Higgs Hunters Talk

Higgs Hunters Blog Posts

  • DZM by DZM admin

    A thread for sharing the posts on the official Higgs Hunters blog!

    Introduction to Particle Physics Part 1: What is the world made of?

    Introduction to Particle Physics Part 2: What holds the world together?

    Introduction to Particle Physics Part 3: Order from chaos – the Standard Model arrives

    Introduction to Particle Physics Part 4: Beyond the Standard Model

    The Higgs boson Part 1: What is the Higgs?

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    The Higgs boson Part 2: Discovery of the Higgs

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Similation Overload

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  • Mark_..._a_physicist_of_sorts by Mark_..._a_physicist_of_sorts

    Can we have a guide to what's what (colours of lines especially) e-mailed out to us or, better, left on the classify screen? I'd also like to know why part of the calorimeter is greyed out in some data?

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Hi Mark! From the FAQs...

    Q: Why are some lines a different colour? - A: Edited: @andy.haas: "The colors indicate when the computer thinks tracks belong to the same vertex. But you should mostly ignore them and count the vertex tracks yourself, no matter the color."

    Although someone else could probably better explain the green lines, since they seem to be ubiquitous... I think someone said that they were muons.

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    More blog posts!

    The Higgs boson Part 3: Exotic Higgs decays

    ATLAS: How do particle detectors work?

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  • andy.haas by andy.haas scientist

    I just wrote my first!

    http://blog.higgshunters.org/2014/12/06/what-youre-seeing-on-higgshunters/

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  • DZM by DZM admin in response to andy.haas's comment.

    Great post! Thanks for writing, and for sharing!!

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  • glewald by glewald

    Several comments have been made to the effect that an ocv is observed in one view but not in the other view. I only see ONE view for each set of tracks. Am I missing a way to see two views of the same event; or are people looking at the examples at the bottom of the screen?

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  • Whoandwhatitis by Whoandwhatitis moderator

    Hello @glewald, While classifying objects, you only see one view. This is described in the FAQ, along with the reason for this decision.

    Once you're finished classifying, you have the options to view the Talk page for that object, and my guess is this is where you see the comments that describe that you can see an OCV in one view but not another. In the Talk page, you have the option to view each of the three available views. Does this help?

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  • glewald by glewald in response to Whoandwhatitis's comment.

    That makes sense.

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  • andy.haas by andy.haas scientist

    This post explains the simulations on HiggsHunters. Enjoy!

    http://blog.higgshunters.org/2014/12/17/tell-me-the-truth/

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Thank you for the excellent post, @andy.haas !

    I think we can redirect folks to this in the future when they have questions about sims.

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  • spaceygeek by spaceygeek

    what are the broken red lines? what do they mean 😃

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  • brownfox by brownfox in response to spaceygeek's comment.

    From jokergirl's FAQ at http://talk.higgshunters.org/#/boards/BHH0000001/discussions/DHH00000np

    "There will usually also be a dashed red line going from the center. The dashed line represents the direction of imbalance of momentum when all the detected particles are combined, and is not a particle track in itself."

    Because we know that momentum must be conserved, we can show where there must be undetected particles. These are often neutrinos which are very hard to detect but could be other particles.

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    Man, that FAQ is so useful. I have a dev looking into adding that FAQ button to the classification interface, hopefully by the end of this week!

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    And a new one ! 😄 : Tell me the Truth !

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Not really a blog post, but slightly connected ! ;D

    We made the Daily Zoo ! : Space particle in the LHC

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Not a blog post either 😄, but an article in "Symmetry", featuring Higgs Hunters and Space Warps.

    Physics for the people

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    New blog post : LHC rub 2

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    And another one : Clusters of clicks 😄

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  • Thomas_ by Thomas_ scientist

    There's another couple of posts that will be following in the next few days...

    If there's anything you'd particularly like to see or know about your efforts so far, just let me know! I'm new to this project of analysing the data, but I will try my best to help.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Love the blog posts so far, Thomas. Just keep them coming ! 😄

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Particle spray in the LHC

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Thomas is on a roll ! 😄 Another blog post !

    Strange and unusual images

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  • Thomas_ by Thomas_ scientist

    Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see on there! We're still on the look out for particularly unusual images.

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  • DZM by DZM admin

    I'd like to know what comes of any analysis that you do on these images! 😃

    Also, I've finally gone ahead and added you as a scientist. Overdue!

