Model. They are not predicted. This can of course be seen as a problem of the Standard Model, but it must not distract from the fact that our quantum field theories make incredibly precise predictions (many significant digits!) for small coupling constants, and that even in the cases where our mathematical tools are limited the effects we see can be understood very well. Mankind has never come up with such a precise description of nature before – which does not mean that we cannot do even better in the future, of course. 🙂

• That is a very balanced post, but something physicists tend to overlook, is that just because a model makes accurate predictions, it does not necessarily mean it is a correct description of nature, the classic case being Newtonian mechanics.
The Higgs mechanism does at least appear to be falsifiable, but I just suspect that it might get a last minute reprieve because somebody thinks of a reason why it should be undetectable.
The problem with quarks is not that their masses cannot be calculated, rather it is that they are so vague that the theory is hard to falsify. If the hundreds of hadrons and mesons had their masses measured to six significant figures, it would do nothing to prove or disprove quark theory. A proper particle theory would be testable by this method, in the same way that the composition of atomic nuclei is verified by the masses of atoms.
Obama has shut down the Tevatron to spend the money on health care for illegals, doubtless some people would like to do the same to Cern. Cern does not want to risk getting branded a white elephant, so to pre-empt that they should be starting to acknowledge that the Higgs is now unlikely to be found, claiming to have efficiently overturned one aspect of 50 years of accepted theory, and trying to get the public excited about the next project. I think the next project should be to try to measure particle masses as accurately as possible, mostly because it would test my own model, but also because it would test any proper theory about the masses of particles.

• P. Peretto says:

It is absolutely impossible to prove that something, whatever the thing, does not exist because an absence of proof is not a proof of absence. The search for the absence of Higgs is hopeless. Morever eventhough a scalar particle is detected at LHC it will be impossible to conclude that the particle is actually a genuine Higgs particle

• Ofer Comay says:

You are right, but this post is not only about whether the Higgs would be found or not. It is about the erroneous physical structure of the Higgs. I think that before investing in new experiments, physicists must sit for a while and recheck their equations.
Until today more than 1000 people had download the scientific article which Comay wrote about the Higgs. This article proves that the equations are not coherent. No one had responded so far. I wonder what we can conclude regarding this silence.

25. @Newtspeare
There are good physicist and bad physicists. You seem to prefere reading the works of bad physicists.

• Actually I rarely read books, rather I look for experimental evidence to test my ideas. Certainly the physics behind modern technology is mankind’s greatest achievement, and the LHC is no exception; however the concept of the Higgs mechanism in no way matches up to physicists’ technical and mathematical successes. I think it is awful the way the geniuses behind things like DVDs and satellite TV end up earning less than the morons that appear on them; and I regret the fact that amongst the physics community the fantasists seem to be the ones who achieve fame and fortune. My point below was just to expose the hypocrisy of people who attack religion, but then accept any old nonsense provided they are told to by somebody who is supposed to be a scientist. Of course there are good physicists, but apart from James Lovelock they seem to be virtually ignored by the media. If you are a good physicist, or you know one, you might like to check out my Squish Theory.

• The problem that must be solved is what must be done about the methodology behind the standard model when the Higgs boson does not exist. There is enough discorvered in the LHC about other aspects of the SM in order to assign validity to these aspects. However, I did not yet hear of a repair of the SM methodology in case the Higgs is actually not there.

26. alma says:

how can I get news to someone at the accelerator regarding the God particle. I found it, it is simple. someone tell them it is simple, the elemental potassium does not exist on this planet. it comes from super novas colliding with air and water to cause the violet flame.to ignite hydrogen

27. Mike Nemec says:

Only god can know if the higgs boson really exists or not.

• LeLapin says:

Only the higgs boson can know if god really exists or not.

• Clive Dudley Ward says:

God, like the Higgs Boson, is hypothesised upon the evidence of the model. It works, – Higgs does not…………………………….yet

• God is omniscient so clearly he does know that the Higgs does not exist. The big question is whether the theorists will ever accept the result of the experiment, or merely find excuses to carry on believing in the same mythical creatures in which they have believed for the last 50 years.

• Harfer says:

What? You claim you believe what you imagine your invisible friend thinks, and on that basis you refute the most precise mathematical description of the universe that mankind ever came up with? I can’t decide whether to call this ridiculous or simply nuts.

• Harfer says:

Or maybe you just couldn’t figure out the difference between “mythical” and “mathematical”?

• Particles have mass because they are made of electric charges, for instance the mass of the proton is accounted for by the fact that it contains roughly 2501 charges; that is why I know that the Higgs does not exist. Since God is supposed to be omniscient, he must know that too; however people who do not believe in God need not worry their pretty little heads about his omniscience.

Since people are openly talking about the possibility of the Higgs being disproved by Xmas, it is a funny time to choose to defend it. Actually I think Cern ought to delay the announcement till after Xmas, because Xmas is a stressful time for atheists. Not only do they have to not believe in the virgin birth, many atheists do not believe in father Xmas either; on top of all that hearing the Higgs particle is a hoax might just push them over the edge.

People who claim to be physicists, claim to believe in nonsense like wormholes and time travel, because they claim these things can be deduced from the mathematics of general relativity. So what exactly is the difference between mythical and mathematical?

• “the most precise mathematical description of the universe that mankind ever came up with?”

So precise that they don’t even know at what energy to find the Higgs; and where the mass of each quark has fudge factor greater than the mass of 4 electrons.

28. Christopher Mason says:

Data, data and more data then we may have answers. Those that say it doesn’t have no unequivocal proof those that say it exists have yet to reach sigma 5 as more data and more testing is required, it seems that we are getting close to an answer in the easier dataset, then there is still the more difficult set to tackle. Lets do the science then talk about this subject later….

29. Jay says:

You don’t half talk some shit…

30. This may be as big a night in physics as when E=mc2. Quantum Physics and entanglement may have to be redone and if this is correct, Physics Research may be so wrong that it could take 20+ years to correct it. Since it has been proven 0+0=0 and Prof. Stephen Hawkings has proven beyond any doubt that there needs to be No god. Now the LHC at CERN announces no god particle exists. No Higgs bonon particle! kerrydeanweather@hotmail.com Kerry

• Hans says:

Stephen Hawkings also proved he doesn’t need legs. Yet I have legs. (At least i think i do.)

31. […] Een project waar veel geld mee gemoeid is, als ik de website van CERN bekijk waaronder het LHC-project valt gaat het me al duizelen. Aan de andere kant zijn er anderen die beweren dat HIGGS er gewoon niet is. […]

32. newtspeare says:

You are certainly right that the Higgs, like gluons, does not exist, and that the weak nuclear force is not caused by particles. Indeed it is not possible for particles to directly convey any force other than momentum.

However to make proper sense of things, it is also necessary to dispense with the idea of quarks; as the universe must ultimately be reducible to simple units, rather than the dozens of fundamental particles and antiparticles suggested by the standard model.

