Reading and understanding...
Quote:
Now, this seems like it would be easy to check, right? Maybe the Higgs bozon is postulated to have (make up numbers here) a weight of 40 pounds. Calculations show that you need a 20 mile circumference accelerator to get that energy. However, we only have a 17 mile unit. Basic atomic physics says that we will never see the Higgs.
However! Quantum Mechanics now steps in. It says that the energy/mass correlation can FLUCTUATE. You can give 35 pounds of accelerator energy, and it'll steal 5 pounds from the space-time fabric, and make that 40 pound Higg's bozon with your 17 mile accelerator...SOMETIMES. The more energy it needs to steal, the less likely it is, and the faster that particle disintegrates back into 35 pounds of energy and pays back the 5 pounds borrowed.
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Mike was giving you a hypothetical example to explain the whole process. It's always going to be a tradeoff between cost, size, energy requirements, and performance.