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Reality Theory
Michio Kaku talks about the search for the
Higgs Boson at CERN, the so-called and hyped "God Particle", in the video below. Kaku says the search has been reduced, with 95% certainty, to a narrow range of the mass spectrum in the CERN large hadron collider. What are the implications of finding the Higgs boson? The discovery, perhaps in 2012, would complete the standard model of physics. If the Higgs boson does not exist, then a revamp of the standard model could be necessary.
The Standard Model: A Theory Only a Mother Could Love Michio Kaku calls the standard model a "ragtag bunch of subatomic particles" and there must be a "higher theory". This higher theory must include gravity, which is missing in the standard model. The standard model describes only 4% of the matter and energy content of the Universe! A huge chunk of the Universe is missing: dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%).
String Theory is the Answer Kaku believes String Theory is the only current possibility to be a true Theory of Everything, incorporating the Standard Model. dark matter, and dark energy. The next step, after presumably finding the Higgs boson, would be to find dark matter at the CERN large hadron collider. Kaku notes that would go a long way in proving or disproving String Theory.
Simulation Argument On this website, I have explored that the only logical explanation of physics and ultimately the Universe is the simulation argument, that the Universe is a virtual reality, a programmed reality. Obviously the Standard Model is inadequate and I argue, along with many others, that String Theory essentially kicks the can down the road, explaining nothing. However, Michio Kaku is correct, currently String Theory is the only testable theory with any promise, at this stage in our testing capabilities. Hence that is where the testing will focus, until technology and future discoveries alter the path. As Werner Heisenberg said, "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning".
CERN: Large Hadron Collider Update
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest particle accelerator, is currently shut down for annual maintenance. In February CERN will decide whether to run the LHC at a total energy of 8 TeV this year, instead of 7 TeV as in 2011. Higher energy should increase the chances of finding heavy particles. By early March, all the magnets around the 27-kilometre accelerator will have been cooled down to their operating temperatures of -271.3°C, ready to guide beams of particles through the LHC.
The LHC will resume colliding protons in late March. The goal is to deliver about 1600 trillion proton-proton collisions (16 "inverse femtobarns" of data) to the experiments, compared to the 500 trillion collisions delivered in 2011. More collisions will help the LHC experiments to improve the precision of their measurements and push searches for new physics further.
Michio Kaku: String Theory Is The Only Game In Town Dr. Kaku addresses the question of whether the so-called Higgs-Boson, or God particle has been overhyped, and what its discovery would mean for physics.
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About Michio Kaku Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, best-selling author, and popularizer of science. He’s the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory), and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory. He has appeared on television (Discovery, BBC, ABC, Science Channel, and CNN to name a few), written for popular science publications like Discover, Wired, and New Scientist, been featured in documentaries like Me & Isaac Newton, and hosted many of his own including BBC’s recent series on Time. He received a B.S. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University in 1968 where he came first in his physics class. He went on to the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1972. In 1973, he held a lectureship at Princeton University. Michio continues Einstein’s search for a “Theory of Everything,” seeking to unify the four fundamental forces of the universe—the strong force, the weak force, gravity and electromagnetism. He is the author of several scholarly, Ph.D. level textbooks and has had more than 70 articles published in physics journals, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics. He holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York, where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU).
