CERN - The Large Hadron Collider starts up

[ds.raikkonen]

So now that the elusive Boson has been discovered, can we bring this thread back to life?

[Miguel]

OK. So it looks like the Higgs and it smells like the Higgs. It may not be the Higgs, though . Come on, it'd be very boring if we have to re-write the standard model "only for gravity".

[bhall]

How come? The real fun starts when you can apply the Standard Model.

[ds.raikkonen]

Boring? Without the quantum gravity theory, we re still far far away from the TOE. Gravity is the missing link, even though it is the weakest of the four fundamental forces. now the media will start calling the TOE as the 'God Theory' or something and that ll irritate the physicists even more.

[Miguel]

How come? The real fun starts when you can apply the Standard Model.

People have been applying it for ages! When it was only Quantum Mechanics + Electrodynamics + Special Relativity, at least since the late 30's. It's called model because we've kept adding stuff. Beta decay? Add the weak nuclear force, which has a nice feature called chirality (left-handed and right-handed stuff work differently). And now we discover quarks? More terms! New and improved! More matrices to measure! Buy now and get SU(3) symmetry for free!

Since many theorists are unhappy now that the masses of the particles need to be measured experimentally, they considered different ways in which one could establish their masses in a "simple" way. I suppose now they'll want to measure the coupling between the Higgs and the other particles, so that we can compute the mass of an electron and not "just" measure it.

I know this sounds somewhat insane. After all, what does this huge model with lots of mathematical complications give you? Well, unlike string theory so far, it makes testable predictions. Mass of the proton? Check. Excited states of oxygen nuclei? Check. Neutrinoless double-Beta decay? Ongoing. Magnetic moment of the electron? CHECK!!!! With 11 digits of agreement with theory and experiment.

This doesn't mean the standard model it is the ultimate theory. It lacks gravity after all. And where is my dark mass? It just means that it is a very good model when applied under the right conditions (i.e. everywhere gravity is not too strong)

EDIT: The standard model also gives you "not-faster-than-light" neutrinos

[bhall]

I see your point. And I should have said the fun starts when you can apply the completed Standard Model, which I suspect will likely become a whole lot more simple with further understanding.