Category Archives: Preppers
Z.E.R.O. (Zombie Extermination, Research and Operations) Kit by OpticsPlanet
Imagine: You half-hear a low, guttural sound from outside as you lay sleeping. You figure it’s just your stomach after too much delicious Mexican food…
but a sudden thud on the outside wall of the house shakes you from a peaceful slumber. Deep within the primal centers of your brain, you realize the dead have risen to claim our once-peaceful realm. What do you do? What do you need?
The dead have risen, and they’ve returned as something different. Those you were once closest to now hunger for your flesh, and possibly the Mexican food you had for dinner.
There is no room for error when dealing with the undead.Our Z.E.R.O. (Zombie Extermination, Research and Operations) Kit takes into account all the different aspects of surviving the looming zombie apocalypse. When the undead hordes rise from their shallow graves to wreak havoc on all decent civilization, you’ll need to both fight back (Extermination), and find a cure (Research).
Always be prepared. In the new zombie world you can be king of the hill, or the tastiest treat in town.
Life Post Zombie Apocalypse is Harsh…Survive it!
First, as in any disaster, whether it is a hurricane, blizzard, alien invasion or giant lizard attack, you need basic survival gear. Fighting back will be necessary as well, but you have to survive the elements and everyday hazards before you can mount an offensive.
Stanley First Aid treats bite wounds, scratches & more.You’re sure to get a few cuts and bruises along the way so you need good first aid. The Stanley Personal Protection Large First Aid Kit will help you stop bleeding and take care of other wounds in no time. Zombies don’t have the best eyesight, but their sense of smell is on par with a bloodhound’s. There’s no scent as irresistibly alluring as blood, so make sure you clean and dress wounds when they happen. In addition to keeping zombie hordes from tracking you, treating wounds will prevent infection.
Punching zombies is the most fun you can have, but only with BlackHawk SOLAG Gloves.Preventing scrapes is the best way to keep blood from attracting zombies, so covering exposed skin with protective gear is essential. Blackhawk S.O.L.A.G. Kevlar Gloves keep hands safe from normal cuts, and the reinforced stitching stops zombie teeth from ripping through flesh and turning a healthy human into the enemy. Best of all, the molded knuckle protectors let you put a hard jab straight down the gullet of a walking dead monster in the event you’re unarmed.
Don’t Lose Your Head, Don’t Miss Your Shot, and Don’t Get Lost.
Watch It! The 5.11 Tactical Watch helps you take the perfect shot and get moving fast.Knowing your surroundings and where you’re going is essential to survival in any setting. Make sure you’re wearing the 5.11 Tactical Field Ops Watch, which not only tells time, but also has a digital compass so you know your bearings. The integrated SureShot calculator gives you shooting solutions out to 1000ft so that you don’t need to carry one when you’re taking headshots out from 300 meters to save a loved one’s life. Zombies send panic through the hearts of even the most hardened men, so let the 5.11 Tactical Watch take the guesswork out of your long distance shots.
Thermal Vision and Night Vision will prove essential for identifying the zombie menace in darkness.In addition to knowing where you are, seeing what’s around you will definitely help you survive when a chomping, cadaverous fiend comes for a reckoning. For late night viewing, the OPMOD PVS-14 Night Vision Scope will let you peer into the darkness. When patrolling your camp in pitch blackness you have to be absolutely certain you can see everything, but at a distance it can be difficult to differentiate between an injured human and a zombie. For this we added the Thermal-Eye X-50 Thermal Imaging Camera. As we all know, rising from the grave expels most of the heat from a zombie, leaving behind only faint warmth in the lower extremities. So if you view a stumbling figure with warm feet and a cold head, you know to take the shot. Just as the 5.11 Tactical Watch lets you calculate elevation compensation for long shots, the thermal imager helps you shoot with the confidence, knowing you’re only going to re-kill the undead.
No one survives long without batteries. People are going to loot stores for all the batteries they can find when the dead rise, so stock up now with the SureFire 123A Lithium Battery Box. Ten or twenty batteries might be nice to have, but you’re not planning on living for just a few months, you’re going to live a full lifetime. The included SureFire battery box has FOUR HUNDRED batteries. They’re going to prove to be one of the most valuable forms of currency in the post-zombie world. While we only included one box in our Z.E.R.O. Kit, you might want to pick up a couple extra, plenty for yourself and plenty for trading. Just a few boxes could make you one of the richest men in the world!