Anybody smart enough to realise that the Higgs does not exist, might want to check out Squish Theory, where all particles are described in terms of collections of positive and negative charges. You will almost certainly conclude that the chance of Squish Theory being right is only one in a million, but that should at least help you understand why physicists continue to believe in the Higgs despite the overwhelming experimental evidence that it does not exist.

33. Morp says:

The highs bosson is a hypothesis based on the Bohr atom which is a negation of the fundamental laws of nature. Like all other hypothetical particles based on the Bohr atom Bighs particles do not exist and will never be found

34. Deckard Cain says:

A voice is said in the background about your article to Boson Higgs:
“Finish Him!”
“Fatality”

lol
We need to stop overpowering senior physicit’s *opinions* (no proof like the probability comment in the footnote) that doesn’t have any humility like Feynman search for true knowledge.

Your footnote depicts why physics is following a wrong line of thinking for some time, aka zeitgeit, because the same problem which has existed in all human history: human pride

• Hans says:

Actually not just pride.
it may be the best you have. And lack of creativity in 99.9 % of physiicists (or any other profession group). Also aptitude of the theory to describe known phenomenons plays a part. And let’s face it: the standard model has yielded excellent results in the past. Maybe we are just now arriving at the borders of it’s validity and need some serious rethinking in light of current knowledge and thinking.
Science is a collective body of knowledge. Therefore theories are only scientific if they are shared or sharable by a number of people. If everybody would just sit down and invent his own theory maybe 1 would come out as the most valid, but many thousands would be invalid in a multitude of graduations.

I personally think the Higgs boson does not exist as a smallest particle adding mass to matter. But I will not be surprised if they find some particle in the place where they look for it.

I am a philosopher interested in science, not a physicist. So I only have an intuitive idea about it. I am glad to find a lot of people here who have a lot more expertise in the matter who have the same idea about it as me. (Shows that I am not just some loony.)

35. lorena bobbit says:

While my butt is quite smelly, the baryons of entropy do not allow for the existencet o of the higgs boson. You must use chloroform on the patinet, and finger his p-branes.

36. james says:

Is,nt our universe so massive that it has to be the case that there must be millions of atom like universes ?…(this is a genuine question for me)….Of course if we give up asking questions we give up !..Its just that even as a very young child in primary school i always leaned towards this having must be the case…I love to be fascinated in summary and hope we never learn everything !..And im agnostic ! …

37. I saw one of those particles coming out of my neighbor’s outhouse, it had a glow to it.

38. I am a common man, however when I imagine the edge of the known universe (the very large) I see the very small. As the universe expands I cannot see the entirety until it is there. How much more uncertainty could we all hope for? Peeling back the onion of knowledge will eventually bring us to the edge of the known universe.
Thank you for making this available to the common man.

39. Maurizio Pierini says:

Hello

While not for the reasons exposed here, many theorists believe that the Higgsboson might not exist, or that at most there might be a particle behaving like the Higgs but not being an elementary particle. There is a fact. The Standard Model (SM) works at high precision in describing the phenomena we observed until now (in particular the behavior of the W and Z bosons, verified to the sub-permill precision). Any theory that aims to replace the SM should be as precise and predictive as the SM. Said this, we know that a Higgs-less SM produces an anomaly called the violation of unitarity (namely the probability of a phenomenon being greater than one, which violates the definition of probability) in WW scattering. So we know that something has to happen at high energy to prevent this violation. It can be the Higgs, it can be something else. We are looking for any possible explanation at the LHC, not just the Higgs boson.

It is then unfair (and wrong) to state that millions of dollars have been spent to find the Higgs. The money used to build LEP, Tevatron, and the LHC was used to find the answers to problems. The Higgs mechanism is the most widely accepted answer, but not the only one, and not necessarily the correct one. Data, not conjectures, will tell us the truth. And data come with investment. Not spending the money will not be a way to say if you are right or wrong.

Keep also in mind that we are talking about a small fraction (<0.1%) of the budget of a nation. And that, thanks to this, you are now able to have a web site. I guess you know that the www was invented at CERN to help the communication among the scientists working on the Large Electron Proton collider (LEP).

Regards

• Eliyahu Comay says:

1. The Higgs boson
Physics must rely on a self-consistent mathematical structure. I claim that the Higgs Lagrangian suffers contradictions. This claim is proved in the first 4 pages of this article http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf
If you are short in time then you may read just 10 lines that present a theoretical contradiction which is the tip of the iceberg of the Higgs issue. See item 1 of the following http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/Appetizer.pdf

2. The Standard Model (SM)
QCD is a part of the SM. QCD experts have predicted the existence of strongly bound pentaquarks and of “Strange Quark Matter”. In spite of an extensive search that lasted more than 2 decades, the existence of neither of these objects has been confirmed. Here we see examples of a 100% failure. Other examples of QCD failures exist.

3. Physics and Budgets
Please note that it is fair to mention physics’ budget because in so doing one does not violate the truth. Due to the enormous contribution of physics to modern technology, I think that physics deserves even higher amount of money for research promotion. The point is if this budget is used in an optimal way. For example, I understand that you are a member of CERN’s CMS team. Assume that somebody tells you that there is a problem with a connection of a cable of the CMS detectors. In such a situation I’m sure that you will follow him and examine the connection in order to see if he is right. The same approach should take place in the case of theoretical problems. Thus, can you explain me why so many people have already seen the mathematical contradictions mentioned in the two links of item 1 above and nobody was able to show me why I’m wrong. Do you really think that theoretical physicists do a good job if they decide to bury their head in the sand? Analogously, can you explain me why so many QCD experimental failures exist and no serious scholar discussion of QCD’s theoretical validity has been organized?

• Mark A Simpson says:

There is a group of educated mathematicians and physicists working in a group callefd String Theory Development, which I am mediator. We are all part of other research groups and historys. We have alot in common and are rwriting the physics model. I see from your comments that you have tried to publish the correct methods for analyzing these complex issues. I just wanted to assure you your position is nearly correct. Our model of a tripolar quark had indeed fit the conceptualization like a hanfd in glove. As a group we are assisting Cern to find a way out of their mistakes, while other groups now know how to test the proton, because we have modeled the fields. I have also modeled a quantum spacial calculator that models charges for the quark-antiquark pairs. All of this is on Facebook. Best Regards, Mark Aaron Simpson

• extraTsu says:

You still use real numbers, complex functions and partial differential equations ? Unfortunately, this is a dead-end way to represent the Universe.

• Ben says:

Hello,

In the first point you quote H[psi]=i*hbar*d[psi]/dt. Then state this shows the eigenvalues of H are imaginary. H is an operator not a number. One cannot equate ‘imaginaryness’ simply. The eignenvalue equation states b is an eigenvalue if H[a]=b[a]. Following this through we see a real eigenvalue.
For the time independant case (too tiresome to type out the full one but it ca be done):
[psi]= e^(-iCt/hbar)[phi] where C is real,such that i*hbar*d[psi]/dt = i*hbar*-iC/hbar = C, which one would identify as the real Energy not as stated imaginary.

