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Lately I have been reading a lot about the discovery of the Higgs boson and it got me thinking, what is the potential application of this particle? I mean can the Higgs Boson change our world the way the discovery of the electron has?

For example: The Higgs Boson is what gives all other particles mass, could this be manipulated in a way that would allow us to create potentially massless objects, like an engine that would essentially take the mass away from an object?

My question is this What are the potential technologies that could be developed that use the Higgs boson?

Antonio
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    Hi Jonn_Underwood, and welcome to Physics Stack Exchange! I don't think this question really fits here for a few reasons: first, it's pretty open-ended. In principle, there could be an endless list of technological developments resulting from a particular physical discovery. And besides, the technology that emerges from a discovery isn't really a part of physics. That's where the engineers take over. – David Z Mar 18 '13 at 04:10
  • It's usually a good idea to search the site for similar questions before asking a new one: you find your answer quicker that way! This question is an obvious (good) one that has been asked many times; this appears to be the 'official' version: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/31293/practical-matter-of-the-higgs-mechanism. – Mark Mitchison Mar 18 '13 at 04:10
  • @Mark ah, thanks for finding that! (Don't forget, you can always flag a question as a duplicate) – David Z Mar 18 '13 at 04:12
  • @DavidZaslavsky I wasnt sure if it would be an ok question to ask, I was going to ask on meta if a question like this would be ok, but read the FAQ and thought it would fit under the second (I believe) example of the "questions to ask" – Antonio Mar 18 '13 at 04:14
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    @DavidZaslavsky way ahead of you bro :) . By the way, I don't agree that asking about technological applications should be considered "off-topic", it's definitely part of why we do physics. The problem is that historically, scientists are extraordinarily bad at predicting what their research will be useful for! – Mark Mitchison Mar 18 '13 at 04:15
  • @Jonn_Underwood don't worry about it. This isn't the sort of thing that second FAQ item is meant to include, but if you're not sure if a question is OK, the right thing to do is just go ahead ask it - we don't hold it against you if it gets closed. As you can see, there's some disagreement about what is on topic and what isn't. – David Z Mar 18 '13 at 04:30
  • @Mark fair enough. This category of technological questions might be something to discuss on meta, if there isn't already a meta question about it. – David Z Mar 18 '13 at 04:31

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