"the most powerful, useful, and successful theory ever discovered" I would argue that Newton's Laws fits that bill. Just sayin... :-)   See 6 other replies

... CONTINUATIONPerhaps v0dalus thinks that money should not be spent on scientific research. This is fine, but with such an idea we would not have much of the technology we now use, including perhaps the computer we are now writing on. I find it slightly amusing that there is the idea that physicists are performing billion dollar experiments willy-nilly. These experiments are REQUIRED to be extremely methodical. As Aaron pointed out, even if the evidence shows that there is no reason to hypothesize a Higgs boson, this is still a MAJOR win for our understanding of the universe. There can be no further understanding of the world without new experimentation....   See 6 other replies

Aaron and others are very much correct about this. In fact, v0dalus' comment shows a profound misunderstanding of how experimental science is conducted. Nothing is certain. Everything is a theory subject to refinement given new observation. In the case of quantum physics, the experiments require a great deal of energy and huge containment systems (as they discussed in the video), and so require a lot of money to perform. Only with these experiments can the theory be refined. I wonder if v0dalus thinks that theories can ever be thought correct before experimentation (which is of course absurd)? If so then he is promoting metaphysics, and not science.This discussion, in fact, reminds me of a great parallel in the science of the past 150 years. During the end of the 19th century, physicists hypothesized the existence of a "luminiferous ether" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether) through which light travelled in space (largely because of light's wave properties, and the knowledge that waves must travel through some medium). Numerous experiments were run to confirm the existence of the ether. It wasn't until the Michelson-Morely experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment) that evidence AGAINST the existence of the ether was gathered. This, in turn, spurred a great change in our understanding of the nature of light (that light exists as both particle and wave -> duality) and led to quantum mechanics. relativity, etc. This is sometimes termed the 2nd scientific revolution, and as other reviewers pointed out, we owe a great deal to the failure of scientists to confirm their theory through experiment. CONTINUED...   See 6 other replies

Thank you, J Z. It's also important to remember when thinking about research science, whether or not all the "failures" are worth the expense, that most discoveries in every field of science, throughout history, were discovered only after countless "failures" and strong criticisms from laymen and other scientists. The point is to follow where the data takes you. You're correct, v0dalus, it will be interesting for future generations to look back in a hundred years and judge the impact of these experiments.   See 6 other replies

"Full of holes and problems" is a subjective opinion, of course, and you're welcome to your opinions, but it doesn't sound to me like a very fair description of the most powerful, useful, and successful theory ever discovered.I'm not sure what you mean by "in order for their theories to make sense", but the bottom line is that the Higgs phenomenon seems to be the most logical way to explain mass given what we already know. If the particle is discovered, it just validates, yet again, that this wonderful model we've put together over the centuries really is the most natural way to look at things, and that the most obvious way to put mass in there is actually the truth. If it is not discovered, then it means that mass may be explained through some more interesting mechanism instead. That's why so many physicists hope it isn't found -- they want there to be more new physics to discover out there. The discovery of the Higgs, while it would be a very profound discovery whose details may help physicists answer some other interesting questions, would at the same time be kind of boring, because it's the most expected outcome.While it's always fun to watch other "armchair physicists" talk about how "obviously flawed" the standard model is (though most don't even really know what it is, let alone whether or not it is actually "flawed"), the truth is that it is a very brilliant piece of work that cleverly explains almost all phenomena ever observed, in a remarkably simple way. I like to advise people to learn a little about modern physics before forming an opinion, rather than just glibly poo-pooing the entire subject. I can promise you that the people who bother to actually learn soon discover that the theories are a lot smarter than they had ever thought.   See 6 other replies