The second point, I’m not sure how wat you say is a problems. We have in our orbital wavefunction, the spherical Harmonic Ylm. It is true then in the case you point ou the psi dependace in e^(i*m*psi) and in general this is complex. This is is not a issue as the wavefunction is not tanglible and can be complex. The probability of the particle in some orbital state/position/etc is given by the mod squared of this, which is by definition real. ‘This point concludes the proof’ I don’t see how. Your agrument here is not only to say QFT is wrong but all of Quantum atomic theory and the body of evidence for it (to start how the semiconducting chips in our computers work) is not small.

I’d be interested for your response.

• It does not help to prove that the Higgs does not exist or is a false concept. A better approach is to prove that the Higgs is not required. That can be done by showing that there are other means to add mass to particles.
I stripped the Dirac equation from its obscuring matrices and spinors and wrote that equation by using naked quaternions that come in four different flavours. Fields must have the same flavor for each of its values. The coordinate system that acts as field parameter, also acts as reference system for the flavor. One field flavor exist that has the flavor of the coordinate system. The next flavor represents the quaternionic conjugate. A switch to this flavor switches three imaginary base vectors. It flips the handeness of the field with respect to the reference flavor. The third flavor corresponds to a flip of two imaginary base vectors. The flip does not change the handedness. The fourth flavor switches only one imaginary base vector. The flip affects handednes.
The four flavors correspond to four Dirac like equations and two extra cross equations. They appear to be the equations of movement of a large scala of particles, whose properties can be explained with the quaternion field flavors. The equations also lead to secondary equations that enable to compute the masses if the particles from the private fields of the particles. See: http://www.crypts-of-physics.eu/Quaternionic_continuity_equation_for_charges.pdf

• Thank you for that! The voice of reason. If we don’t invest the cash we’ll never know the answers. I think the team at Cerne are doing the most amazing and ground-breaking work for the benefit of all humanity and should be given all that it takes to accomplish their work. I’m a mere window cleaner but my understanding is that whilst the higgs boson may well not exist, the work at Cerne will eventually show this alongside myriad other answers to the fundamental questions of physics. We as a species have only been aware that these questions even exist for 50 years or so! Humans should support the great endeavours of our race with unity, but a big donut in the ground has little of the appeal of, say, a Saturn 5 on lift-off, so public opinion may not always be in favour of the costs involved. Silly Public…Keep up the mind-blowing good work!

• Gerardo W. Físcher says:

Thanks, Steve Walkey. Would all common people argument like you, our world might be a better one. In the times of Albert Einstein, dark matter and dark energy were unknown. One day it will be proved that dark matter isn’t matter at all but just a free gravitation field, and dark energy not just that but a free anti-gravitation field where time flows backward. Both fields don’t enter in General Relativity and theory of high energy physics. There is still much to investigate, the non-appearance of the Higgs boson just being an alarm signal.

• Hans says:

Stop begging for cash please?

40. I have discovered a new particle, her I called Veegtrón and is in the entire universe by float to the planets and Sun, I hope you enjoy my theory is in http://www.theory-espinoza.es.tl

41. camilo fernandez pacios says:

Señores:
La falta de seriedad y objetividad que se desprende,eso si,muy sutilmente del articulo, hace,a mi juicio,que deje mucho que desear.
Me gusta estar (y lo estoy) informado de todo lo que pueda abarcar
en temas científicos. Últimamente noto cierto desinterés y sarcasmo en algunas www. me pregunto que pretenden con ello. Si como científicos, SE
NOS EXIGE seriedad y objetividad en esta labor, háganlo con honestidad,y
quizás, merezcamos ser los receptores en los cuales confiaron sus conocimientos y logros nuestros antepasados hombres y mujeres de ciencia,
que como TODOS SABEMOS, algunos salieron mal parados y pagaron con su vida de múltiples maneras.
Por tanto, yo como ciudadano (al menos) exijo de Uds. que estén a la altura, si no pueden, dedíquense a otras labores.

42. My experience with measurements at low dose rates, with intensified starlight scopes and with X-ray image intensifiers is that ALL information comes to us in the form of clouds of quanta. These quanta are generated by Poisson processes. The efficiency can be weakened by subsequent binomial processes, but the combination can again be seen as a Poisson process. A lateral blur of the cloud can also be interpreted as a binomial process. Thus, the cloud can be characterized as being generated by a set of Poisson processes. It has a Poissonian probability distribution. When it can be attributed to a single particle, it can be interpreted as its wave function. It can also be interpreted as the private field that is emitted/generated by the particle. When all private fields are summed together, then a covering field results. Field theory tells that the static form of this field can be decomposed in a rotation free part and one or two divergence free parts. (This results from Helmholtz theorem or if you want from Hodge theorem. The decomposition runs along curved lines. This curvature can be used to construct a derived field whose charges reflect the local curvature. Call this field the curvature field. It has all aspects of the gravitation field. This reasoning would make Higgs bosons superfluous.

• Harfer says:

Either I misunderstand your post, or you are actually unaware that the Higgs field and the gravitational field bear no relation whatsoever. If you have some way of describing gravitation, it does not tell you anything at all about the Higgs mechanism.

• Orwin O'Dowd says:

Poisson’s gravity equation is widely used in neo-classical electrodynamics, e.g. by Slater. But Hans’ argument reaches back to Lambert’s classical work on errors of observation. His W function is the exponential form of Shannon information, a good deal more real than q-bits, and still in use, but only for real molecules and materials. There is no point-potential busking for the nucleus and ghosting up a geometric zoo. Real stuff has pH, polarizes, as Slater knew so well, deforming in the range of mesons, where corrosional stress causes real cracking, also in real nuclear power stations, but sadly under reported
Paramagnetic austenite steel is to blame here, demonstrating magnetic stresses inside molecules. Solitons in the Yukawa potential are stable only in two dimensions, which is a better explanation for the cracks than reduction to fictional geometries – the old conceit of Platonism.

.

• sam says:

dont you mean STRING theory?

43. Eliyahu Comay says:

Hello Harfer – I want to reply to your comment from March 9.

You are right. The scope of the Higgs idea is not restricted to the Standard Model (SM). However, please note that this site is dedicated to a refutation of some aspects of the SM. The world of physics is quite large. Let other people carry out an analysis of other kinds of objects related to Higgs.

It can be stated that the SM Higgs particle has some similarities with other kinds of Higgs objects. The following points are of a great importance: all particles of this family suffer from the same theoretical discrepancies like those of the SM Higgs boson; the existence of none of them has been confirmed experimentally.

There is also a major difference between the SM Higgs boson and other kinds of Higgs particles. Thus, unlike the other kinds of objects belonging to this family, the SM Higgs boson attracts the utmost attention. I believe that after refuting the existence of the SM Higgs boson one deserves the right to call it a day.

BTW. I notice that you still do not settle the problems related to the quite large number of examples of QCD experimental failure which are mentioned in my Reply of January 28, 2011. Is it so difficult to refute the claims of QCD failures which are presented on this site?