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  • Thomas_ by Thomas_ scientist

    Thanks! Hopefully I'll have something interesting and substantial to share with you about the images soon.

    Most of the analysis so far has focused on whether humans are better at identifying vertices in the various different views, whether people are more successful at identifying vertices with a greater number of tracks, and now we're looking to reconstruct some of the 3-D locations of the events that people located in both XY and Slice view. As you'd expect, the clicks on the simulated data (where we know roughly where the vertices should be) has proved invaluable, so thanks to everyone who categorized this, too.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Tx Thomas. And of course we know that the first thing to establish with these projects is to see if humans are indeed as good and preferably better then computers in identifying things ! 😄

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Hadronic Interactions

    See also : Particle Spray in the LHC

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Minerva and a Higgs hunting tutorial

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    An interesting cosmic ray candidate

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  • Psych0Active by Psych0Active

    Hmmm... 😦

    Project: Awesome!

    Ability to chat: Doesn't exist.

    HUGE mistake!

    The developers need to have a look at fold.it as an example of how to do citizen-science RIGHT!

    Without the ability to commune with like-minded individuals, this project will never see it's full potential. Without actual "Chat", and the ability to ask for real-time help, or just talk with others that are classifying "at that moment", there really isn't any SOCIAL incentive to stay on the site. Getting stuck and only having the option of wading through text that may, or may not speak directly to your question is a disincentive to continued classification.

    Foldit has hundreds of us playing, and chatting about solutions at any given time... here, the average length of time between posts is awful, indicating that you aren't getting the volume of results you'd hoped for. Built-in chat would hold folks on the site longer. By allowing for some social interaction, you'd find your volume of classifications skyrocket!

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  • Psych0Active by Psych0Active in response to Psych0Active's comment.

    Update to Previous Post:

    After leaving here, I went to "Planet Hunters" 😦

    Same problems! What you're getting from these "Zooniverse" idiots is what, as a small business, you'd get in the way of web traffic, if you left your web presence to to a site designed by Yellowpages.com! 😦

    As I stated in my previous post, without a LOT more robust interaction between users, this AWESOME project is going to drift in the doldrums, and never reach it's intended goal.

    A project like this absolutely needs LIVE CHAT to keep to keep it vibrant. Tap into the academic resources available to you (Gamer/Graduate Students!). Have them look at Foldit... have THEM design a better implementation of this GREAT idea than you're getting from these lamers at Zooniverse!

    Seriously! This is REAL SCIENCE, if you want the citizen-science results you anticipated, you need a REAL SITE, NOT as I stated above, one that's the science equivalent of a yellow pages site! The users that you DO have are REALLY engaged... keep them that way by giving them the social tools they need to STAY engaged. 😉

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  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to Psych0Active's comment.

    Sorry to hear you are less than happy with the Zooniverse projects you have tried, Psych0Active.

    I think some may not have lived up to your expectations because their nature is different from what you seem to be looking for.

    Getting stuck and only having the option of wading through text that may, or may not speak directly to your question is a disincentive to continued classification.

    In the Zooniverse projects I am familiar with - mostly astronomy ones, but also Higgs Hunters and Notes from Nature - the first few (or dozen or perhaps even hundred) classifications should perhaps be approached as an opportunity to learn-by-doing; the various FAQs, stickied threads, blog posts, etc are very helpful (but there's always room for improvement), and should cover almost everything a newbie will come across in those first few.

    True, Comments or Discussion threads about unusual or difficult subjects may not get an 'instant' response from someone - Science Team member, mod, oldbie zooite - with a satisfactory resolution, but that's surely a feature of every citizen science project like those in the Zooniverse, right? However, I think you have a deep misunderstanding about most of the classifications in those Zooniverse projects which are classification-based (Notes from Nature, for example, is not about classification, it's about transcription): there is no single, 'right answer'! 😮 It's the dozens/hundreds of individual classifications which makes for the powerful results, both their 'means' and 'distributions'.

    Foldit has hundreds of us playing, and chatting about solutions at any given time

    This, I think, illustrates your misunderstanding ... in Foldit there IS a 'right answer' (or perhaps several), and that answer can be shown to be 'right' with almost the precision of a mathematical proof, using just the data to hand; as far as I know, that's almost never possible in any classification Zooniverse project.

