“The whole world thinks there is one Higgs, but there could be many of them.”
said Dr. Joe Incandela of the University of California, Santa Barbara, a spokesman for one of the two groups reporting their data today. So far the unofficial theologians of the press haven't mentioned the pantheistic possibilities should Super symmetry and its attendant multiplicity of Higgs particles be the next theory to be backed up by the worlds most powerful and expensive physics experiment, still only running at half power. Even if it isn't and whether we have the Higgs particle or something that doesn't quite fit the model, we've had another giant step for mankind, not that many in the US will take much notice. A door has been opened to a whole new level of understanding and that reveals many other doors. It's another giant step away from mythology and speculation as the key to understanding.
Perhaps few will notice that this was a discovery made in Europe because we decided we couldn't afford such a machine and the next most powerful accelerator at Fermilab was shut down last year because you can't have wars and tax cuts and take giant steps even though of course, we're number one and the greatest country in the history of the galaxy and the only place where freedom rings. Who wants all those scientists here anyway, taking jobs away from Americans and looking down on us all -- confusing us with talk about reality being far more complex than you can dream about -- infinitely more complex than the Bible tells us. It's not a sad failure, it's a victory!
It is my understanding that it was a physicist who termed the Higgs as the "god particle". If I knew who it was I would bitch-slap the SOB. This will just fuel the fundi-blathering rhetoric glossary along with "test-tube babies" and "death panels". We don't need the aggravation. But too late... the particle is out of the bag.
ReplyDeleteAdvanced science is just too damn difficult to understand for the average guy or gal methinks. It sure can be for me I know.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand the whole biblical narrative of creation is just simple enough to figure out that things somehow just don't add up.
Then there is the whole thing about Noah and the Ark, and of course the Virgin Birth.
But hey, whose to say "God" isn't a sub atomic particle?
Perhaps few will notice that this was a discovery made in Europe because we decided we couldn't afford such a machine and the next most powerful accelerator at Fermilab was shut down last year because you can't have wars and tax cuts and take giant steps even though of course...
ReplyDeleteNot that this will win me any brownie points with anyone I've got to be fair and mention that the United States was suppose to build its own super-collider in the 1990's that would have rivaled CERN but Clinton killed it due to budget cuts.
It was a huge disappointment to science geeks like me but life sucks sometimes.
I'm given to understand that the proposed title of the book was The Goddamn Particle because the closer you looked, the more elusive it seemed to be -- seriously, but the books editor thought it would trash sales so he renamed it.
ReplyDeleteBut wouldn't a Christian Godparticle have to be a Hadron, composed of three quarks?
I do believe you present a hypothesis difficult, If not impossible to disprove.
DeleteThe Father Quark, The Son Quark, and The Holy Ghost Quark.
A perfectly rational possibility for the believer. After all one only needs faith.
Science seems to be a national priority no more and I think it's more because we don't have the Soviets to scare us, even though China is close to landing on the moon and they turn out more engineers and scientists than we could hope to do.
DeleteWe seem to be more of a backward looking nation than ever before -- looking longingly at a mythologized past.
Leon Lederman is the Nobel Prize winning physicist who wrote "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?"
ReplyDeleteI actually read the book, but needed Mr. Shaw Kenawe, who graduated from MIT with a degree in physics, to explain most of it. Lederman writes very well, even for a layperson like me.
I haven't perceived that the media has been trying to hype the Higgs Boson as having anything to do with an attempt to prove the existence of God. As Shaw indicates, popular culture nicknamed the particle after the title of Nobel physicist Leon Lederman’s The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (1993). The book contained Lederman's declaration that the discovery of the particle is crucial to a final understanding of the structure of matter.
ReplyDeleteI've always understood god particle to be a bit of quirky way of saying that the Higgs Boson is the key, the essential missing link in particle physics. Lederman said he gave the Higgs boson the nickname "The God Particle" because the particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter." It is about faith, but a faith in science, not God.
When Peter Higgs proposed the existence of the Higgs Boson in 1964, it was a theory to explain the Higgs mechanism by which elementary particles are given mass. I'm far from understanding physics on any profound level, but it appears that the mechanism could be satisfactorily confirmed to exist, but until now, the boson was a theoretical proposition assumed to be valid because the existence of the Higgs mechanism confirmed that the boson had to exist.
This is such cool stuff. I love when science and philosophy entwine. Think about it, proving that one thing exists because another thing exists. Up until now that is when there is finally the mechanics for providing independent proof of the existence of the Higgs boson. It's awesome; it's a god particle, but it isn’t about God. As for people understanding the significance of the Higgs Boson, most everything that I’ve read has not been written to inform the public in an understandable way.
Interesting bit of info--Peter Higgs is an atheist and doesn't care for the term, god particle.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned in my first post on the subject, CNN announced on Monday, July 2nd that "science" may have uncovered "scientific evidence for God" Hence my prompt and cynical reaction. I'm sure many viewers took that lure at face value.
ReplyDeleteAs I said a number of times, Lederman tells us that his working title for The God Particle was The Goddamn particle but his editor vetoed it, having some interest in selling the book. I don't think Lederman likes the title either, but I'm sure he likes the royalties.
"most everything that I’ve read has not been written to inform the public in an understandable way."
This is not an isolated case, of course. If it comes from the usual suspects, it's been written to get attention, or ratings, which means money. This principle obtains in a wide sense and even the "Liberal" media is fond of hyperbolic and misleading headlines on nearly any subject.
Of course to actually understand cutting edge physics requires following a lot of math that's as far over my head as the average Pulsar, the Universe not having been designed for the purpose and I would imagine that very few of us can claim any kind of understanding in the way we understand Newton. Hell, most Americans are scientifically illiterate.
To me, it's the wonder of wonders and although I'm still uneasy with the Standard Model and fancy myself a String Theory kinda guy, it's really only on the level of stunned astonishment at the weirdness of everything and the inadequacy of our ancient explanations.
Reading recently about how our latest maps of the cosmic background radiation may suggest that this incomprehensibly large universe may have emerged from another bubble of a universe moving away faster than light. It's certainly more than enough to make this atheist say "Oh my God."
And again, My wonder is tempered by sadness and dismay that my country has descended from the throne of leadership while my countrymen rave and ramble about God's interest in our sex lives.
As a classical liberal I share your sentiments Capt.
DeleteI'm more of a baroque liberal myself.
ReplyDelete