God's particle

[Sandrabz]

My daughter Ava has a facination with this topic, she knows a lot about the subject.
She tells me that the God's particle was foung because items of different mass produced diferent trajectory when particles are smach. Please wait a moment until my head stops spinning. She does has problem getting a project that proves that and she talk about making a box with clear plastic with two plastic tubes and , roll diferent glass beeds and therefore producing different trajectory. But how can she collect measurements. Can you please provide her with an idea for her experiment for her science project it needs to be meassurable and be able to follow the scientific nethod,
Thanks so much this is way about my knowladge,

Thanks Ava's mother

[kgudger]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

I'm not quite sure I understand the experiment exactly, but it sounds like your daughter wants to collide two different beads with different masses and record their trajectory.

The "higher tech" solution would be to record the collision with a video camera. You can then use video editing software (free types are available) to watch the collision in slow motion. If your background has a grid with measurements marked on it, you can see what the trajectories are.

You could also (low tech solution) coat the beads in graphite (pencil lead) and they probably will leave a trace behind on the paper of their trajectories.

Please let us know more details of the experiment and we'll be happy to help.
Keith

[Craig_Bridge]

I a bit confused by the subject line and what your daughter wants to investigate. Evidence of the theoretical "Higgs boson" particle (dubbed "God's particle" by some in particle physics) was found using the world's largest particle acellerator at CERN. Doing any work related to that particle is way beyond the 6-8 grade level.

I looked through the Science Buddies project ideas and didn't find any that were related to the area of particle collisions.

A pool table could be used to demonstrate various collision mechanics between two equal sized and massed balls that includes speed, incident angles, and rotation.
Various sized glass and steel marbles could be used to demonstrate collision mechanics between unequal sizes balls.
The suggestion of using a stationary video camera is a great idea for documenting and measuring collisions.

BEWARE: A demonstration is NOT a science project. To create a science project out of a demonstration, you have to figure out how to form a hypothesis your daughter wants to test, find a test method that has a chance to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and then conduct the experiment, analyze the result and determine if you proved, disproved, or don't have sufficient evidence either way.

-Craig

[John Dreher]

The idea of using a pool table is interesting. However I fear that the mechanics of the collision between two rolling spheres, with allowance for the assumed interaction at the contact point of the impact with regards to friction, puts the theoretical basis well beyond grade 6-8 level -- it was difficult for freshman students at MIT at the end of a semester studying Mechanics (and even for their teacher I'm not ashamed to admit!). Using "dry-ice sliders" makes the analysis much easier; some of the observations can be explained by conservation of mechanical energy without bringing in vector analysis. Here's a reference: Physics Teacher, v46 n6 p341-342 Sep 2008. Ava is, obviously, very smart, but she will almost certainly need help from someone, perhaps her science teacher, who has studied Mechanics at university level. Technique aside, Craig's point about the difference between a demonstration and a real experiment is very important.

[Craig_Bridge]

However I fear that the mechanics of the collision between two rolling spheres, with allowance for the assumed interaction at the contact point of the impact with regards to friction, puts the theoretical basis well beyond grade 6-8 level

With an appropriate choice of hypothesis and initial test conditions, one can usually ignore the small amount of friction between a sphere and a flat level surface and the small amount of elastic behavior at contact and air fluid flow and all the other complicating factors. Engineers make these simplifying assumptions all the time, they just have to go to the trouble of calculating the maximum error that could be caused by the simplification if they don't want to end up with a nasty surprise of being VERY WRONG in their predictions. For a science project, your hypothesis doesn't have to be correct! It has to be testable. A lot of great scientific discoveries have occured when somebody's hypothesis was WRONG! Many times actually proving that you have actually proved a hypotheisis is correct is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. A good example of this is amount of effort that Michelson-Morley in their famous experiment.

If you start out with one stationary and one is moving object, that is a lot simpler than if both are moving. If you choose spheres as your objects, you eliminate a lot of geometry and effects of geometry. If you restrict your observations to the first few inches of travel before and after a collision, the effects of friction are less likely to accumulate and become significant. If you ignore the behavior 1 usec before and 1 usec after a collision, you won't have to try and deal with the precise contact behaviors and will only be left with the outcome of the collision.

