Earlier this year on 4th July researchers working at the Large Hadron Collider made their epoch-making announcement that they had discovered a particle that looks very much like the long-awaited Higgs boson. It was clear that something new had turned up in the detectors of the LHC, but no-one could be absolutely certain that it really was the much expected Higgs boson.

The Best Theory That We Have!

The CMS detector in the Large Hadron Collider during construction. (Copyright CERN, Geneva.)

The best theory that we have to describe all the particles and forces observed in particle accelerators is known as the Standard Model. (This isn’t a great name, but it reflects the success of the theory and the confidence that physicists place in it.) According to the Standard Model the Higgs field is responsible for breaking the ‘electroweak’ force into two forces that we observe as the electromagnetic and weak forces. It does this by giving mass to the three particles, the W-minus, W-plus and Z-nought bosons that are responsible for producing the weak force, while leaving the photon – which is responsible for the electromagnetic force – massless. This makes the weak force feeble and very short range, while the electromagnetic force remains powerful and long range.

The Multi-tasking Higgs Boson

But the Standard Model requires more of the Higgs field. According to the Standard Model the Higgs field is also responsible for giving mass to other particles, the particles from which matter is formed such as electrons and quarks.

A Bit of Detective Work

The Higgs boson cannot be observed directly in the detectors of the LHC. What the detectors see are the particles that the Higgs decays into. It then takes a bit of detective work to interpret these fingerprints. From the original announcement in July it seemed pretty clear that the new particle was doing the first part of the job of the Higgs, that is it was decaying into Ws and Zs and was therefore responsible for producing their mass (and breaking the electroweak force).

Mural on the building above the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Mural by Josef Kristofoletti. (Copyright CERN, Geneva.)

What was not so certain was whether it was also decaying into quarks and tauons (heavier relatives of the electron) at the expected rate. And was therefore also responsible for producing the mass of the electrons and quarks. The decays into tauons would be much rarer, so more datawas needed to confirm the predictions.

Further Progress

A further announcement about progress at the Large Hadron Collider was made earlier this week. The detectors of the LHC have now collected twice the data that they had by the time of the original announcement and it seems as though the Standard Model predictions are holding up and the new particle really is the Standard Model Higgs boson. This is great news of course, unless you are a physicist looking for something new and surprising. (But you can’t please everyone!)

Deeper Connections

We know that the Standard Model cannot be the final answer. It is actually formed of two theories coupled together: one describes the electroweak force, the other, known as quantum chromodynamics, describes the strong force which holds quarks together to form protons and neutrons, and holds protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei. There must be some deeper connection between the electroweak force and the strong force that is missing from the Standard Model.

The Standard Model also fails to explain some of the most significant large scale features of the Universe, such as the fact that most of the matter that it contains seems to be formed of an unknown substance that is referred to as ‘dark matter’.

Higgs Force: Cosmic Symmetry Shattered by Nicholas Mee

An Even Better Theory

So the fact that the Standard Model predictions are holding up is a major triumph for physics, but what physicists really want are some surprises that will provide clues that will lead to a new and even better theory.

I’m sure that we won’t have to wait long before the Large Hadron Collider produces something really unexpected.

More Information

There is, of course, much more information about the search for the Higgs boson in my book Higgs Force:
http://quantumwavepublishing.com/higgs-force/

Inspirational Games

Insp
irational Games Arithmetical games are a great way to sharpen up your arithmetic. My Grandad taught me two classic games that gave me a familiarity with numbers before I was even old enough to go to school. These two games are Fives and Threes which is a dominoes game and Cribbage which is a card game.

Fives and Threes
Fives and Threes is played with a peg board to keep track of the score of each player. It should be played with a set of ‘Double Nine’ dominoes, as this offers a much more interesting range of number possibilities. As usual with domino games, players take turns to build a chain of dominoes. But the distinctive feature of Fives and Threes is that players score points depending on the values of the exposed ends of the domino chain. The amount scored is equal to the number of times that the sum of the two ends can be exactly divided by three or five. For instance, if one end of the chain shows a 2 and the other end shows a 4, then the total is 6, which is exactly divisible by 3 twice, so the person who played the previous domino scores 2. The highest scoring totals are those that are simultaneously divisible by 5 and 3. For instance, if one end of the chain is 7 and the other end is 8, this produces a total of 15, which is divisible by both 5 and 3. It is divisible by 5 three times and it is divisible by 3 five times, so this gives a score of 3 + 5 = 8.