44. Jared says:

First I must confess, that I did not bother to read through your entire article as I found error in the very premise of your argument. Also, a lot of the field theory involved is above my education as a physics major… but the issues I find immediately deal with elementary knowledge.

“The Higgs Boson belongs to a family of particles which, by definition, are massive, elementary and spinless.”

Since when is this the definition of a boson? Bosons are classified by an integer multiple of spin 1. All of these bosons have spin = 1, not spinless, like the Higgs is theorized to have.

Also, only two of the four known bosons are massive and those are the most recently discovered bosons in the standard model. So ignoring the field theory explanation of why the particle would be massless, I do not see any issue with believing why it would not be.

• Ofer Comay says:

Indeed, the boson family have integer spin. The Higgs boson belongs to a sub-family, and it is supposed to have spin-0 (not spin-1) and mass between 115 to 185 GeV. Look in the Higgs boson definition in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson.

Regarding the W,Z bosons – it wasn’t proved that they are elementary. The standard model claims that these are elementary, and provides equations which are not self consistent.

• Harfer says:

That’s not quite correct. The mass range only applies for one particular type of Higgs boson model (the Standard Model Higgs boson). There is a multitude of other proposed theories or variants of theories that are not bound by these Standard Model fits.
Furthermore, there are even theories that realize the Higgs mechanism without a fundamental Higgs boson. What serves as the Higgs could actually be something composite.
But I can confirm that a spin 0 particle does follow Bose Einstein statistics and is thus a boson despite being spin-less. (0 is an integer too!)

45. Eliyahu Comay says:

Hello Harfer. I understand that you disagree with the physical ideas published in my papers and discussed in this site as well as in my site [1]. Unfortunately, after reading your last comment from 27-2, I’m still not aware of any specific error included in my work and I do not see where you make a scientifically acceptable argument explaining your point of view [2]. I do really want that other people examine critically my work and put forward scientifically good arguments having either pro or con meaning. I know that some people belonging to the present mainstream have seen (a part of) my work. However, nobody has shown me scientifically acceptable argument that proves the existence of even a single erroneous point in my work. I still wait for this kind of discussion.

In my previous Reply I show you an article containing theoretical arguments against some specific issues like the Higgs particle. Realizing that you are an experimentalist, I complement my first Reply and show you links to pages containing many experimental results that demonstrate QCD failure [3,4]. I’ll be very grateful for knowing your opinion on their contents.

[1] http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/
[2] For example, the fact that many people adhere to a certain scientific idea does not prove its correctness.
[3] A list of experimental QCD failures can be found here: https://nohiggs.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/comay-model-vs-the-standard-model/ Details of these points are discussed in other pages of this site.
[4] Have a look in the following link. Items marked with asterisks show QCD failures: http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/OVERVIEW.html

• alma says:

can I just say please look up elemental potassium. as easy as wikipidia. it says that elemental potassium does not exist in nature. it is volatile when it meets air or water, violet light can light hydrogen (the sun) exposively!
big bang? also, God like, in molecular weight…the number 19 is a God number as 1+9=10 which is 1 =God number.
violet flame=the flame of all creationpotassium is found in supernovas not on earth becasue of its inability to mix with water or air.
.

46. Eliyahu Comay says:

Hello Peretto. I agree with many issues mentioned in your last comment. Few remarks:
1. In my opinion it is OK if two scientists disagree on issues. I think that disagreements help clarifying the issues debated.
2. Ptolemy. You are not the first one who points out the resemblance between our current particle physics state and that of Ptolemy [1]. More than two decades have elapsed since [1] has been published and the situation has not improved.
3. I think that my work contains all the elements needed for a proof of the unacceptability of a quantum equation of an elementary pointlike spin-0 particle. The following list describes them.

A. A quantum theory needs a Hamiltonian [2].
B. The time derivative of a wave function and the De Broglie relations yield a first order quantum mechanical equation where the Hamiltonian stands on the right hand side.
C. Textbooks deriving the Dirac equation prove that a scalar field does not yield a relativistic first order equation for the time derivative.
D. The higher order equations found for a scalar field are inconsistent with the first order equation mentioned in item B above [3]. Hence, an elementary pointlike spin-0 particle is inconsistent with an indispensable element of quantum theory.

[1] M. Machacek, Phys. Today 42, November, 13 (1989). http://link.aip.org/getpdf/servlet/GetPDFServlet?filetype=pdf&id=PHTOAD000042000011000013000001
[2] See item 6 of http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/Appetizer.pdf
[3] See sections 1-4 of E. Comay, Prog. in Phys. 4, 91 (2009).
http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf

• peretto says:

Dear Dr Comay,
Let us factorize the Klein Gordon equation K=0 as K=AD. Then either D=0, this is the Dirac equation, an equation whose validity seems certain, or A=0 an equation, I agree, that has no physical interpretation since it implies imaginary masses. The unphysical character of A=0, however, does not jeopardize the validity of K=0 since if D=0 then K=0 whatever A may be.
Let us see why a Higgs field seems necessary to the standard model of particle.
The (Mrs Wu) experiment shows that the parity symmetry in fully violated in weak interactions and that the neutrinos are in consequence fully left handed particles. This seems to imply that the universe is in reality made of two universes, a right handed one and a left handed one. The existence of this dichotomy makes the mass term of the particle Lagrangian disappear. Whence the need of the Higgs field. I think that the massless (or almost massless) leptons (the neutrinos) are left handed from the start without appealing to a universe dichotomy and therefore that the above chain of consequences is not necessary. The terms left and right are misleading since they seem to refer to left and right hands for example. Mathematically a left handed particle is a particle whose state is an eigenstate with eigen value -1 of the Dirac matrix gamma 5 . It would be enough to prove that this state is the state of lowest energy to make unncessary the Higgs field.
Sincerely yours

• Eliyahu Comay says:

I want to make 2 remarks about your last Comment:

Multiplying the Dirac operator by itself yields the KG equation [1]. It follows that in your notation A==D. Hence, A doesn’t add information to the Dirac theory. The KG equation is a constraint on the components of the solutions of the Dirac equations.

It is a policy of this site not to discuss weak interactions. In my opinion, issues belonging to special relativity, foundations of quantum mechanics, electrodynamics and strong interactions provide a wide range of topics. Let other people devote time and intellectual energy for the construction and maintenance of sites discussing other subjects.

[1] J. D. Bjorken and S.D. Drell, Relativistic Quantum Mechanics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964).

47. peretto says:

The argument concluding to the non-existence of Higgs particles could proceed as follows:
Higgs bosons are spinless massive particles. The theory that could describe the dynamics of Higgs bosons is the Klein-Gordon equation. This theory, and its associated KG equation, is meaningless, therefore the Higgs bosons do not exist.
Another example:
Oranges are colourful massives fruits. The theory that could describe the colour of oranges states that oranges must be blue. This theory is false, therefore the oranges do not exist.

• Harfer says:

Well, fortunately, real physics is so much more meaningful than this silly blabla.