The analysis of "dry-ice-sliders" can also get very complicated. Sublimation is occurring which is changing the mass so it is extremely difficult to know what the mass the slider is at all points in time. Yes there are again a set of simplifying assumptions that can be made, but again if you try and build a set of equations that fully includes everything, it can get far more complicated than interactions that don't involve state changes in matter. BEWARE: There is also a frost-bite safety hazard handling dry ice. Collisions of dry ice can send fragments in unexpected directions which means everone has to be fully protected head to toe, face shields, gloves, etc. so that dry ice fragments don't come in contact with any skin. Protective clothing needs to be simliar to the choice welder's make so that there aren't any pockets, cuffs, exposed sock/shoe openings where very hot (or in this case very cold) things can find their way into.

Ava and Mom, don't get discouraged by a couple of engineers/scientists discussing the complicating factors.
The fundamental baisis for Physics is simply coming up with an explaination for things that are observed.
If you get out your magnifying glass and look at every minute and complicating detail, you can make Physics really really hard.
If you stand back and look at things in less detail, it is far easier to come up with a testable hypothesis and experiment to test it.
At the 6-8 grade level, the first order effects are the important ones to be concerned with and not all of the minutia.

-Craig

[John Dreher]

Craig:
Here's a "simplified" analysis.
http://www.real-world-physics-problems. ... iards.html
If that doesn't make your head spin (along with your billiard ball) take a look at these "impossible' shots!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ly8Ee_7jM
God made even billiard balls do strange things.

[Sandrabz]

Thank you everyone for your kind response. Have been sick and was not able to responde to your excellent ideas, very sorry.We finally convence Ava that she did not have enough money on her saving account to buy a Superconductor supercollider. However, we got a hocky table and she is going to collide object of equal mass in order to see the Conservation of Kinetic Energy and the Formation of Right Angle by the Colliding Objects. We like the low tech technique of putting graphite and see the trajectory form. Since the purpose of her projetct is "to prove her friends at school that the Higgss exist and her presence can be demostrated by the the fact that when collading abject of different mass it produce different tranjectory. Her friends stated that she is wrong because in her class the teacher has said that newtron is the smaller particle' and she told them that it was incorrect that it was the Higg or Gods particle.

We asked her teacher but was told it was above her knowladge. As Ava's parent we do not want to discorrage this unique interest of her but to cultivated it. If we can link
Conservation of Kinetic Energy and the Formation of Right Angle by the Colliding Objects to the Higgs will gave her the satisfaction, We have told her that as she grows on mathematical knowladge she can add more details to her project.

Thanks you so much to everyone for your response

[Sandrabz]

Ava asked if under the same conditions if the Higgs has been proven at the molecular level by proving that it produced a predefine trajectory. If the result of colladng objects of equal mass objects produced a predefine trajectory at the mechanical level. Will this prove the same would happen in the molecular level.
In another words, does the physical world behave just like the molecular world. Threfore proving the mchanicaltherefore will prove the molecular?

[John Dreher]

Ava asked if under the same conditions if the Higgs has been proven at the molecular level by proving that it produced a predefine trajectory. If the result of colladng objects of equal mass objects produced a predefine trajectory at the mechanical level. Will this prove the same would happen in the molecular level.
In another words, does the physical world behave just like the molecular world. Threfore proving the mchanicaltherefore will prove the molecular?

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are asking. There should be reasonably good correspondence between the molecular world and the large scale world. That is colliding two molecules of oxygen, O2, with each other should be pretty similar to colliding two mechanical models of the molecules. Each molecule might modeled by two equal spherical masses attached to each other with a spring selected to model the springiness of the actual molecule. Actual analysis using Newtonian mechanics will work, although the solutions will likely be quite complex because of the large number of ways 4 masses and two springs can interact when collided.

But the correspondence will fail at yet smaller scales because of quantum mechanical effects and, at the high energies characteristic of particle colliders, quantum field effects.

The closest feasible experiment that I can think of would be to deflect the electron beam of an old CRT monitor with a magnetic field. However, in this case one needs to understand a particular case of using a vector cross product to calculate the deflection of the electrons in a magnetic field. This is usually considered material suitable for bright students at the college freshman level -- it would be very challenging for your child (and possibly her science teacher). Another difficulty is that a "simple" Newtonian-style analysis will work for the deflection of an electron beam in a CRT only coincidentally, since a quantum mechanical solution really is called for when dealing with the motion of electrons.

[Sandrabz]

There should be reasonably good correspondence between the molecular world and the large scale world. That is colliding two molecules of oxygen, O2, with each other should be pretty similar to colliding two mechanical models of the molecules.

This answer her question,