<p>Below is a link to an interview with Stephen Hawking (arguably the smartest man alive)where he admits to losing $100 in a bet with Michigan professor Gordon Kane. Too bad Hawking did not get the name of the University quite right. The curse of Michigan and Penn!!! hehe!</p>
<p>It would seem that several Michigan faculty and students have worked at CERN in the Higgs boson project. Yet again, Michigan proves its quality.</p>
<p>I love that meon signed up merely to whine about a positive post about UM. All well, I guess there is no way to keep the riff-raff out. Keep up the interesting posts Alexandre.</p>
<p>Meon is not “you-know-who” GoBlue. He usually posts under two different identities and seems to have created this third personality just to post on this thread. He obviously does not not know that posting under multiple handles is prohibited on CC and can result in suspension or even permanent banning from CC. I will overlook his offense this time around since he did not offend anybody of note, but I will keep an eye on him. Hopefully, next time he posts on the Michigan forum, he will contribute positively.</p>
<p>No mercy eh 'novi? Well, it is his first offense as far as I am concerned, and it was directled solely at me, which I am happy to overlook. Like I said, I hope meon chooses to be more productive in the future.</p>
<p>Now back to Prof Kane and his winning $100 against Prof Hawking!</p>
<p>goldenboy, Michigan’s Physics (and virtually all of its departments) department is ranked in or around the top 10 in the US. It is not surprising that Kane and many other profesors and students (undergrad and graduate) are working at CERN. </p>
<p>Where Kane is concerned, he used “String Thery Calculations” to predict the mass of the Higgs boson.</p>
<p>schools or whatever aside, you are telling me a career academia person predicted something correctly over another career academia person on ideas that are irrelevant to 99.99999999% of the people in this world and will never be able to monetized… cool story bro.</p>
<p>I do not understand that why I need to keep posting unless I feel the need to. My join date was 2009 and my purpose was to gather information by reading discussions. </p>
<p>And regarding Alexandre’s this thread, he is claiming the quality of Umich solely(almost) on the mere basis of a petty bet and an assumption that Michigan students worked at CERN, which I could not bear. To the point that I had to post something for the first time. </p>
<p>Begin
I do not need to defend the fact that there is only one of my kind.
If you think I defended myself in the line above,
goto begin.</p>
<p>“Did Kane play any role whatsoever in the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle or did he just happen to make a good guess?”</p>
<p>“And regarding Alexandre’s this thread, he is claiming the quality of Umich solely(almost) on the mere basis of a petty bet and an assumption that Michigan students worked at CERN, which I could not bear.”</p>
<p>The above statements represent not so subtle slights pertaining to the overall quality of The University of Michigan.</p>
<p>“To the point that I had to post something for the first time”</p>
<p>With the many tens of thousands of posts on this site since you joined in 2009, you decided that Alexandre’s innocuous statement was so unbearable that you just had to comment for the very first time? Do you seriously expect anyone to believe the sincerity of your remarks?</p>
<p>It’s great that Michigan men and woman played a big role in this discovery. The bet with Hawking is cool and worth sharing. I’m not convinced this is real yet though. </p>
<p>My gut is that there is something wrong with the standard model, rather than this being a systematic error. Just saying, I’d hold up paying the $100.</p>
<p>“On what foundation is this accusation based, I know not either.”</p>
<p>There is at least one other poster who shares identical details with another poster who comes from the same city in Asia. This is not an accusation, it is fact. You have two identities. I am concealing the country and your alternate identity for your own sake.</p>
<p>Furthermore, nobody posts for the first time the way you did. This thread is hardly offensiv to anybody. I did not insult any university or nationality or whatever. </p>
<p>Finally, how do you figure that I am “claiming the quality of Michigan solely on the mere basis of a petty bet and an assumption that Michigan students worked at CERN”? That is a huge leap. This is a fun and whimsical thread, nothing more. The quality of Michigan has been discussed much on this thread, from its excellent academics and top ranked departments to its huge endowment and rich campus/college town culture etc… How did you come to the conclusion that I am basing Michigan’s entire quality on Kane’s work on this recent discovery?</p>
<p>Not to take anything away from Michigan, in fact, I was thinking of posting a similar thread at MSU’s forum a week earlier. However, know that besides University of Michigan, there are more than a handful of institutions around the globe claim their contribution to the discovery of Higgs-Boson Particle. </p>
<p>The state of Michigan alone has UofM, MSU and even Wayne State claimed contributions based on a brief google news search. Other schools such as Notre Dame, Chicago to Virginia all had claimed involvement as CERN is a multi-national, multi-institutional cooperation / operation. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the consensus amongst the academics for this type of accelerated isotope research in the United States is clear that Michigan State’s NSCL / FRIB is / will be the future of American Nuclear Physics especially in terms of new particle discovery, bar none!!</p>
They get excited about stuffs like this. That’s why they are in academics … otherwise they would be out in the real world making real bucks. And some of them really like to teach.</p>
Well, it is his first offense as far as I am concerned, and it was directled solely at me, which I am happy to overlook. Like I said, I hope meon chooses to be more productive in the future.</p>