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Alarmed_Economics_90 t1_iu0tblf wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in If the Higgs Field can release energy, can it be harnessed? by [deleted]

You wanna translate that down by a few years of college/research?

Like, for us "Physics without calc" students who had to drop even that.

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LaunchTransient t1_iu0u6eq wrote

>Physics without calc

Tricky ask, calculus theory underlies so much physics that it is practically indispensable.

Even the simple English wiki reads like it's having a hard time properly explaining the concept of a Higgs field

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Alarmed_Economics_90 t1_iu0uk31 wrote

No worries. I know enough for whatever Jeopardy questions there might be about the subject, and that's how I measure whether I've probed deeply enough

Edit: though there is that saying about how if you really understand something, you can explain it to a five year old...

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LaunchTransient t1_iu0vzvf wrote

Oh I don't pretend to understand quantum theory or the full standard model. I'm down with general and special relativity, but quantum physics is just bizarre. Supposedly Feynman said "I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics".

I know enough to know when to tap out and let better intellects do the heavy lifting.

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ryschwith t1_iu13124 wrote

Well, I can tell you that a scalar field means that the field only has a field strength value at any given point; as opposed to a vector field which has a field strength value and a direction. Think about a magnetic field and you have some idea of what a vector field is.

I can also tell you that “spin” is a quantum property of particles. It’s like angular momentum but not exactly angular momentum. We don’t really understand what it is so we call it spin because that’s a close enough analogy to let us reason things out about it.

I don’t understand enough about quantum fields in general or the Higgs field in particular to tell you what the significance of it being a spin-0 scalar field would be.

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Alarmed_Economics_90 t1_iu16ee2 wrote

So when I think "field" I imagine a large plane, probably with some sort of grid overlaid. More accurately, I think in my mind the "field" is the grid points themselves.. I can imagine it's n-dimensional as well just fine, of course.

So I just found this definition : "The word ‘field' signifies the variation of a quantity(whether scalar or vector) with position."

I think a spin-0 (spherical symmetry with no preferred axis) field, then, is scalar because if the uniformity of the higgs particles.

I know that's not explaining the significance but did that sound right at all so far?

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ryschwith t1_iu2a54z wrote

I don't think that's quite it, although I admit this is at the borders of my understanding of physics. Spin isn't a property of the field, it's a property of the particles generated by the field. It has nothing to do with the field being scalar or not.

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