Why is the Boson Named After One Person In Popular Media ie Higgs?!

[admin]

This is great news for all science especially Physics which is suffering due to low class interest (my wife who is also a physics teacher will be happy), but clearly the boson shouldn't be named after Higgs.

Despite all the media attention on him there were about 5-6 other people (Brout-Englert-Higgs-Hagen-Guralnik-Kibble) at least involved as well on the original idea not to mention the billions of dollars and researchers that actually proved this particle and idea!

This sadly seems like another DNA structure fiasco ala Watson and Crick. 3 separate papers, 5 or more thinkers yet Higgs get the only mention in popular media and all the glory?!

Nobel prizes and media attention to scientific research are pretty much the same issue unfortunately, and the popularity contest is usually won by only one or two contributors of many - and often the best work never gets even a prize.

If the same mechanism was applied to philosophy as compared to the thinkers who thought of the particle, philosophers who did not have the means to prove their ideas via the scientific method for obvious reasons (similar to the boson thinkers), would still get their names on all their proven theories and ideas even if it was proved hundreds of years later (rate of science advancements in 1000 years during the "dark ages" can be equivalent to few years in current times).

So we would have quite a few long names of proven theories such as the Aristarchus of Samos Heliocentric Property etc., but instead we have Higgs and not Brout-Englert-Higgs-Hagen-Guralnik-Kibble Boson. Just call it Boson or another term.

If he spent decades on his idea, and proved it himself with his own money like Papanicolaou for example (who pioneered the study and identification of abnormal ie cancerous cells - despite not receiving a Nobel! - for which the Pap Test is named after) then I would not have any issues with the naming.

Just to note, in scientific research a great proportion of ideas are "taken" from graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows - these people are never mentioned in popular media as the originators of the idea or even mentioned as contributors. Its often only the supervisor that gets mention usually. If you look at the research papers and lab pages, there are often dozens to hundreds of people involved in even one small research study. Would be quite sad if this idea was proposed by students or postdocs and these amazing minds never got their dues or the help needed to jump start their bright futures due to the politics of science and the media.

Heck even football or hockey is a team sport. Research definitely is these days. Last time someone had a Eureka moment and discovered density (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes) that person not only came up with the calculation and theory of density but also a method to measure it (in the bath no less). My times have changed.

Go figure, its all politics to me.

More here:
Higgs boson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[admin]

On doing some quick reading actually even before the 6 scientists mentioned above, Anderson proposed the mechanism earlier in 1962 (P. W. Anderson (1962). "Plasmons, Gauge Invariance, and Mass". Physical Review 130 (1): 439–442. Bibcode 1963PhRv..130..439A. DOI:10.1103/PhysRev.130.439.) No doubt he was influenced by earlier works but again for some weird reason it is often called the "Higgs mechanism" despite Anderson preceding Higgs and the other researchers by 2 years (1962 vs 1964)!

The 5 other researchers are pictured here winning the Sakurai prize for their boson work.:

800px-AIP-Sakurai-best.JPG
2010 Sakurai Prize Winners - (L to R) Kibble, Guralnik, Hagen, Englert, and Brout (public domain work)

Higgs mechanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So would it be more correctly called the Anderson-.2 year stretch..-Englert–Brout–Higgs–Guralnik–Hagen–Kibble-et-al (for other mention). mechanism and particle.

[astroval]

Thanks Gus, nice article. Such law can be added to discussion:

The law of misnomity: Astronomers shall always pick the wrong name for everything.

Anderson already has Nobel Prize. May be this is reason that his name not mention so often for Higgs mechanism? All other are still candidates for Nobel Prize.

Hope that as minimum the name boson is derived from the surname of the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose is done in right way?

[admin]

lol yes I agree. I also heard about the Indian scientist claim, along with a few others which may have merit to the idea. Maybe they should call it the Bosen particle! :P

I didn't know Anderson had a Noble already, but I don't really follow the prizes for reasons stated above. If that is the reason, it would be a poor one in my books.

I am not sure how I missed Daniel's post, but due to the amount of activity on our community (often every minute) I simply cannot keep up. Great link thank you for sharing it!

[Tim K]

Be careful what you wish for. The use of constellation names, star names, in fact any historical or mythological reference, is actively discouraged among professional astronomers. It would not surprise me to one day see a "fairness" doctrine for scientific theories where the names are replaced by an alphanumeric handle.

[admin]

True I would rather have X boson than alpha-72342 particle but one thing is for certain, even drugs need a name to remember them. You don't want to have your ER doctor have to make a quick decision between alpha-72342 medicine and alpha-72343 - its just human nature, so I don't see it happening unless its new stars and planets. I doubt Sirius will become star beta-2342 any time soon, sure it won't save a life but good luck changing anything entrenched with our history and science.

I find too many new scientific terms or theories are not named properly or are attributed to someone who did not truly deserve it in whole. Take this law ""No [new] scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." That is just my opinion. As for something as important as a new particle that is discovered basically by a substantial part of the physics community and its funding, it should have a name that actually means something whether Greek, Latin, English or whatever language in origin. Not Higgs, who is a miniscule part of the undertaking (ie possibly 1/6th of the mechanism behind a 2 year old idea!) from start to finish and really has no association with the particle or its purpose. My opinion.

see this:
Stigler's law of eponymy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"If an earlier, valid statement of a theory falls on deaf ears, and a later restatement is accepted by the science, this is surely proof that the science accepts ideas only when they fit into the then-current state of the science"

A good example is heliocentrism, evolution and many other theories which were discussed and theorized well before their established "discoverers". Clearly Darwin was extremely late to evolution, it was really nothing new but yet there is a term Darwinism. I love the history behind science terms and their discovery, but important scientific names should have a better meaning. Heliocentrism and Evolution are good terms, Darwinism..? How about Evolution? DNA is a great term.

A good but interesting naming example is Prion (after Protein infection) but interestingly Prusiner was the one who coined the term... is that an eponym?

[Cladinator]

I'm not sure why it has to be named after a person at all. None of the other gauge bosons are named after people.

[admin]

Nick I totally agree, it would be best to have a term that had a meaning. I just wanted to highlight the fact that the news are naming one person behind a vast achievement of much of humankind, and a great deal of the resources and man power of the physics community. Its undeserved and its best to have a good name for it.

The media however have other plans and want to make a household name for one man, and despite them reporting mostly bad news when it comes time to shine they really help make a mess of things.

Maybe Democritus or society then should have called Atoms, Democriteses? I'm happy they are called atoms - because he thought they were the building blocks of all materials and substances, the elements of the universe from the Gk. a-tomos from "uncuttable" or indivisible - from his thoughts of dividing or cutting material such as sand into smaller and smaller bits, the last bit or unit would be an "atom" or uncuttable/indivisible unit. Great term.

God particle or Higgs boson are really nutty, outrageous terms but make perfect sense when you read the rest of the news from these same sources.

[Cladinator]

God particle or Higgs boson are really nutty

I cringe every time I hear " god particle."

[Tim K]

I cringe every time I hear " god particle."

That came from the title of a book by Lederman and Teresi. One of the authors claimed the title they proposed was "Goddamned Particle", but the editor and publisher balked and forced the change.