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Demystifying the Higgs Boson with Leonard Susskind

Stanford · 1.1M views · 2012-08-16 · 1:15:08

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Overview

Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind explains what the Higgs mechanism is and what it means to give mass to particles. He also covers what is at stake for physics and cosmology.

On Hacker News

HN repeatedly recommends it as an approachable, math-light route to understanding mass and the Higgs field.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2016–2024

Topics

Quantum physics
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leonard susskindhiggs mechanismparticle physicsmassquantum fields

What people said

tsimionescu · 2024-09 · Strong recommendation

If anyone wants to dig deeper, there is an excellent lecture on YouTube by Leonard Susskind. This goes into some details on how fields in general give mass to (composite) particles, and how the Higgs field has certain properties that allow it to give mass to elementary particles. It goes only into a tiny bit of math, absolutely intelligible at the high-school or at least undergraduate level. [VIDEO]

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tsimionescu · 2022-10 · Strong recommendation

If you're interested in the Higgs mechanism as a layman, I highly highly recommend this talk by Leonard Susskind: [VIDEO] It's about 1 hour long (plus some questions) and it goes through some basic ideas of what it means for something to have mass and all the way to the Higgs mechanism.

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simiones · 2022-07 · Strong recommendation

The mass of the massive gauge bosons, the W and Z bosons. Edit: there is an excellent in-depth (but math-light) explanation about the Higgs mechanism by Leonard Susskind. I highly recommend it if you are interested, it lasts about 1h (plus some Q&A) and is extremely approachable, while being presented by an established authority in the field. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Stanford, played through YouTube.

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