• Eliyahu Comay says:

I agree. However, your statement looks ambiguous because it does not define what real physics is and what “silly blabla” is. In order to remove the ambiguity, I propose that you refute [1] in detail or alternatively state explicitly that in your opinion [1] is real physics.

You should realize that [1] proves that a genuine Higgs boson does not exist (see section 4) and that QCD is wrong because it has no explanation for the interaction of hard real photons with nucleons (see section 5).
Since one expects that refuting “silly blabla” is a very easy task, I hope you would respond to this challenge shortly. If your response is long then please send us a pdf file and we will put it on our site.

A personal remark: I think that it will be nice if you use your true name in your refutation of a “silly blabla”.

[1] E. Comay, “Physical Consequences of Mathematical Principles”, Prog. In Phys. 4, 91 (2009). http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf

• Harfer says:

Unfortunately, like religion, “silly blabla” is *not* easy to refute, because it lacks a rational basis on which to discuss. This makes it very frustrating at times to read how some people think that extremely oversimplified thinking would help them prove the work of generations of highly skilled experts wrong. Nevertheless my choice of words was inappropriate, sorry for that.
I think the situation is different with your reasoning, Prof Comay. You do have the expertise to be able to grasp the mathematics behind our theories, probably more so than myself, being an experimentalist who barely has sufficient experience with the theoretical foundations of particle physics to teach introductory courses. I do see, and have mentioned before, issues with your arguments that make them difficult for me to accept. I have the impression that some of your assumptions are not required, and thus the contradictions you encounter are not you are asking the wrong questions, and the answers to those wrong questions lead you to believe that other people have gotten the answers to the RIGHT questions wrong. I do not claim to be knowledgeable enough to decide who is making what mistake, but it is quite clear that if there were a simple fundamental mistake in our theories that could be demonstrated with a few lines of maths, then our conferences would be buzzing with it – after all, our field is in a situation where are desperately looking for alternatives to the simple Higgs mechanism, given that the experimental results are excluding a large chunk of the possible phase space already.
To compare your situation with Ptolemy is quite frankly nothing but ridiculous, though. Our theories continue to develop, and you think the direction they are evolving in is wrong. Other experts, while discussing many possibilities, either overlook your suggestions or dismiss them. There were situations in history where individuals made ingenious contributions that were not accepted as such until a long time later. However, these situations were extremely rare, and in most cases, especially in the open societies we are enjoying these days, alternative theories do get the merit they deserve.

• Eliyahu Comay says:

If one adheres to pure (and detached) logics then your comment looks correct. However, in the case of theoretical physics I think that it does not hold.

A fundamental cornerstone of my approach to physics is the search for good mathematics as a basis for doing good physics. Here I try to follow people regarded as world leaders [1,2]. The argument goes as follows:
Well established physical theories have a mathematical basis. Here one does not need to be aware of all relevant cases belonging to the domain of validity of these theories. Once a fundamental theory is established then every relevant result follows. (For example, to the best of my knowledge Dirac has searched a relativistically self-consistent quantum equation. It turns out that his relativistic equation also explains the electron’s spin, its magnetic moment, the positron etc.) For this reason, if you agree with me then you should realize that in cases of a mature physical theory, particles do not appear out of the blue. Thus, today we know that elementary point-like spinless Klein-Gordon (KG) particles have not been detected in the last 75 years. We also know that the KG equation has uncorrectable flaws [3].

Therefore, in my opinion, the Dirac equation is regarded as the quantum mechanical equation of massive particles. On the basis of these arguments I take the “risk” of predicting that a genuine Higgs particle does not exist.
(If you still do think that a Higgs boson exists then you may bet with S. Hawking.)

[1] Eugene Wigner (1960). “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences”. Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13 (1): 1–14.
[2] P. A. M. Dirac “Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory”, Editor A. R. Marlow (Academic, New York, 1978).
[3] E. Comay, “Physical Consequences of Mathematical Principles”, Prog. In Phys. 4, 91 (2009). http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf

• peretto says:

Dear Dr Comay,
I appreciate the quiet pace of your comment. Although I am still not convinced by your arguments I believe, like you, that the Higgs particles do not exist and I bet with Hawking against Higgs. The absence of proof is not a proof of absence otherwise we could conclude from the absence of wired telephones in painted caverns that the prehistoric man has invented the cellular telephone. By the way I do not believe in (super)string theory, I do not believe in technicolor theories, and I do not believe in quantum gravity. I think that no complicated mathematics, say the Callabi-Yau spaces for example, are necessary to understand the universe and that we are now in a sort of silly Ptolemaic epoch .

• Hans says:

You are right peretto. You cannot “prove” they don’t exist. But outside the theory there would not be clues they would exist. So if the theory is meaningless any claim they should exist is meaningless. Therefore it would be implausible they exist. However if measurements indicate a phenomenon at the place where the particles are expected according to the theory we have a new challenge of explaining that.

48. George C. says:

Every generation of scientists have thought they pretty well had a handle on things. Physicists in particular have been especially guilty of this. I’m just a layman, but even I know a Scientist would wait for the LHC to run the intended series at full power before deciding. Since you’re not, what ARE you? Probably a bureaucrat as those are the only people who do ‘research’ based not on their own work but do metastudies of other peoples.

• Ofer Comay says:

Scientists predicted the existence of the Higgs more than 40 years ago. Do you agree that it was appropriate to predict this particle? If you do, then why do you say that predicting that this particle wouldn’t be found is inappropriate?

Another problematic aspect is that scientists predicted that the Higgs would be found in the experiment conducted 10 years ago. I guess that within few years, scientists will continue as usual and demand even greater budget for better colliders to find this particle in even higher energy levels. According to your logic we should wait for ever, without saying anything, right?

I think that a proper examination of the Higgs equations cannot be harmful.

49. vance says:

F= G over t/v should work I think.

50. michael j wambeke says:

I bealeave that the simplest answere is the correct one. the atomic mass of the most simple atom(hydrogen) is the grain of sand on a beach. It is the smallest it can get.

• Harfer says:

But you do realize that your grain of sand is made of atoms, don’t you? Why can’t you accept the experimentally proven fact then that hydrogen is absolutely not elementary?
The simplest answer may be correct, but it takes more effort to find the simplest answer than to lie on the beach and stare at the sand.

