The Higgs Boson -didn't- show up. There's evidence for a particle with mass consistent with the expected mass of the Higgs Boson, but this is not the same thing as a particle with the expected properties of the Higgs Boson.
However, there's an issue: They didn't know what the mass was supposed to be. Saying that the mass was consistent with the expected mass becomes less meaningful when you add that they spent the first two years of the LHC's operation excluding possibilities for what that mass would be. It's also less meaningful when you consider that they had already detected spikes at that mass range.
So what they -really- found is a particle with a mass consistent with particles they had already observed in the LHC. They're -calling- it the Higgs Boson, but have not in fact observed the -properties- expected of the Higgs Boson.
That's not what we're saying.
We have observed a particle whose properties match what we would expect to see from the Higgs Boson at our current levels of data and sensitivity. This is not based on the value of the mass. We saw three decay modes with consistent excesses at a specific mass, and those decay modes match expected Higgs decays (H → γ γ, H → W W, H → Z Z). There are other decays that don't show an excess (H → τ τ, H → b b), but we don't expect nearly as much sensitivity in those channels yet. We excluded the other mass ranges in the same way: the...
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)
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.