Eliezer apparently wrong about higgs boson

duckduckMOO

So someone told me that Eliezer Yudkowsky predicted no 5 sigma evidence of the higgs boson, and that 6 sigma evidence had been found. A quick search found the post referred to, and a slightly longer but not particularly thorough search did not find anything discussing it.

So:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1dt/open_thread_november_2009/17xb (02 November 2009)

I'll go ahead and predict here that the Higgs boson will not be showing up. As best I can put the reason into words: I don't think the modern field of physics has its act sufficiently together to predict that a hitherto undetected quantum field is responsible for mass. They are welcome to prove me wrong.

(I'll also predict that the LHC will never actually run, but that prediction is (almost entirely) a joke, whereas the first prediction is not.)

Anyone challenging me to bet on the above is welcome to offer odds.

In the post below rolfandreassen sets the condition of 5 sigma evidence before 2014 and offers a bet of $25. In the post below that Eliezer accepts.

Discuss.

So:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1dt/open_thread_november_2009/17xb (02 November 2009)

I'll go ahead and predict here that the Higgs boson will not be showing up. As best I can put the reason into words: I don't think the modern field of physics has its act sufficiently together to predict that a hitherto undetected quantum field is responsible for mass. They are welcome to prove me wrong.

(I'll also predict that the LHC will never actually run, but that prediction is (almost entirely) a joke, whereas the first prediction is not.)

Anyone challenging me to bet on the above is welcome to offer odds.

In the post below rolfandreassen sets the condition of 5 sigma evidence before 2014 and offers a bet of $25. In the post below that Eliezer accepts.

Discuss.

Stupid question. How the devil does a particle of mass 125 GeV decay to two particles of mass around 80 GeV each? What are the actual observed end products?

That's not a stupid question at all. Basically, the W and Z bosons are just virtual particles here, that decay very quickly, so that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (∆E * ∆t ≥ ℏ/2) is satisfied. The observed end products are four leptons (i.e. electrons, muons or taus plus the associated neutrinos), which add up to a mass much less then 125 GeV – the rest is in their kinetic energy.