> I really hate this molasses explanation of the Higgs field. The problem is, it is wrong, suggests a wrong intuition and obstructs actually interesting physics. It is wrong, because the mass is something very different from friction. It suggests a wrong intuition, because the snow field, or the molasses, generates a force when something is moving through the medium. But there is no medium to move through. ( And mass acts, when there is a change of velocity, friction if there is velocity.) [...]
> [Me] I agree. I hate the molasses explanation, because it suggests the wrong kind of equations. Higgs bosons don’t dissipate energy. Repeat after me: “The Higgs mechanism is totally unrelated to viscosity or friction” [...]
As far as analogies in popular science go, it is a very good one. Of course the equations might be different because of slightly different contexts, but most people you're giving the analogy to are not going to every calculate the details. I think it is intuitive and gets you quite far in being able to explain the Higgs mechanism.
Also, I disagree that there is no medium to move through. The Higgs field background (and "vacuum" as such might well be considered a medium) and that's perfectly correct.
The problem with viscosity is that it makes you stop. If you are in a car and stop the engine, the air and tires drag will make you stop, a lot of snow will make you stop. Viscosity stop things, because it's related to the speed and makes the speed smaller until you stop. Perhaps not everyone can write the equation, but there are some underlying properties of the possible equations there. The important part is that if you draw speed vs time you get
The Higgs / mass don't make you stop. They try to make you go at a constant speed. The equation is more difficult because it's a second order equation, but is more simple because it has less constants. The important part is that if you draw speed vs time you get
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Let's try to discuss another example: in a car we can measure the top speed and the 0-60mph time.
The viscosity reduce the top speed, because when you go fast it increase the drag and makes you go slower and when you turn out the engine the car begin to slow down. More air viscosity makes your car stop in less time.
The mass of the car changes the acceleration, the 0-60 mph time. When the car is stopped, more mass makes more difficult to change the speed from 0 and reach 60mph. When you go at 60mph the mass is not so important, until you try to turn or stop. More mass make your car stop in more time.
In your speed vs time graph, you show speed decreasing exponentially. A mass term in a field theory does something very similar -- it cause correlations between (quantum) fluctuations to drop exponentially with distance. While you might imagine that a particle with some velocity doesn't "lose velocity", the probability of it getting to some place damps out exponentially, where the decay length/time scale is set by the mass. For example, check this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_gap#Mathematical_definitio...
You are correct—photons do not have mass, and they are affected by gravity. The analogy here confounds things because it suggests gravity is part of the picture, when it is irrelevant to the explanation (example of another confounded analogy: https://xkcd.com/895/). Photons are affected by gravity because gravity affects space-time. Photons travel in straight lines, and the presence of mass changes what a straight line is. Figure out how this is connected to the Higgs and you've solved the biggest problem in physics.
nowhere in the article there is any mention of gravity. mass is 'just' a form of energy and photons definitely have energy; in general relativity, that's enough. we don't have an accepted theory that works on quantum scales.
Ok so if I understand your and mdturnerphys answer correctly, photons are not affected by the higgs field (but are affected by gravity, hence the mystery)?
I'll copy part of the first two comment:
> I really hate this molasses explanation of the Higgs field. The problem is, it is wrong, suggests a wrong intuition and obstructs actually interesting physics. It is wrong, because the mass is something very different from friction. It suggests a wrong intuition, because the snow field, or the molasses, generates a force when something is moving through the medium. But there is no medium to move through. ( And mass acts, when there is a change of velocity, friction if there is velocity.) [...]
> [Me] I agree. I hate the molasses explanation, because it suggests the wrong kind of equations. Higgs bosons don’t dissipate energy. Repeat after me: “The Higgs mechanism is totally unrelated to viscosity or friction” [...]
I still hate this analogy.