Combine the outstanding charging power of the Solaris with its unique ability to distract zombies.If you do run out of batteries and need to power your kit, asolar charger can become your best friend. Zombies have many horrifying abilities, but the one thing they can’t do is blot out the sun, so when you set up the powerful Brunton SOLARIS Portable Solar Panel Battery Charger you’ll enjoy 62 watts of power, which will keep your precious electronics working long after the power grids have shut down. As a side benefit, if a zombie attacks you near the solar charger you can yell out, “Left hand on Green!” and the zombie will forget your brains and focus on completing the task given them.
The SureFire Benelli Forend Light for shotguns turns a regular shotgun into a Zombie Destroyer!While the hunger for human flesh overrides nearly all zombie impulses, certain childhood memories will temporarily replace their hunger. This is a short-lived solution though, as zombiescan’t tell right from left, and the resulting frustration will send them into a rage.
Give the Undead Nightmares by Taking the Fight to Them!
Once you’ve gathered your basic survival gear together, you need to think about how you’re going to dispatch those creeping, gnawing, nearly unkillable monsters. Your rifle, shotgun and handgun (one gun will not keep you alive long) need to be enhanced for maximum zombie-slaying effectiveness.
The Zombie Stopper strikes fear into the hearts of undead creatures.Let’s start with the bread and butter of any zombie-fighter: the shotgun. Zombies are only dangerous at close range, and they often stand idly until a delicious human comes along. If you’re clearing a house at night and a zombie steps around a corner you need to see exactly what you’re shooting at, and the SureFire Benelli M1 Super 90 Forend Weaponlight provides a bright 120 lumens of light without changing your grip or weighing down your shotgun. It uses the Lithium 123A batteries from the SureFire Battery Box, so you won’t need to worry about power. It’s both super durable and powerfully bright. This will give you plenty of light to see those lifeless eyes roll back once you’ve given your zombie attacker peace.
While you need to see if a zombie is hunting you in the blackness of night, to turn the tables and go from hunted to hunter you need the absolute best in rifle scopes and red dot sights. Enter EOTech and theirZombie Stopper Holographic Weapon Sight. This red dot sight gives you an appropriately zombie-themed reticle, and placing that biohazard design on a ghoulish skull will help steel you to always take the shot without hesitation. Even if you’re using the Zombie Stopper for hunting food it will always serve as a reminder that you must be aware of your surroundings.
Little known fact: zombies love the woods. If you’re hunting deer to feed your family keep in mind that a walking creature of the night could pop out from behind any tree or bush and make a feast of your brain.
Don’t rely on a non-zombie specific laser grip.When a large herd of zombies is converging on your position you may not have time to reload your rifle or shotgun and may need to quickly transition to your sidearm. Since speed is of the essence it’s best to have a laser grip on your Glock (the best zombie-slaying handgun). The Crimson Trace Zombie Edition Laser Gripactivates with a normal grip, so you don’t need to worry about pressing a button to turn it on. Seeing the red laser on your target ensures you’ll never miss a shot.
As a side benefit, zombies are drawn to the red light in much the same way a cat is (no surprise, as zombie infection comes from a feline-human hybrid virus). If you run out of ammo you can use this red laser grip to distract the zombies and make your escape!
Zombies fear blades like cats fear dogs, and vacuum cleaners.That brings up an important point: much like batteries, ammunition will be scarce once the zombies cause the fall of civilized society. There are a few ways to deal with this. First,knives are both an outstanding survival tool and stalwart zombie killer. Browning understands this very well, which is why they developed a Zombie Apocalypse Knife.
The seven inch blade is for precision zombie hunters who sever brain stems like ninja assassins. The drop point blade is extra strong and will hold up to all the rigors of a zombie-plagued world.
While you’ll have to learn to rely on your knife when taking on the zombie masses, shooting a rifle is still easier and willdispatch zombies at a faster rate when faced with a large group of these horrors. As ammunition is sure to run low, you’ll need a way to reload your empty cartridges.
The OPMOD Battle Mug: The only cup that can take down a zombie.RCBS has reloading gear so tough you could bash out an undead brain and continue reloading immediately. From the RCBS Pro-Melt Furnace, for re-forging your bullets, to their Progressive Press, for getting your bullets into cartridges, you’ll be all set for the next nightmarish wave.