The full rules of Fives and Threes are given on the following website:
http://www.pagat.com/tile/wdom/fives_and_threes.html

Cribbage
The card game Cribbage is also played with a peg board to keep track of the scores. Points are scored for card combinations that add up to fifteen, and for pairs, triples, quadruples, runs and flushes. As well as the obvious arithmetical task of finding cards whose values sum to 15, Cribbage is of interest because of the importance that combinations and permutations have in the game. For instance, a pair of numbers with the same value, say two 7s, would be worth two points. A triple, say three 7s, would be worth six points, because there are three ways to choose a pair of 7s from the triple, and three times two (the value of a pair) is six. A quadruple of four 7s is worth twelve points, because this gives six ways to choose a pair of 7s, and six times two is twelve.

Points are also awarded for every combination of cards that sum to 15. For instance, a hand formed of a 6, two 7s and two 8s, can be combined to form 15 in four ways, because each of the 7s can be added to each of the 8s to form 15. Similarly points are scored for every combination of cards that produces a run of three or more cards. For instance, a 6, two 7s and two 8s, would produce four runs of three cards.

This may sound a bit complicated if you are unfamiliar with Cribbage, but it is quite straightforward really and definitely worth investigating. The full rules of Cribbage are given on the following website:
http://www.pagat.com/adders/crib6.html

According to John Aubrey, Cribbage was invented by the aristocratic English poet Sir John Suckling early in the 17th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Suckling_(poet)

Both Fives and Threes and Cribbage are traditional British pub games, but they are great games nonetheless. Cribbage remains my favourite card game.

The Richmomachia board at the start of a game.

RithmomachiaThe most elaborate of all arithmetic games must be Rithmomachia or The Philosophers’ Game. The name Rithmomachia means ‘Battle of the Numbers’. Descriptions of the game survive in manuscripts from as long ago as the 11th and 12th centuries, when it seems to have been played in Benedictine monasteries. Rithmomachia is like an arithmetical relative of Chess. Each player has a number of circular, triangular and square pieces, as well as a single pyramid. These pieces have numerical values. Like Chess, play involves the capture of the pieces belonging to the opponent, but unlike Chess the success of an attack depends on the number combinations of the pieces.

The game is reputed to have been invented as a method of teaching Pythagorean numerology, as set out in The Consolation of Philosophy written by the fifth century poet Boethius – a book that was very highly esteemed throughout the European Middle Ages. Rithmomachia was highly regarded by leading late medieval British philosophers and mystics, such as Roger Bacon, Thomas More and John Dee.

More information about Rithmomachia and a description of the rules are given on the following website:
http://jducoeur.org/game-hist/mebben.ryth.html

The Nubble! board.

Nubble!
The greatest arithmetic game of modern times is Nubble! It was invented in 1994 by Edgar Fineberg and Jack Berkovi and was originally published as a board game by Dorling Kindersley under the name Number Quest. The Nubble! board is composed of 100 hexagons. Players take turns to throw four dice and then combine the scores of all four dice by addition, subtraction, division and multiplication to produce a number between 1 and 100. They then place a counter on the corresponding hexagon and points are scored depending on the zone in which the hexagon lies. Bonus points are also available if the player scores a “Nubble!”, which is achieved by forming a little triangle of three adjacent counters. Even more bonus points are awarded for a “Double Nubble!”, which is produced by placing a counter on a prime number to form a Nubble!

Nubble! was the only board game to receive a Millennium Product Award from the Design Council.

The Nubble! software is now available from Quantum Wave Publishing. Find out more by clicking the following link:
http://quantumwavepublishing.com/nubble/