51. Gerardo W. Físcher says:

Thank you, Eliyahu Comay, for you prompt reply. Today my Google is not accessible, so I can’t see things up as I would.
A. Since my school and university student times till just some 10 years ago the picture was the Big Bang, a universe expanding constantly, probably slowing down by the action of its own mass. The next thing that was found was that the expansion in more recent times is accelerated. Finer observation showed that the accelerating action is variable in time (in the order of magnitude of 10**9 years). From that resulted the name of ‘black energy’ for a pushing force field that could not be explained by normal mass movements.
B. Sergei Kopeikin (University of Missouri) tried to measure the transmission of the gravitational effect with light from a remote quasar and its light passing before and after moving planet Jupiter (Jupiter Light-Deflection Experiment and its Results). I had the intention to simulate the experiment on a computer, but lacking enough data and a team of cooperators I had to abandon the project. His interpretation of the result didn’t seem me convincing. – I agree with you, to criticize General Relativity solid arguments are needed. I just doubt that G.R.works for fields that contain no particles, i.e. spaces where gravitation exists but does not originate in particles of any kind, photons included.
C. the S.G. exercises are not too difficult even for me, thank you. When the behavior of the neutral K mesons showed to break statistical behavior, allowing for K2-branching which is much more shortlived than K3-branching, long after all K2-branching hat ended, the explanation was searched in TIME REVERSAL. I have never been told when that supposed time reversal starts and where it ends. Can time-reversed particles ever be observed without causing paradoxons? But just gravitational fields not originating in particles might have their time running backward, therefore pushing instead of attracting.
D. To be sincere, I can’t have any position as to the Klein-Gordon equation, I have not made any calculations of that kind since almost 50 years. To revive my ability I must find somebody here at the University of San Luis who assists me.
X. Quantum mechanics unite pointlike particles and particles moving as waves. Heavy and accelerable mass have been measured to be numerically equal. But we are inmersed in a galaxy where ‘black matter’ exists. and farther-out clusters of galaxies are pushed apart by ‘black energy’. That’s a new field of investigation.

• Eliyahu Comay says:

I feel I should concentrate only in few fields in theoretical physics: Special Relativity, Electrodynamics, Strong Interactions and Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. The contribution I can make to other topics like dark matter is very limited.

• Dear Author,
in your article you write about the Schroedinger equation:
“… was not coherent with the theory of Special Relativity …”
I know that this is common teachings, but there are ways to include relativity in the Schroedinger equation.
Interestingly a Higgs particle is then also not necessary any more.
You can read the calculations under:
http://www.ludmatec.de/Marwitz_Gauge_Relativity_v17.pdf
But this makes the huge investments in the LHC more or less senseless.
You will therefore never ever find a friend of this theory from people working at the LHC. I guess in a few years they will tell everybody that nobody could had known this.
The money of the LHC should be invested in other research, but the physicists frighten the politicians by the hypothetical invention of super weapons that might be found by others then.

Regards, Ludger

• Harfer says:

Ludger,
Sorry for being frank, but you should be ashamed of spreading such utter and ridiculous nonsense on the internet. Physicists threaten that not building the LHC would favour development of “super weapons”? The LHC being useless in case the Higgs weren’t found? You either have not the least clue about physics (in which case, what reason would I have to at least look at your paper?), or you are trying to mislead people on purpose.
There are a few Higgs-less theories around that are definitely being considered seriously, even though most of us indeed see a Higgs scenario as the most likely option. We know that the current Standard Model, with or without Higgs discovered, has flaws that can be best investigated with a machine like the LHC. If you are not aware of the basics of particle physics, then I doubt you should be talking about it in public in the way you did.

• Harfer says:

Oh, and besides: in your article, you accidentally use the classical Doppler effect rather than the relativistic Doppler effect. This already puts your theory in contradiction to experimental results and makes it quite pointless to read the rest. So much for “they will tell everybody that nobody could had known this”. Instead, it suffices to tell everybody that it was just plain wrong.

52. Eliyahu Comay says:

A. I’ve used Google to search for the combined 2 strings: “repulsive effect” “black energy”. Only two web pages were found and in one of them these two strings are not related. I suspect that your statement: “The mass/antimass idea is based on the well-observed repulsive effect of the so-called ‘black energy’” is inaccurate and the effect is not well observed.
B. Special Relativity (SR) discusses inertial frames whereas General Relativity (GR) discusses gravitation and also non-inertial frames. I agree that GR as well as all other physical theories should not be treated as dogmas. On the other hand I think that one must have very solid arguments for casting doubts on existing physical theories.
C. Let’s do some exercises in SR. Let E,p denote the energy and the absolute value of the momentum of a given particle, respectively. If E > pc then the particle has a self mass, an inertial frame exist where it is seen at rest and at this frame its energy is positive and equals its self mass times c^2. If E=pc then the particle can never be at rest, the relation E=pc is found in all frames and in all frames it moves at the speed of light. If E<pc then there are inertial frames where the particle's energy is negative. This kind of particles has never been observed. You are invited to carry out explicit calculations and prove these statements.
D. I've used the standard mathematical structure of the Klein-Gordon (KG) equation and proved its incorrectness. As of today, nobody has shown me acceptable arguments explaining why my claims are incorrect (some people have tried to do that). For helping people to see the issue, I've organized a short text disproving textbooks' arguments concerning the real KG field. You can see it at the following web page and if you wish, you may try to refute my claims: http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/Appetizer.pdf

53. Gerardo W. Físcher says:

On June 2, 2010, I presented in short terms the idea that mass and anti-mass, conventionaly called ‘black energy’ (repelling instead of attracting), both can exist independent of matter, i.e. independent of any kind of fermions and bosons. As light is never slower than light velocity (in empty space), but also never faster than that, it must be considered matter. So it doesn’t matter if in the interior of a star some baryons (e.g. neutrons, protons, lambda particles), mesons (e.g. pions, kaons) or leptons (i.e. electrons, positrons, muons, tauons, 3 kinds of neutrinos) are converted into light-fast photons by annihilation of particle and antiparticle – the mass of the star remains the same.

Probably anti-mass also allows for matter-like objects in which time runs backward, something really awkward and so far never observed. Anyhow, matter (protons, negative electrons), antimatter (negative antiprotons, positrons), photons and what is called ‘black matter’, in a sense of symmetry are the contrary of the anti-mass called ‘black energy’. So protons and antiprotons weigh alike, they both have ‘normal’ mass.

‘Black matter’, I soppose, is not matter at all, as it doesn’t consist of particles but is just pure gravitation as a field. Some photos of galaxy clouds trespassing each other show it quite neatly: Any particle matter is partially decelerated while the ‘black matter’ continues its way smoothly together with the particles (gas, dust, stars) that could keep pace.

Returning to the postulated Higgs Boson, as far as I understood it would be a conversion of light-fast concentrated energy without zero-mass into a particle with a zero-mass but accordingly moving slower than light. You could call that ‘zero-mass creation’. But if with good will assuming this process possible – is it necessary to shed any light on the essence of what is gravitation or gravity? There are hints that the gravitation effect works almost infinitely fast, very much faster than light. In astronautics we take that for granted, a planet is where our space ship ‘feels’ it and not where arriving photons image it. If the Higgs Boson is connected to far-out space before as well as after forming – is this not a logical obstacle for its possibility of existence?