Don’t forget that at any moment a zombie can appear, so if you’re sitting by a campfire enjoying a glass of water you may not have your knife or gun in hand. It’s best to make sure ANYTHING in your hands is tactically sound, so never drink from a regular cup. Drink from the cup of survivors and champions the world over. The OPMOD Battle Mug is a super strong cup, made from aluminum and features a crenellated base for extra zombie smashing power. You can go from thirst-quenching to death-dealing in less than .45 seconds. We tested that.
Search for a Cure or You’ll Search for a Grave.
Unfortunately, all the gear so far is simply a stop-gap as long as the zombie disease rages on. You can take down thousands or even millions of risen dead and hardly make a dent in the overall undead army. Don’t think short term when prepping for the apocalypse. If you want a safe world for your children and grandchildren you must find a cure. For this you need the best laboratory equipment.
Test, test and test Again. Three tests should do it, by then you’ll have cured the zombie disease.We’ve included Qorpak Beakers, Labnet Pipettes and aCelestron Microscope so you can take samples and study the innermost workings of zombies. The destructive nature of their cells might lead you to a better understanding of their life expectancy or how to possibly treat their symptoms so they no longer hunger for human flesh.
Properly tamed, a zombie can do the physical labor of 30 men without tiring. You will only be able to determine if a zombie can be tamed through laboratory research.
Many hours of grueling arguments, exhaustive research and bite-dodging testing went into developing the selection ofzombie survival gear below.
The Z.E.R.O. Kit also includes night vision devices, solar chargers, multi tools, tactical vests, sunglasses, and much more. We’ve completed all this work to give you the best chance of surviving when Death returns to Earth with hell by his side. You only need to do two things: buy the Z.E.R.O. Kit and fight for your life.
All the zombie gear in this kit is listed below so you can purchase the items separately, but remember that the kit was very carefully put together to cover all your bases. Each item you choose NOT to buy is one less day you’ll live.
PANDEMIC OUTBREAK – Mystery illness claims dozens of Cambodian children
Hong Kong (CNN) — The World Health Organization is helping the Cambodian Ministry of Health investigate the cause of a mysterious illness that has killed dozens of children in the country since April.
A joint statement from the WHO and the ministry, released Wednesday, said 61 of 62 children admitted to hospital had died from the disease. The majority of the reported cases came from southern and central Cambodia.
“[The Ministry of Health] and WHO are currently investigating the cases,” Mam Bunheng, the Cambodian minister of health, said in the statement, “possible causes of the disease are being considered, but definite identification of the cause and source may take some time.”
Initial reports from the Cambodian government indicate that the unknown illness struck children under seven years old.
“The symptoms include a mixture of respiratory illnesses, fever and generalized neurological symptoms, including convulsions in some of the patients,” Dr. Nima Asgari, a team leader of the WHO country office in Cambodia, said in an email to CNN.
The children were brought to hospitals in the capital, Phnom Penh, and the northern tourist hub of Siem Reap — the two biggest cities of Cambodia — but most of them died within 24 hours upon admission.
“This can be a mixture of a number of known diseases — virological, bacterial or toxicological — which have been reported as one syndrome or something new,” Asgari added.
“While the labs are excluding the various pathogens, we are providing support to [the Ministry of Health] to make sure that an in-depth analysis of cases is done to identify possible causes or exposures which will give us a better picture. The investigation is ongoing.”
So far, there were no signs of contagion or clusters of cases — patients who had contact with each other and fell sick together — a telltale warning sign of a highly infectious disease. But Asgari admitted the high mortality rate in such a short time was extremely worrying.
ZOMBIE HISTORY – Zombie Scenes in the Bible
Zombies loom large in popular culture these days. Max Brooks’ “World War Z: An Oral 
History of the Zombie War” (2006), the Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith mashup “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (2009), and Melissa Marr’s “Graveminder” (2011), to name but a few recent novels, enjoy a wide readership. There are also graphic novels, the AMC television show “The Walking Dead,” video games, and of course movies. Some of my recent favorites in the latter category include the Norwegian Nazis-as-zombies film “Dead Snow” (2009) with its delightful tagline “Ein! Zwei! Die!” and Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s “The Cabin in the Woods” (2012). With all of this going on, there is little surprise to come across the open-source, collaborative Stinque Zombie Bible. It was just a matter of time, I suppose, and the King James Bible will never be quite the same.
