Two physicists who correctly predicted the mass of Higgs boson [video] | Hacker News Reader

Two physicists who correctly predicted the mass of Higgs boson [video]

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Like most pop-sci, there's enough nuance to be found in the papers to tell its own story. I wasn't familiar with the Shaposhnikov and Wetterich paper, or asymptotic safety in general, and that 126 GeV Higgs mass prediction is the best I've seen. Their paper ends with "Detecting the Higgs scalar with mass around 126 GeV at the LHC could give a strong hint for the absence of new physics influencing the running of the SM couplings between the Fermi and Planck/unification scales" which seems surprisingly prescient after a decade of null results from the LHC. So why is this ignored in mainstream (aka not youtube) physics?

Well, a quick search on InspireHEP shows a 2019 paper [1] that adds on Shaposhnikov and Wtterich's. Of note is that an updated top mass value changes the Higgs mass prediction to 132 GeV, rather in tension with 125 GeV. (The paper then cleverly tries to extend the Standard Model to adjust the prediction back to the measured Higgs mass.) The original argument doesn't look like such a slam dunk anymore.

[1] Kwapisz, "Asymptotic safety, the Higgs mass and beyond the Standard Model physics"

Without the new error bounds it’s a bit hard to know what to think.

You can calculate the error yourself for the most recent experimental values of the Higgs vacuum combined with the numerically calculated lambda from the paper linked above. You get a Higgs mass of 129.6 ± 1.0 GeV at two loops. That's more than three standard deviations from the current Higgs mass measurement. So Hossenfelder's video is - as often - some outdated half-truth. At the current level of research, these values very much suggest that there is more to the Standard Model than we know below the Planck energy. Her whole shtick of bashing CERN always falls apart when you look a bit closer, which is why she only does popsci now and noone in the field listens anymore.

That being said, I still believe that asymptotic safety in quantum gravity is a really cool idea and it's well worth pursuing. It deserves better than to be used as a hammer for people bashing other legit science.

Thanks. But weird… The previous error bounds on the top quark mass were grossly incorrect then? I mean a new estimate for the top quark mass, which is within the bounds of the previous estimate, shouldn’t make the predicted mass of the Higgs jump out of its error bounds, right?

The top quark mass itself was much, much more uncertain back then. The original paper referred to a mass with an error of 2.4GeV[1], while the latest direct measurements give an uncertainty of 0.3GeV[2]. That's an order of magnitude improvement thanks to new data collected by the LHC over the last decade. Also bear in mind that these uncertainties are given as standard deviations. Almost a third of all statistical measurements will fall outside one standard deviation, while less than 0.3% will exceed three standard deviations. Anything less than two standard deviations is usually considered not statistically significant in most scientific fields. The new value is not surprising at all in that light.

[1] https://pdg.lbl.gov/2008/tables/rpp2008-sum-quarks.pdf

[2] https://pdg.lbl.gov/2022/tables/rpp2022-sum-quarks.pdf

Thanks again. But in my mind that doesn’t really explain the Higgs mass prediction/estimate going from 126 +/- 2.2 GeV to 130 GeV… The reason you have that +/- 2.2 GeV is (among other things) that the mass of the top quark mass is uncertain, right? So how could a new measurement of the top quark mass make the prediction for the Higgs mass jump so far (unless the new top quark mass was wildly unexpected)?

I think you misunderstand the way the Higgs mass is calculated here. This is a highly non-linear relationship that is extremely sensitive to the top quark mass. In fact the second most massive quark would only contribute a fraction of one thousandth to the result (which is why it was ignored in the paper).

Consider this toy example: The mass m is calculated from some parameter like m~=b^4 and that parameter b was measured b=2.0±0.1. Using Gaussian error propagation, m would be 16±3.2. Now update the measurement of b just slightly to b=2.1±0.05. That 5% change in b changes the result to m=19.45±1.85 -> more than 20%, and with just one standard deviation of difference in b. The relationship is not linear.