• Eliyahu Comay says:

Before entering into details, let me point out two principles used in physics. First, a valid physical object must, directly or indirectly, be related to well establish experimental results. The Particle Data Group (PDG) determines particle’s existence and properties on the basis of this principle. The second is that a physical theory should have a self-consistent mathematical structure and provide a good description of relevant experimental results.
These principles are useful for the following examination of your comment.
A. Are you able to relate your mass/antimass idea to an experimental result?
B. Your statement: “gravitation effect works almost infinitely fast” is inconsistent with General Relativity (GR). Therefore, in order to justify your statement you must explain why GR should be abandoned.
C. You speak on: “a particle with a zero-mass but accordingly moving slower than light”. If such a particle has a non-vanishing 3-momentum then it is inconsistent with Special Relativity. This kind of particle has not been observed. If its 3-momentum vanishes too, then it is just nothing. In either case, the statement quoted in this item is physically unacceptable.
D. The proof of the non-existence of the Higgs boson relies on inherent contradictions of its mathematical structure. You can see this proof in the first 4 sections of [3] of this web-page.

• Gerardo W. Físcher says:

Eliyahu Comay, I appreciate your seriousness, but you request me too much. Let’s go by your points:
A. The mass/antimass idea is based on the well-observed repulsive effect of the so-called ‘black energy’. Future experiments or analysis should investigate the voids between galaxy clusters. If they are not just empty, but have a de-focusing effect (like a diffuse biconcave lens) on objects behind, you can see the nature of these spaces as the contrary of ‘black matter’ spaces. What you have in both cases can be supposed to be particle-less, but better don’t ask what particles of anti-mass would be alike.
B. General Relativity is treated like a dogma, Albert Einstein recommended us not to be dogmatic but to measure. So-called proofs of GR usually just prove Special Relativity, which is undisputed. A real experiment would show that the lighthouse effect with the bent light ray (as light can’t go faster than c) is not applyable to gravitation. Two black holes heavily circling each other should emanate the gravitational effect in staight rays, not kind of spirals. I can’t name you the observation nor whether it has already been done.
C. Sorry for saying zero-mass instead restmass (i.e. mass at velocity 0).
D. The Klein-Gordon equation has been helpful in many cases. But there are other mathematical instruments, like using quaternionic or octonionic matrices.
E (added). It must be clear how much symmetry you want. The proton-proton crash is less symmetric than proton-antiproton, though the masses in both cases are the same.

54. J. Mason says:

I consider that the universe in which we find ourselves is but one of many. The one next to us for example consists probably of pure force [what is force definition required]?, in which a massive torroidal vortex developed and punched through the enclosing membrane to form our universe from which event all fundamental particles arose.

• A definition (conventional and physical) of “force”
Force is a vector, and the unit of its measurement is the Newton, named after Sir Isaac Newton of falling apple fame. Force describes, in quantitative terms (both linguistic and mathematic, I assume), some measurable interaction between physical objects or states, such as gravitation, the strong and weak forces, and electromagnetic force. Textbooks usually assert that force is ‘proportional to acceleration’ and several physics textbooks point out that force is a derivative of momentum within a time-like schema, when physical objects come into contact with one another and influence one another negatively or positively (attract and repel).

55. R.A.Derby says:

Spiral constrained is particle made. All is relative from observor’s shade. Wave is particle is particle wave.

56. Eliyahu Comay says:

In the reference mentioned in my previous response, it is proved that a massive particle described by a real wave function has no self-consistent definition for density. You do not deny that. Now, without having a definition for density, one does not know the (mean) location of the particle. In classical physics, the particle’s coordinates are well defined. Therefore, a massive particle described by a real function is unphysical because it has no classical limit.

The KG equation refers to particles whose mass>0. Neither the photon nor its classical electromagnetic fields belong to this set of objects. Any attempt to ascribe the KG equation to massless objects is inconsistent with the accepted terminology.

There is no doubt that the mass term of the Dirac Lagrangian density is proportional to the mass. On the other hand, the corresponding term of the KG Lagrangian density is proportional to the square of the mass. This obvious evidence proves that your claim stating that “the mass term in Dirac Lagrangian is really quadratic (in state components)” is misleading. The subject discussed here is the mass factor of the appropriate Lagrangian density term and not the field functions. Thus, the mass term of the classical Lagrangian is proportional to the mass whereas the mass term of the KG Lagrangian density is proportional to the square of the mass. Hence, the conclusion stated in my response to your first comment holds and the KG theory of a massive particle has no classical limit. This conclusion means that a KG particle is unphysical. This outcome agrees with the conclusion derived above from the usage of a position argument.

• Harfer says:

Why do you require a classical limit for a particle that is not observable?

• Eliyahu Comay says:

Take for example a scattering event, which is the primary tool for finding out matter structure. Before the scattering process begins, the particles involved obey the laws of Relativistic Mechanics and Classical Electrodynamics. The same is true after the process ends. Hence, the theory describing the scattering process must fit classical physics as a kind of an analytic continuation.

Energy conservation is another aspect of this matter. In classical physics, energy is a well defined quantity. Now, a fundamental assumption used in the analysis of experimental data states that energy-momentum of the initial state equals that of the final state. It follows that energy must be defined appropriately during the scattering process. (Obviously, this is done according to the uncertainty principle.) This requirement negates the validity of second order equations, like the Klein-Gordon and the Higgs equations, where a Hamiltonian cannot be consistently defined (see [3] and references therein). It turns out that Nature respects this conclusion. Indeed, field functions depend on one set of 4 space-time coordinates. Hence, these equations describe a pointlike structureless particle. As of today, all massive particles that experiment does not deny their pointlike properties are spin-1/2 Dirac particles.

57. PERETTO says:

If you say that KG and Dirac equations describe quite different particles I fully agree: Dirac equation is for bispinors, KG equation is (for example) for such massless objects as electro-magnetic fields A=(V,Ax,Ay,Az). You agree that spins 1/2 fermions are described by 4 components states and that each component obeys a KG equation. Obviously if you limit the description of a particle to one component KG equation the so described particle is a zero spin particle. But this is purely a matter of convention You could as well assume that the internal space of the particle is 4-dimensional as is necessary in the U1 gauge theory approach of EM interactions. You have then a set of four KG equations one for each of the 4 components of the field and the particle described by this set of 4 equations is a spin 1 particle.
As regards the inner products of states I was refering not to real functions but to the set of imaginary plane waves that are the solutions of KG equations. The inner product writes
Sum(expikx)exp(-ik’x)dx=delta(x-x’)
as you surely know. Finally the mass term in Dirac Lagrangian is really quadratic (in state components). It writes
Psi-bar.m.Psi
where Psi-bar is the transpose of gamma1.Psi and gamma1 is the corresponding Dirac matrix (I am sorry for the notations)
Mathematical arguments are certainly quite necessary but one may be conscious that they can have many interpretations when applied to the physical world.

58. Eliyahu Comay says:

In textbooks that I use, the KG equation refers to a spinless particle. This evidence negates your attempt to ascribe the KG equation to a spin-1 particle. I think that in a discussion, one should adhere to a commonly accepted terminology.