I am an unabashed zombie fan but also teach “classic” English literature and the New Testament so I can’t quite bring myself to desecrate the literary and religious masterpiece that is the Authorized (King James) Version by contributing to the Zombie Bible. Still, wanting to get into the spirit of things, I can’t resist noting a few biblical scenes and themes — a top 10 list — that come to mind each time I watch or read the latest version of the zombie apocalypse to come along. At least in some passages, a zombie-Bible mashup requires very little editorial interference.
1. The Gospel of Luke: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:5). Such a suggestive phrase. Note also that the angels asking the question and those they address are standing inside a tomb at the time (Luke 24:2-4).
2. The Book of Revelation: “the sea gave up the dead that were in it” (Revelation 20:13). John the Seer’s creepy statement reminds me of a scene in George A. Romero’s “Land of the Dead” (2005) that features slow-moving corpses walking out of the surf, and Max Brooks’ “World War Z” with its account of the boy returning from a swim with a bite mark on his foot. He also describes the zombie hoards roaming the world’s oceans: “They say there are still somewhere between twenty and thirty million of them, still washing up on beaches, or getting snagged in fisherman’s nets.”
3. Deuteronomy: “Your corpses shall be food for every bird of the air and animal of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away” (Deuteronomy 28:25-26; cf. 2 Samuel 21:10; Psalm 79:1-2; Isaiah 34:2-3; Jeremiah 7:33). The ancients worried about the exposure of their body after death. Improper care of one’s corpse was a terrifying prospect, so it is no wonder it features in prophetic warnings of divine wrath. Qoheleth insists that even though a man lives a long life and has many children, if he “has no burial … a stillborn child is better off than he” (Ecclesiastes 6:3). The indignity of non-burial presumably accounts for the honor bestowed on the poor man Lazarus in Jesus’ parable; the rich man receives proper burial but Lazarus “was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham” (Luke 16:22) because there was no one to care for his remains.
4. The Book of Job: “Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures…?” (Job 3:20-21). Job is angry he did not die at birth (3:11), adding that he loathes his life and does not want to live forever (7:16). Others prefer death to life out of principled anger against God, like the prophet Jonah (4:3; cf. 4:8). Physical death eludes a surprising number of people in the Christian Bible, and this is not always a welcome thing. The prophet John refers to some who “seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them” (Revelation 9:6). The prospect of an elusive death, as every zombie fan knows, terrorizes the living. The “stricken” Charlotte Lucas in “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” agrees to marry the tedious and obsequious minister Mr. Collins because she wants “a husband who will see to [her] proper Christian beheading and burial.” This is no small task for most survivors left with such a grim assignment, as Shaun well knows: “I don’t think I got it in me to shoot my flat mate, my mom, and my girlfriend all in the same evening” (“Shaun of the Dead,” 2004).
5. The Gospel of Matthew: “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After [Jesus’] resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:52-53). Unwanted persistent life is a recurring image in biblical literature and so too is language referring to the impermanence of bodily death. The dead do not stay dead. The psalmist is confident he will not “see decay” (Psalm 16:10 New International Version; cf. Acts 2:27; 13:35). We read of the physical resurrections of specific individuals (e.g., 1 Kings 17:17-24; Luke 8:49-56; maybe Acts 20:7-12) and expected mass revivals (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Some of these accounts of un-dying involve reference to un-burying. Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus walks out of his tomb when “they took away the stone” (John 11:41). On Easter morning, mourners find “the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back” (Mark 16:4). A second century writer describes further the events preceding Jesus’ emergence from the tomb: “That stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and gave way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened” (Gospel of Peter9.35).
6. Ezekiel: Ezekiel receives a vision promising the restoration of Israel (37:11). Seeing a valley full of bones, the Lord instructs him to speak to them, saying, “O dry bones … I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live” (37:4-6). When Ezekiel does so, “there was a noise, a rattling” as bones come together and sinew and skin appears and the breath of life returns. The dry bones “lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude” (37:7-10).
7. Zechariah: “their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths” (Zechariah 14:12). They seem to resemble extras in a George A. Romero film.
8. The Gospel of Mark: “hell, where their worm never dies” (Mark 9:48; alluding here to Isaiah 66:24). Gehenna (here symbolically representing “hell,” and usually translated so, as in Mark 9:44, 45, 47) refers to the Valley of Hinnom located to the south and southwest of Jerusalem. Following the reign of Israel’s righteous King Josiah (see 2 Kings 23:10-14), it became Jerusalem’s garbage heap, a place with maggots and rotting corpses. Jesus refers to this burning garbage in Mark 9:48, a place where residents of the city would leave the rotting corpses of humans and animals to the worms that do not die, to maggots. The image suggests the corpses of the damned rot ingehenna/hell — maggot ridden — in perpetuity.
