Higgs boson

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(The Higgs field)
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==More Sci-fi==  
 
==More Sci-fi==  
God/Nature/Something is stopping us finding that Higgs boson.  The Higgs boson doesn’t want to be created or discovered so it or something is [[Time travel|travelling back in time]] to disrupt the [[Large Hadron Collider]] and prevent its creation/discovery.  Or [[God]] or [[Nature]] or something is causing accidents to happen there. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6879293.ece Could the Large Hadron Collider be sabotaging itself from the future, as some physicists say???]  Below are other possibilities:-
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God/Nature/Something is stopping us finding that Higgs boson.  The Higgs boson doesn’t want to be created or discovered so it or something is [[Time travel|travelling back in time]] to disrupt the [[Large Hadron Collider]] and prevent its creation/discovery.  Or [[God]] or [[Nature]] or something is causing accidents to happen there. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6879293.ece Could the Large Hadron Collider be sabotaging itself from the future, as some physicists say???]  Below are other possibilities:
#The [[FBI]], the [[CIA]] a secret branch of the [[United States Marine Corps]] or some other nefarious [[American]] organisation is sabotaging [[CERN]] because they don’t want [[Europe]] to get ahead of the [[United States]] in this important area of research. Some Europeans just might believe that, could Americans believe it as well? This hypothesis has recently lost quite a bit of weight with the shutting down of the Tevatron:<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15079119 BBC News: Tevatron atom smasher shuts after more than 25 years]''Really'' the Americans shut Tevaton down because they are ''scared'' their nefarious activities will come to light!  You can't spoil a good Conspiracy theory with sensible evidence. </ref> if we didn't want them to get ahead, why would we shut down the only way we could possibly catch up?
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#The [[FBI]], the [[CIA]] a secret branch of the [[United States Marine Corps]] or some other nefarious [[American]] organisation is sabotaging [[CERN]] because they don’t want [[Europe]] to get ahead of the [[United States]] in this important area of research.
#[[Extraterrestrial]]s are sabotaging the LHC because they don’t want Earthlings to get ahead in this important area of research. <ref>American or alien [[Conspiracy|conspiracies]] are ''really'' improbable but isn't [[Time travel#Building a utopia|backward time travel]] even more improbable?  At least specualtion about backwards time travel won't offend the Americans or offend the aliens.  </ref>
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#[[Extraterrestrial]]s are sabotaging the LHC because they don’t want Earthlings to get ahead in this important area of research.
#Vast numbers of important research projects happen all the time over the decades and centuries and from time to time somewhere or other [[Improbable things happen]], see [http://www.csicop.org/si/show/coincidences_remarkable_or_random/ Coincidences: Remarkable or Random?]
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==The "God" Particle==
 
==The "God" Particle==

Revision as of 08:25, 2 August 2012

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The Higgs boson, or the "God particle" (apparently because they weren't allowed to call it the "goddamned!" particle in honour of how difficult it is to find), was the last remaining unobserved particle in the Standard Model of physics, and is the reason scientists are apparently going to destroy the Earth.[1] Like photons, they are a type of boson.

Unlike the nickname suggests, observation of the "God Particle" would neither count as proof nor disproof of the existence of (a) God. This misunderstanding has led to many fundamentalists and creationists getting hot and bothered about physics which they are probably not mentally equipped to understand.

Contents

The Higgs field

The Higgs particle is the complementary particle to the Higgs field, the proposed mechanism by which particles attain mass. As a result, it is crucial to the understanding of the workings of the universe and whether the Standard Model is a correct interpretation of the workings of the quantum world. It is believed that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will allow particle physicists to observe the Higgs boson conclusively for the first time.[2]

As of December 2011, there have been many rumours indicating that the discovery is imminent. It is currently believed that the boson would be discovered in the mass range of 114.4-131 GeV and more specifically around 125 GeV. Despite the apparent likelihood of finding it soon, physicists were still disagreeing about when or if we would find it and even whether or not it exists in late 2011. [3] Despite this in early 2012 CERN and another research from data collected by the Tevatron have both found inconclusive evidence that the Higgs boson exists with a mass close to 125 GeV. [4] In July 2012 CERN claimed a particle has been found with the properties expected on the Higgs boson. Spectacular claims have been made that the Higgs boson will allow travel at the speed of light and that it will be possible to switch mass off. [5] Time may be needed before we know if these claims will gain acceptance in the scientific community. Alternatively the newly discovered particle may not be exactly what the standard model of physics expects the Higgs boson to be, it could be a different and more exciting particle that some non-standard models of physics predict. If that is true the new particle may in the long run explain more than discovering the standard Higgs boson would have explained. [6] Scientists are very confident that the Higgs boson or something like it exists. [7]

Sci-fi

The Higgs' so far elusive nature has given science fiction authors a carte-blanche for scientifically "plausible" jargon to fill their scripts with.[8]

More Sci-fi

God/Nature/Something is stopping us finding that Higgs boson. The Higgs boson doesn’t want to be created or discovered so it or something is travelling back in time to disrupt the Large Hadron Collider and prevent its creation/discovery. Or God or Nature or something is causing accidents to happen there. Could the Large Hadron Collider be sabotaging itself from the future, as some physicists say??? Below are other possibilities:

  1. The FBI, the CIA a secret branch of the United States Marine Corps or some other nefarious American organisation is sabotaging CERN because they don’t want Europe to get ahead of the United States in this important area of research.
  2. Extraterrestrials are sabotaging the LHC because they don’t want Earthlings to get ahead in this important area of research.

The "God" Particle

So, the Higgs boson walks into a Catholic church, and the priest orders him out. "We don't serve bosons in here!" he said. The Higgs replied, "But without me, how can you have any Mass?"

In 1993, Leon Lederman, a physicist and Dick Teresi, a pop science writer, wrote The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. The book gave a brief history of particle physics as we know it today, but it has become slightly more famous for its title. Lederman described the reasoning behind the name "God Particle" by describing the Higgs boson as:

...so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive.

However, his "real" reason was that the publishers wouldn't allow the name "Goddamned Particle" in reference to how difficult it is to observe. The fact that the Large Hadron Collider, at a cost of around $9 billion, was built specifically to find it should be a testament to that. Yet, the name has stuck for the far more mystical reasons rather than Lederman's attempt at a joke. This has lead to masses of confusion amongst religious fundamentalists who who have, at one end of the scale, literally thought CERN was looking for God, or at the other, just abused the term for their own ends.[9]

  • Creation Ministries International took the opportunity to note that, despite finding the God particle physicists didn't really give enough attention to the real thing.[10]
  • Twitter users, naturally, secured their place in the bottom half of the internet.[11]
  • Some conservative commentators were happy to downplay it as much as possible. Thomas Flemming, writing in the Daily Mail[12] and Terry Hurlbut[13] both managed to completely confuse a five-sigma significant discovery of a boson corresponding to theoretical predictions of the Standard Model with some formal attack on religion.

Generally, the discovery sparked a lot of debate about physics and whether that explains life better than God,[14] but how much of this was directly caused by Lederman's mocking nomenclature rather than the actual scientific implications will never really be known.

See also

Not to be confused with: discredited paediatrican Dr Marietta Higgs

External links

Footnotes

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