Referring to real wave functions, you claim that: “in this form the inner product of solutions may be defined.” Please note that this claim contradicts a proof presented in a textbook [V. B. Berestetskii, E. M. Lifshitz and L. P. Pitaevskii, Quantum Electrodynamics, (Pergamon, Oxford, 1982). Pp. 42, 43], where it is shown that a real wave function cannot have a self-consistent definition for density. I conclude that your claim is wrong. (Here I wish to emphasize that a relativistically meaningful inner product must rely on density which is a 0-component of a conserved 4-current, having the dimension [1/L^3].)

In the text used in this site, the KG equation is regarded as the fundamental equation of motion of a spinless quantum mechanical particle, derived from a Lagrangian density. It is not regarded as a formula. For example, each of the 4 components of a solution of the Dirac equation satisfies the KG formula. However, solutions of the Dirac and the KG equations have different physical properties. For reading a description of the significance of using the Lagrangian density, you may consult this article: http://www.tau.ac.il/~elicomay/MathPhys.pdf

Using the Lagrangian density, one realizes that a solution of the Dirac equation has the dimension [1/L^(3/2)] whereas that of the KG equation has the dimension [1/L] (in units where hbar=c=1). This inherent difference between the solutions of these equations proves that these equations refer to completely different physical objects. This difference cannot be removed by mathematical manipulations of the equation, like “factorization” etc.

The Pauli equation is a nonrelativistic equation, and it is irrelevant to this site. I wonder why you mention it here.

You say: “The mass term in a particle Lagrangian is a quadratic term.” This statement is incorrect for a Lagrangian of a classical particle and for a Lagrangian density of a Dirac particle as well. Due to the quadratic mass term of the Lagrangians of the KG and the massive spin-1 particles, one infers that quantum mechanics of these particles has no classical limit. This is another inherent flaw, proving the unphysical nature of these particles.

The problem of the neutrino mass is unsettled yet. You probably know that quite serious arguments support the idea that the neutrinos are massive particles. However, this issue is not included within the scope of this site.

Therefore, contrary to your summary, I believe that the claims presented in this article are correct.

59. PERETTO says:

I think that the concluson of the contribution may be correct but that the arguments are flawed. I have some doubts as regards the interpretation of the Klein-Gordn equation. First of all the K.G equation is not a single equation but a set of 4 uncoupled equations that describes the motions of spin 1 massive particles. When applied to photons that are massless, and spin 1, particles the KG equations reduce to usual propagation equations. Propagation, and KG equations at large , are real equations, no imaginary i appears. The solutions are plane waves that may be expressed as imaginary exponentials. In this form the inner product of solutions may be defined. It is meaningless to see the KG equation as imaginary. Real solutions are obtained nevertheless by combining such plane waves.
It must be also reminded the Dirac equation is derived by factorizing the KG equation. It is an imaginary equation indeed but its solutions still are 4 dimensional imaginary plane waves. The Pauli equation describes the motion of single spinor particles but single spinor particles do not fullfill the relativistic invariance requirements (whereas the Dirac bispinors do). In summary I think that the arguments are meaningless.
I also think that the Higgs particles do not exist at least in the range 100 GeV-1 TeV. Why?
The mass term in a particle Lagrangian is a quadratic term. It is assumed that there exists a dichotomy in the universe, there is a right and a left universe. The existence of this dichotomy makes the mass term vanish.
Why this dichotomy? Tis arises from the fact that massless fermions are 100% left handed.
If it may be proved that the left-handed property of massless fermions is a general property of space-time, that is if the states of these particles are eigenstates of the Dirac matrix gamma5 with eigenvalue -1 then all the chain crumbles, there is no more universe dichotomy and the existence of Higgs particles is no more necessary.

• Orwin O'Dowd says:

If space curves with the distribution of mass and if there are large-scale magnetic fields, as now found by Voyager, then in general the context of a particle has a curvature and a polarity, which is enough to define handedness. Universal contextualization was asserted by the great Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, whence the Eightfold Way image which so irritated Murray Gell-Mann.

However, to contextualize the Higgs asymmetry one must let the fields penetrate the nuclear particles, and this is what Dr Comay’s monopole charges achieve. It is an elegant and economic solution.

Dr Comay’s fundamental equation bears a strong resemblance to Poisson’s equation, which gives DivGrad gravitational potential in terms of mass density. This was the formal point of departure for Hermann Weyl in Space, Time, Matter (Dover reprint, p. 229, not indexed!): he reasoned from the action principle to a Lagrangian, and recovered Poisson’s formula via a test-particle (p. 243, not indexed). Yet Weyl made nothing of magnetism here, so Dr Comay’s theory forms a natural complement.

Along the way, Weyl uncovered gauge invariance, which is the lietmotif of the Standard Theory. But he later played down his contribution, having failed to find a grand solution through group theory. Simply put, mathematicians now look to duals, and a position like Peretto’s can be stated in this way, endorsed by Roger Penrose in The Road to Reality.

I am impressed by Dr Comay’s approach to the Van der Waals force: its the first substantial account I have encountered. Yet mass remains elusive, as what Weyl called the quadratic groundform, with a merely statistical interpretation in the quantum theory. Can the component monopole charges resolve into phases of a wave, as with neutrinos?

60. Gerardo W. Físcher says:

You don’t say enything on those bosons that are told to carry the weak force. At DESY they have been shown to exist (some tens of years ago). Nevertheless I think the Higgs boson would only be necessary if movements of pure gravity concentrations without particles in them moved only with the limitation of light velocity – but astronautics show how any mass is always present not where you see it, but where it should be according to the gravitational effect it exerts. There are no gravitons, ‘black matter’ isn’t matter at all, but pure gravity concentration, ‘black energy’ (the one that pushes) is anti-gravitation, where time flows backward. do you like this idea? – gwf

• Eliyahu Comay says:

I am not an expert in gravitaion. Your comment regarding the W and Z bosons is interesting. Soon we will add an epilog to this article that explains my point of view.

61. Does Schrödinger’s cat really exist? You bet. The first ever quantum superposition in an object visible to the naked eye has been observed.

• anonymous says:

You Sir, either quite misunderstood the experiment or being completely pointless by writing such a tale. Simply by observing the cat you would create a quantum decoherence, thus the cat would loose it superposition state. In any case, as far I know, it was only an allegory of Copenhagen interpretation, which is nor a theory or an applicable scientific experiment because it cannot be tested or mesured and hasn’t been actually done. The experiment is to illustrate(forgive my choice of words) the uncertainty principle.

• I believe we need to search for the mistakes in the foundations of so-called theories (Hints of theories?)[ie; String Theory] Read Lee Smolin’s
“The Trouble with Physics”. Also: Physicist: Antony Valentoni.
Yes, these ideas must be proven through physical experiment to be actualy true. I believe the quantum world (Mechanics) is good for changing how we look at far reaching, and imaginative views, as our brains certainly can use exercize. But, to make these a Standard, much work is necsesary. Just today, I saw that the LHC is saying there may be no Higgs Boson. I nearly believed it to be true, just hidden so well.
Rich Platz, Eugene OR, Creature of the Electric Universe.