9. 2 Maccabees: “[Antiochus IV Epiphanes] was seized with a pain in his bowels, for which there was no relief, and with sharp internal tortures — and that very justly, for he had tortured the bowels of others with many and strange inflictions … he fell out of his chariot as it was rushing along, and the fall was so hard as to torture every limb of his body. … the ungodly man’s body swarmed with worms, and while he was still living in anguish and pain, his flesh rotted away, and because of the stench the whole army felt revulsion at his decay. Because of his intolerable stench no one was able to carry the man who a little while before had thought that he could touch the stars of heaven” (2 Maccabees 9:5-6, 7, 9-10). The Syrian ruler’s physical body rots away zombie-like while he still lives. The cause is divine, as the God of Israel strikes this enemy of the Jews with “an incurable and invisible blow” (2 Maccabees 9:5).
10. Genesis with the Book of Revelation: “the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep”; “the first heaven and the first earth has passed away, and the sea was no more” (Genesis 1:2; Revelation 21:1). With the disappearance of chaos, Eden returns: “On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit” (Revelation 22:2; cf. Genesis 2:9). Horrors stories often wander back and forth between forms of paradise (ordered society) and chaos (some variant of an apocalyptic hellscape) thus recalling biblical stories with similar alternations. Zombie stories typically depict the disintegration of the modern world, and often hint at a return from the wilderness to the paradisiacal garden for survivors (cf. Genesis 3:23-24). Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” (2002), for one, ends with a developing romance between Jim and Salina, happy in the cultivated lands around a cottage that echoes Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The sequel “28 Weeks Later” (2007), however, depicts a failed attempt to restore Eden. After the spread of the disastrous infection in the first film, the sequel documents efforts to repopulate the United Kingdom. Survivors return to their homeland, to what the director’s commentary refers to as “a new world” and a “Garden of Eden.” Naturally, mayhem ensues and the infection spreads as the movie unfolds. It wouldn’t be much of a horror movie otherwise.
Gadgets to help you survive a power outage
(CNN) — Our electronic gadgets make life easier in a lot of ways.
But when power sources falter, as they did for nearly 2 million people in the Eastern United States this weekend after massive storms hit, digital communication tools can become useless at a crucial time.
Whether the problem is losing the ability to talk and text on a cellphone or suddenly being without news sources when the juice in a tablet or laptop fizzles out, our increasingly digital lives mean dealing with darkness and rough weather aren’t our only concerns when the power’s out.
Nothing is going to make an extended power outage easy. But here are a few items to consider should you find yourself powered down by Mother Nature.
1. Hand-crank radio
Listening to the radio for the news might seem decidedly old-school for the Twitter-and-tablet obsessed news junkie of the digital age. But when all else fails, the tried-and-true radio waves can be a valuable way to keep up with local weather and other news in the event of an outage, especially when you can power it up when all your other electronics fail.
There are several radios out there that let you juice up the battery with a hand crank. For example, the Grundig FR200 advertises access to AM, FM and two shortwave channels, a design makers say makes it weatherproof, and an LED emergency light.
2. Battery charger
When communication is vital, one more phone call or text message could be critical. So, whether it’s just recharging long enough to do that, or hoping to literally weather the storm for longer, a backup charger can keep you plugged in (figuratively, if not literally).
“Juice packs” can be bought for $100 or less (Mophie, for one, makes them for Apple and Android devices) and many of the chargers double as protective cases for your smartphone or tablet. Alternately, battery-powered backup chargers like the Zagg Sparqcan provide several full charges for your mobile devices after the usual electrical options are gone.
You can even find chargers that use solar power; so as long as you’ve got a dry spot and at least a brief break from the rain, Mother Nature can help bail you out.
3. Light source
Of course, you should have flashlights and fresh batteries around.
But finding them in the dark can be it’s own challenge. And, sometimes, you just need a steady source of light, not one you have to tote around. There are battery powered lights on sale for less than $30 that you can keep plugged into an outlet. When the power goes out, they automatically come on, saving you those moments of fumbling.
There also are slightly more exotic products, like the Striker Magnetic LED Light, which is about the size of a golf ball and designed to stick to surfaces.
4. Power inverter
If you need to power up something a little bigger than a phone, a power inverter might be a useful tool. If you want to be able to use a laptop or desktop computer during an outage, this may be the way to go.
