Particle Fever Page #8

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then we can change subject,

I think.

If you don't see

any supersymmetric signal...

Well, but if it's 140,

that would be serious.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Don't tell me.

This is my nightmare.

It's only 30 for me.

At the moment, it's scary.

- At the moment, it's scary.

- It's scary.

Yes, then we have to wait

another couple of years

for the next round.

No, another two years,

I'm saying...

But still, it doesn't matter.

You'll be working harder.

No, but independent of that,

I think you'll know the truth.

Yes, yes, no.

And that's

the important thing.

No, you're right.

Yes, of course.

Coffee

is a very serious business

in the life of a theorist.

It's not like physics research,

where you can wait for 30 years

before you know

if you are right.

Within a few minutes,

it pays off.

If you succeed, it's great.

If you fail,

you get to try another one

in another minute.

In particle physics,

you construct

a theory 20 years ago,

and it may take that long

before you know

if you're on the right track.

Jumping from failure to failure

with undiminished enthusiasm

is the big secret to success.

Well, the hint

that the Higgs was 140 GeV

has disappeared.

All of the new data

that just came in

didn't make the peak bigger.

It sort of filled in the gaps.

And now the peak

doesn't look very good.

In fact, the belief

is that it's gone away

and that the Higgs

can't be 140 GeV.

In order for us to believe

that we've discovered it,

that peak needs to be big

and basically keep growing

as the data comes in.

It's a statistical thing.

We call it the Greek letter

"sigma."

If you reach a height

of 5 sigma,

that's when you know

that you've seen something.

And the probability that

that just happens by accident

is 1 in 31/2 million.

But the Higgs, it's not at 140,

which is a bit of a relief,

because there's still hope

it might be down around 115.

We like 115,

because if the Higgs

is that light,

the theory says

there has to be new particles,

like supersymmetry,

otherwise the universe

is unstable.

It wouldn't have survived

this long.

This is one of the one

of the few truly perfect

academic institutions

in the world.

I mean, there's no excuse...

no excuse at all...

not to think and work

and get things done.

That's its only problem.

There's no excuse at all

not to think

and work and get things done.

You can't blame it on anything

if it doesn't work.

Okay, supersymmetry

versus multiverse.

Oh, boy.

All right.

That's, uh...

If we're going to start

doing that,

this is going to be interesting.

We have been anticipating

that whatever happens

is going to throw the field

in one direction or another.

Oh, sh*t!

Now that we're really

on the doorstep

of actually knowing

the actual number,

I really care intensely

about what that number is.

Well, faster than we thought,

there's news that there's

going to be another announcement

about the Higgs.

I've heard tons of rumors,

and I've heard

they're things on blogs,

and there's already stuff

in the newspaper.

18 hours or so

until the announcement,

so I'm really looking forward

to what they're going to say,

and I want to be there.

Actually, I'm thinking

of going early in the morning,

or I'll send

my young colleagues,

who have more stamina to sit

and occupy a chair for me.

It is July 3rd...

the night of July 3, 2012,

and I am driving to Princeton,

to the Institute,

to hang out with Nima

and a big crowd,

who are all staying up

until 3:
00 in the morning

because they're going to

present the Higgs data at CERN

at 9:
00 in the morning

Geneva time.

Certainly the biggest thing

that's happened...

the discovery

of new fundamental particles...

in my lifetime.

And the Higgs is a particle

like no other,

like nothing

we've ever seen before,

and it is weird,

and we do not understand it,

but...

but, uh...

and I missed my exit.

Cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf.

You need quite some skills

to sit on it.

- It's possible.

- Okay.

You know,

there's one ball missing.

Oh, it's, uh... exactly.

No, there's one ball missing,

so it's... you always

think you fall down.

Okay.

Look at some of these people,

like, totally asleep.

Yeah, no,

those are the sleeping bags.

My volume is up.

I don't know why

I'm not getting sound.

There isn't like, a thing

on here with sound, is there?

Who reads lips here?

Can anyone see

if they get sound?

Try streaming it

in their offices or something?

Many apologies, guys.

I don't know what's going on.

- Ah, Peter Higgs.

- Ah, there he is.

- Here he is.

- Very good.

Someone with an iPad.

Not as well seated

as my summer student.

- No!

- Right.

Peter Higgs doesn't even get

a good seat.

Good morning,

everybody here in Geneva.

Today is a special day:

We hear two presentations

from the two experiments.

ATLAS and CMS.

We are starting

in a non-alphabetical order,

and I ask Joe Incandela

from CMS to take the floor.

Okay.

Okay.

So I will give the status

of the CMS Higgs search.

I want to really dedicate this

to the CMS collaboration.

This is a picture

we took last week.

We had a party.

This is only 400 or 500 people.

Remember, there are 4,000 people

in the experiment.

This is not

the real CMS detector.

That's down underground.

This is the spare

that we keep upstairs.

So one page for the theorists.

That's all they deserve.

No, I'm kidding.

The Standard Model is here...

is shown here.

This is what we know.

And we have now...

But one of the big stories

of this year was,

as you know...

those of you in the field...

is pile-up.

We had to deal

with very intense beams

like never before seen

in the field

with many, many interactions,

and this slide shows...

the colors correspond to tracks

from different particles.

And it was in these

kind of events

that we're looking for one of

the rarest particles ever made,

and that's what we call

the Higgs.

And so this is where

things stood last week.

As you know, if you look

at the radiative corrections...

So if you know the W

and top mass very well,

you can actually predict

a long band.

Yeah, yeah,

so we're there at four.

One at the Tevatron.

They really had

a tour de force measurement.

Ah, sorry, yeah, here it is.

And we end up

with four event classes...

Ah, there it is!

Okay, so, to wrap up,

in summary:

We conclude by saying

that we have observed

a new boson with a mass

of 125.3 plus or minus 0.6 GeV

at 4.9 standard deviations.

Thank you.

125.3.

Okay, so now...

Wow, 125?

Do you know ATLAS's result?

This isn't...

You heard about this?

Okay.

I think I can only say

congratulations to everybody.

I will say a few words more

later.

Now we go immediately to ATLAS.

Fabiola Gianotti, please.

Thank you.

Good morning.

ATLAS is very pleased to present

here today

updated results

on Standard Model Higgs searches

based on up to 10.7

inverse femtobarn of data

recorded in 2011 and 2012,

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