    By allowing for some social interaction, you'd find your volume of classifications skyrocket!

    The existing Zooniverse Talks - the v2 used here (and in Planet Hunters), and the v3 of the newest projects - are not at all designed for this level of social interaction. And there certainly is evidence that the design of Zooniverse fora greatly affects levels of participation ... look at how different GZ Talk is, from the original GZ forum, to take just one example. However, the volume of classifications isn't the primary goal! 😮 Rather, classifications made carefully.

    After leaving here, I went to "Planet Hunters" 😦 Same problems!

    Hmm ... didn't you find the ordinary zooites who'd developed their own analysis tools, and gone on to write their own papers?

    this AWESOME project is going to drift in the doldrums, and never reach it's intended goal.

    I can't speak to Higgs Hunters, but Galaxy Zoo - the original Zooniverse project and one of its currently most active ones - certainly reached well beyond its intended goals! Ditto the first Supernova project (it was retired early, due to its smashing success), the Andromeda Project (its second phase reached its intended goals way, way earlier than expected), ... So, at least some Zooinverse projects do seem to be doing something right

    Tap into the academic resources available to you (Gamer/Graduate Students!). Have them look at Foldit... have THEM design a better implementation of this GREAT idea than you're getting from these lamers at Zooniverse!

    I don't think so ... there's some good research showing that gamification of classification projects like Higgs Hunters is a bad idea (it leads to hasty classifications, and likely misses possible serendipitous discoveries, for example).

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  • Hemendra123 by Hemendra123

    As Peter Higgs suggested the presence of Higgs field . The increase in mass is increase in energy. So , as dark energy an dark matter is unknown and both of these provide energy or mass, can higgs field be dark matter and energy? This is just my assumption and opinion.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    A new blog post : Analysis time

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    And another one : Vertex-finding successes ! 😄

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  • Will.K by Will.K scientist in response to ElisabethB's comment.

    I'll try and post relatively frequently over the next few weeks as we ramp up analysis efforts, thanks to everyone's hard work we have a lot of clicks to look through and a host of interesting findings to tell you about 😃

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Can't wait to hear more ! Very exciting news ! 😄

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  • Will.K by Will.K scientist

    Hello everyone - exciting news today as we've been featured as a CERN news item! I've put up an accompanying blog post too to explain the context a little more and take the opportunity to show off a few more pictures!

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator in response to Will.K's comment.

    Thanks for the update.

    And the cake looks amazing ! 😃

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  • mattcbrrr90031 by mattcbrrr90031

    Hi All...brand new here.

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Hi mattcbrrr90031 and welcome to Higgs Hunters !

    Happy hunting ! 😄

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    New blog post : Schools start Higgs Hunting !

    Lucky kids, getting to meet Peter Higgs ! 😄

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  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    A new blog post : First results from your clicks submitted to a journal ! 😄

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  • mike-ds by mike-ds

    Having just discovered HiggsHunters, and spent a bit of time hunting, I notice that all the comments I see on pictures of interest are 1 to 2 years old. It looks to me as if all the pictures are now well and truly looked at, many times over. Is it worth continuing with this dataset or is it better to wait until new data is available, and hopefully with better tutorials on picking tracks of interest.

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  • Whoandwhatitis by Whoandwhatitis moderator in response to mike-ds's comment.

    The objects are classified by many people, and they are typically retired automatically once they reach the threshold that is set by the project owners.

    As mentioned in the arXiv article/blog post that @ElisabethB linked above:

    Following common Zooniverse practice, each event is classified by ∼60
    people, translating to ∼20 per image (three projections per image) –
    including ‘classifications’ where no image features were marked

    Also:

    The first mass participation citizen science project for the Large
    Hadron Collider has been extremely successful. More than 32,000
    citizen scientists participated, with a wide range of ages,
    backgrounds, and geographical spread represented. More than 1.2
    million features of interest were identified in images from the ATLAS
    detector.

    There are definitely plenty of images left to classify. You will likely still find quite a few that still do not have any comments. However, I am not sure of the timeline for new published results or new data for this project. The scientists or project owners will likely provide an update when the information becomes available.

    If it helps you any, I still have faith that this will keep going, and I continue to submit classifications when I am not working on other Zooniverse projects - I hope it's as fun for you as it is for me!

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