The inverter can be used to convert DC power from your car battery into AC juice that can be used for things usually plugged in to a wall outlet.
Places like Batteries Plus, as well as most computer stores, usually have these around in a wide range of power. Ask an employee how much of a charge you need for what you want to do.
‘God particle’ found – DOOMSDAY IS NEAR
GENEVA (AP) — Physicists say they have all but proven that the “God particle” exists.
They have a footprint and a shadow, and the only thing left is to see for themselves the elusive subatomic particle believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.
Scientists at the world’s biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have nearly confirmed the primary plank of a theory that could restructure the understanding of why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight.
The idea is much like gravity and Isaac Newton’s discovery: It was there all the time before Newton explained it. But now scientists know what it is and can put that knowledge to further use.
The focus of the excitement is the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle long sought by physicists.
Researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, say that they have compiled vast amounts of data that show the footprint and shadow of the particle, even though it has never actually been glimpsed.
But two independent teams of physicists are cautious after decades of work and billions of dollars spent. They don’t plan to use the word “discovery.” They say they will come as close as possible to a “eureka” announcement without overstating their findings.
“I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, ‘It looks like a discovery,'” said British theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor at King’s College London who has worked at CERN since the 1970s. “We’ve discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs.”
CERN’s atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.
The phrase “God particle,” coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, is used by laymen, not physicists, more as an explanation for how the subatomic universe works than how it all started.
Rob Roser, who leads the search for the Higgs boson at the Fermilab in Chicago, said: “Particle physicists have a very high standard for what it takes to be a discovery,” and he thinks it is a hair’s breadth away. Roser compared the results that scientists will announce Wednesday to finding the fossilized imprint of a dinosaur: “You see the footprints and the shadow of the object, but you don’t actually see it.”
Fermilab, whose competing atom smasher reported its final results Monday after shutting down last year, said its data doesn’t settle the question of the Higgs boson, but it came tantalizingly close.
“It’s a real cliffhanger,” said Gregorio Bernardi, a physicist at the University of Paris who helped lead one of the main experiments at Fermilab. He cited “strong indications of the production and decay of Higgs bosons” in some of their observations.
Fermilab theorist Joseph Lykken said the Higgs boson “gets at the center, for some physicists, of why the universe is here in the first place.”
Though an impenetrable concept to many, the Higgs boson has until now been just that — a concept intended to explain a riddle: How were subatomic particles, such as electrons, protons and neutrons, themselves formed? What gives them their mass?
The answer came in a theory first proposed by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs and others in the 1960s. It envisioned an energy field where particles interact with a key particle, the Higgs boson.
The idea is that other particles attract Higgs bosons and the more they attract, the bigger their mass will be. Some liken the effect to a ubiquitous Higgs snowfield that affects other particles traveling through it depending on whether they are wearing, metaphorically speaking, skis, snowshoes or just shoes.
Officially, CERN is presenting its evidence this week at a physics conference in Australia but plans to accompany the announcement with meetings in Geneva. The two teams, known as ATLAS and CMS, then plan to publicly unveil more data on the Higgs boson at physics meetings in October and December. Each of the teams involves thousands of people working independently to ensure accuracy.
The scientific threshold for discovery is high. Scientists have to show with complex formulas that there’s a less than 1 in 1.7 million chance that the findings are a statistical fluke. With two independent experiments showing that there’s less than 1 in 16,000 chance of being wrong, it’s a matter of how their work is put together.
Scientists with access to the new CERN data say it shows with a high degree of certainty that the Higgs boson may already have been glimpsed, and that by unofficially combining the separate results from ATLAS and CMS it can be argued that a discovery is near. Ellis says at least one physicist-blogger has done just that in a credible way.
CERN spokesman James Gillies said Monday that he would be “very cautious” about unofficial combinations of ATLAS and CMS data.
“Combining the data from two experiments is a complex task, which is why it takes time, and why no combination will be presented on Wednesday.” he said.
But if the calculations are indeed correct, said John Guinon, a longtime physics professor at the University of California at Davis and author of the book “The Higgs Hunter’s Guide,” then it is fair to say that “in some sense we have reached the mountaintop.”
Sean M. Carroll, a California Institute of Technology physicist flying to Geneva for Wednesday’s announcement, said that if both ATLAS and CMS have independently reached these high thresholds on the Higgs boson, then “only the most curmudgeonly will not believe that they have found it.”