That’s a clarifying example. But note that what happened with the Higgs mass was significantly more extreme than your example. All I’m saying is that I found that surprising. But you’re right, it could potentially be an extreme non-linearity that caused the surprise.

And here a prediction from M-theory/string theory on that same mass-range that also predates the Higgs discovery.

Prediction: https://arxiv.org/abs/1112.1059 Review and discussion: https://arxiv.org/abs/1211.2231

Apparently there is a boring approach to "quantum gravity" based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_safety_in_quantum_g...

A prediction for the weight of Higgs boson particle using this, and it came true.

So, are any physicists going to rerun the numbers of that paper with modern knowledge to see if the higgs mass then gets correctly predicted?

Why doesn’t she mention Kahana and Kahana (father and son)? I guess even she doesn’t care about them?

“My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition there.” (Indira Gandhi)

I think I actually disagree with Gandhi here. Lol. There are a lot of people that do the work. The numbers of those who take the credit are much less. However, there is usually a power imbalance that yields to their ability to do so. So it's not about numbers. It's about power.

I think that's still consistent though. Lots of people try to take credit, only a few succeed. There is no shortage of work to be done, so there is enough room for everyone to do work.

For every Elon Musk there are hundreds or even thousands of engineers with actual degrees and experience relevant to the thing that was built.

"For every Elon Musk" Finally confirming he is a clone and or a robot...

Sure this is shocking news, but hardly surprising given the shift in behavior of late. =)

And yet Elon outcompeted them all… ;)

Ghandi did not say half the people do the work and half the people take the credit, which is what it sounds like your disagreement is with.

And of course, many binary segmentations work well for most cases and fail in unusual cases that can generally ignored.

You failed to understand the hilarious facets of Indira Gandhi's quote.

I'd explain why your informal fallacy is off-topic, but am rather focused on goldfish crackers and jellybeans at the moment.

Have a Gloriously wonderful day =)

Why on Earth would you go to such an effort to tell someone they're wrong without even bothering to share your own knowledge?

Its funnier to people that get the ironic context, and I only answer questions from abusive people if paid.

Also, goldfish crackers... nom... nom... nom...

Have a great day, and no more hints. =P

People who do the work aren't necessarily competing with each other.

People who take the credit are, almost by definition, competing with each other.

It's amazing how impressive your achievements can be if you don't mind who gets the credit. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/21/doing-good-selfless...

True, unless you were a child hunted by cannibals during the Soviet era famines.

My observation is simply that giving credit to community-minded scientists costs nothing, but giving credit to psychopaths with the Kings ear can cost everyone their lives. There are always problems with a Meritocracy, as someone eventually has to define what has merit.

I am thankful to have goldfish crackers and jellybeans. Have a wonderful day =)

There are unfortunately a lot of hard workers who think credit magically appears when you are smart enough, valuable enough, etc., and that seeking appropriate credit is beneath their dignity. This attitude often nicely coincides with their complete lack of skill at sticking up for themselves.

There is no shame in shining a bit of light on your own value. Just don’t make it blazing sun pointing at a small accomplishment.

Sometimes the inability to stick up for themselves is less due to lack of skill than lack of a sense of value in themselves apart from their achievements.

Or a refusal to play the social credit game.

Sure! But be intentional about the cost/benefit of opting out, rather than being pissed that the game-players are getting something you want.

Or find somewhere that operates differently. Some people hope that academia will be different and better than business. From what I can see it is often worse, but ymmv.

Sure. But I’ve seen a lot of resentment from people that they weren’t being treated well, resentment that was directed at others who should have done this, should have said that, etc. Sometimes that’s correct. But the armchair psychologist in me sees a lot of blame applied to others when it shouldn’t be.

There also shouldn’t be any shame in focusing on the work, if that’s what you want.

It follows that shining light on value should be a shared responsibility. It’s not just the creator that’s negatively impacted when we fail to do so. We all are.

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