Did Homer Simpson predict the mass of the Higgs boson 14 years before its discovery?

[Aethon]

"That equation predicts the mass of the Higgs boson. If you work it out, you get the mass of a Higgs boson that's only a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson actually is."

-Simon Singh. Author of The Simpsons and their Mathematical secrets.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11444055/Homer-Simpson-discovered-the-Higgs-boson.html

[KerbMav]

I think the theory was there long before the experiment to proof it was technologically viable?

[Dman979]

So many of the Simpsons creators were math geeks, I would not be surprised.

[pincushionman]

Remember, one of the reasons we know the detected particles are in fact Higgs is because they closely match said predicted mass.

[Tex]

Huh. I read once that this was Homer nearly disproving Fermat's last theorem... I should check my sources better That's cool, though!

[Tex_NL]

Every time you see a scientific formula like this on TV or in a movie you can be sure on one of two possibilities: either the formula is complete and utter nonsense or it is (near) accurate and correct according to science known at that time.

TV/movie directors and writers simply can not afford to screw things like this up. If they make an error people will find out and they will expose the error.

Remember the "Big Bang Theory" episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture" where Sheldon and Leaonard face each other in the physics bowl. The final question was to solve the equation:

PMS guesses 8.4, which is incorrect, while AA has no official answer, one of Sheldon's teammates suggests , which turns out to be the correct answer.

Actually is not really the correct solution of the equation shown above, but it would take some effort to get the right answer, which surely won't be as simple as given in the show. Additionally, there's an error in this equation; if it should correspond to the Feynman-Diagram standing above it and if the answers should not have an open index , because isn't contracted, then the second gammamatrix needs to have the index . Even if one corrects that, one has to square this Matrix element (expression) and sum over the Spins to get a better result than just the whole expression. Even then, the answer depends on some kinematic variables. If interested in calculating that, look in Peskin Schröder's Peskin Schröder "An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory" pages 131ff.

http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bat_Jar_Conjecture

[BlueCosmology]

Remember, one of the reasons we know the detected particles are in fact Higgs is because they closely match said predicted mass.

Not true. The higgs bosons mass is a free parameter, which is (one of the reasons) why it was very hard to detect it.

[monstah]

Huh. I read once that this was Homer nearly disproving Fermat's last theorem... I should check my sources better That's cool, though!

Well, yeah, that second line IS a counter example to the Last Theorem. Or, rather, would be, if it were correct...

[TheMoonRover]

Well that counter-example to Fermat's last theorem holds up on my calculator. Apparently it doesn't have enough significant figures. Now an attempt to show why it's incorrect.

7^1=7 7^2=49 7^3=343 7^4=2401 and 1 times 7 is 7, therefore 7^12 has a 1 as its last digit, therefore 3987^12 has a 1 as its last digit.

5^1=5 5^2=25 therefore 5^n has a 5 as its last digit (where n is a positive integer) therefore 4365^12 has a 5 as its last digit.

2^1=2 2^2=4 2^3=8 2^4=16 and 2 times 6 is 12, therefore 2^12 has a 6 as its last digit, therefore... 1+5=6 *swears* They're good.

Or just use the computer: 4472.0000000070592907382135292414

EDIT: [sARCASM]Also, what is the bottom one supposed to represent? The hole is greater than the sum of its parts?[/sARCASM]

EDIT2: (Serious question) What is the significance of 137? I've seen that number pop up in a couple of places, but I don't know why.

Edited March 5, 2015 by TheMoonRover

[BlueCosmology]

EDIT2: (Serious question) What is the significance of 137? I've seen that number pop up in a couple of places, but I don't know why.

1/137 is the coupling constant for electromagnetism (related to the probability of a charged particle emitting a photon).