God Particle
I’m not a physicist. I have no idea what goes on in the little world of particles and stuff, but I understand a little bit. I don’t really agree with calling this stupid little particle the “God Particle” (the Higgs boson) because the mind automatically jumps to assumptions about its nature. My first thought was that this particle was supposed to prove or disprove the existence of God, or perhaps serve the same functionality as God. I don’t want to get into a religious debate, so I’ll leave my personal beliefs out of this, but that isn’t what they are saying, is it? Or is it? If this particle explains how stuff gets mass, that doesn’t necessarily explain how the universe came into existence, does it? Or does it? Can someone explain to me why this particle is important enough to share the name of a deity? I’m confused. Oh well, enjoy the comic.
~Mike
April 13th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Why is it so strange to share a name? There are plenty of Tobias’s or Maria’s in the world, we even have a lot named Jesus. So its more or less inevitable that someone would share his name with God as well. I say leave this poor little bugger alone and don’t pick on him just because he happens to be named after the all mighty bearded guy.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:33 am
You’re kidding, right Me?
April 14th, 2008 at 1:34 am
If the Higgs boson is found, the Standard Model is essentially proven correct. It isn’t really the last particle we don’t have proof for, but it’s the most important one. It’s called the God particle because of it’s importance, without the Higgs boson nothing would have mass.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
[quote]without the Higgs boson nothing would have mass.[/quote]
I have empiric evidence that things in fact do have mass even if we were not to find the heretic particle! It simply explains _why_ we have it.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
In the scientific community, oftentimes if something is as yet unexplained, there is some tongue-in-cheek mention that clearly God must be responsible. The flip side to this of course is that non-scientists will often cite examples of unknown phenomena as acts of God. So, we have the following “logic”:
Religion:
God created everything, including mass!
Science:
We have the model that says mass can be explained by the existence of this Higgs particle. Higgs “creates” mass. Thus by “transitivity”, this Higgs particle is God.
A similar line of reasoning can be found in “If the Higgs boson doesn’t exist then the only thing holding the universe together is God”
April 16th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Nate - That’s a very good explanation. I think I get it now.
April 20th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
You’re fine with Deviled Eggs but the God Particle is a step too far?
May 27th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Well that article was last updated in 2004. Anything new since then? They said something about 2007. I’m interested to see new findings.