Comments on: Hadron Colliders for Not-so-particle-physicists

By: Rafe

Rafe — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:34:12 +0000

I can’t give a definitive answer because cosmology is not one of my areas of expertise, but I can say that dark matter was theorized in the 1930s by Fritz Zwicky. I’m not sure how many accurate calculations were made on a galactic scale before then. Hope this answers your question.

By: Emme

Emme — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:13:24 +0000

Great post.

And a quick question.

If visible matter only accounts for 4% of the mass in the universe, how could any gravitational calculations have appeared accurate before the discovery of dark matter and dark energy? I understand that neither are not particularly prevalent within our solar system–so it wouldn’t have had an effect on more local calculations. But it seems that any gravitational calculations on the galactic level could never have appeared accurate if they weren’t taking into account 96% of existing mass.

By: Rafe

Rafe — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:14:58 +0000

That’s really just a technical point. Use the transitive property. Higgs Boson mediates Higgs Field. Higgs Fields gives mass. Ergo…you get the idea.

By: Don

Don — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:18:42 +0000

Just a quick note – it is not the Higgs Boson that gives mass, it is the Higgs Field that gives mass. The Higgs Boson is a mediator of the Higgs Field.

By: Rafe

Rafe — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:57:43 +0000

I had to be really big on proofreading in this article.

Because I don’t want people thinking that there are Large Hardons Colliding under France.

That’d just be too easy.