 In 1964, physicist Peter Higgs was walking in the Cairngorms when he had his famous idea about symmetry-breaking in the electrotweak theory. If the so-called Higgs boson is detected by experiment, this will give the Cairngorms a special place in the history of science... ...but what I'd like to know is where was he walking in the Cairngorms when he had this bright idea? Was he backpacking or out for a short bimble? 
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| Edited: 20/12/11 22:31 |
 Not quite on the scale of Archimedes leaping out of the bath and streaking down the Syracuse high street though, is it? 
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Not thinking of reinacting it then Kate?
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Screw Archimedes, this matters masses more 
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Tres drole, Milly. Though personally I don't think Higgs would have thought of his bosun if Archimedes hadn't been there inventing theorems in the first place.
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 I agree with MK to a large extent but they are both important figures. Archimedes for the sheer quantity just edges it for me, his obsession with the golden ratio has become legendary.
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yeah...but its all a bit relative and hanging on a string isnt it?
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MK - anybody can invent a theorem, proving it is what matters - ask Fermat.
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Anyway, we digress. Although Archimedes was clearly a bathing polymath, he probably didn't go bothying in the Cairngorms  ... I'd really like to know where Higgs was walking in the Cairngorms when he had this bright idea. Was he backpacking or out for a short bimble? Had he forgotten his torch on a solo trip in winter where the long night gave him plenty of thinking time in his tent? Was he out alone, with his family, or on a drinking trip with 'the boys'???
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This is very interesting, but I have never heard this story before.
The Herald Scotland has a short article (http://www.heraldscotland.com/back-to-the-future-1.878066) which concludes:
"He conceived of what is now known as the "Higgs mechanism" one weekend in 1964, though not as has been widely reported, while out walking the Cairngorms."
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 Although to be honest the precise point could well be very hard to pin down. Its not precisely a trivial idea so presumably spent a long time working through it. At the very least if he spent plenty of time walking in the 'gorms his subconcious will have done a lot of the work then
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Thanks for the Herald link, although far more (internet) sources say he was walking in the Cairngorms. I agree it's something you'd ponder for a long time, but it also feels right that solitary contemplation in a wild expanse such as the 'gorms would encourage a resolution
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 I don't know about theorem but you wouldn't believe some of the strange ideas I get in the solitude of Bowland... but thats another matter.
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| Edited: 23/12/11 22:41 |
Well for good/strange ideas you have some way to beat Pendle Hill. Quakerism came about in the mind of the founder of it whilst on top of Pendle Hill. He was journeying past in a carriage / stagecoach when he stopped it and went up there for a walk. That was when he first formulated his beliefs and started him on the path to founding the Quakers. Now that I understand came from his own journals not some unconfirmed but nice sounding idea of someone getting out of a bath and streaking or some guy walking in the 'gorms. I wonder if the Higgs Boson will ever be detected?? If it can not be proven by experiment then isn't it purely another theory like the many that have been postulated by theoretical physicists without any way with current tech of proving it? On a more serious note, where in the 'gorms would you think would offer the best location for coming up with physical theories with potentially important consequences?? And does alcohol help?
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Depends what you mean by detecting it Directly? No, no more than you can directly detect an awful lot of the stuff that particle physics folk work on. Instead you have to work out what you'd expect them to decay into and them pick those events out of the utterly terrifyingly, mind boggling amounts of data the detectors in the LHC are producing. They think they might have done this, but aren't sure yet. You do also get some other predictable consquences of it all, although how testable those are often not clear. And yes some of the more abstruse speculations of theoretical physics might not be easily testable. Shrug. In the end its all just a way to predict how reality will behave Hence quantum theory - it may seem daft in places, but then so is reality!
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Not far from the Cairngorms , the 'Schiehallion' experiment proved/confirmed the theory that the earth was solid rather than hollow.
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I knew, but had forgotten, about the connections of Pendle Hill and Quakerism, and the experiment on Schiehallion. If the Higgs bosun ever was to materialise* it would be a pity if the knowledge of where the ideas were crystalised was lost. * IGMC
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 I don't know about theorem but you wouldn't believe some of the strange ideas I get in the solitude of Bowland... but thats another matter. Me too but doesn't matter where, when I'm asleep after Crosse & Blackwell Macaroni Cheese for dinner. Negative Reality Inversions in an Akto
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