Is “God Particle” the right term for massive mystery in physics?
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One of the most brilliant simplifications I’ve ever come across is the term “the God Particle.” Physicists think this subatomic speck of matter, if it is ever found, could explain the mysterious code at the origin of the physical world. To know this would be to “know the mind of God,” as Einstein wanted to do. The Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman wrote a book with that name 15 years ago that was so interesting that even a physics klutz like myself (I almost failed it in high school…) read and enjoyed it.
It turns out, though, that the physicist who launched the hunt for this elusive particle doesn’t like its nickname. “It embarrasses me,” Peter Higgs said in Geneva this week at a news conference our correspondent Robert Evans attended. “Although I am not a believer myself, it’s a misuse of terminology that might offend some people.”
Higgs, now 78, first proposed a theory of the particle officially knows as the Higgs boson 40 years ago. CERN, the giant nuclear research centre at the French-Swiss border near Geneva, is building a vast underground particle collider to try to find it. “The likelihood is that the particle will show up pretty quickly … I’m more than 90 percent certain that it will,” Higgs said after visiting the collider due to start working early next year.
So the term “the God particle” may be coming to the religion blogosphere pretty soon. Instead of doing the homework and writing the essay, I’ll let others explain what it is — here are some good examples at National Geographic and Wired and a cartoon here.
Lederman, by the way, also seemed of two minds about calling the Higgs boson the “God particle.”
As he put it in his book:
“This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddam Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one…
Lederman then goes on to quote Genesis 11:1-9 , the Tower of Babel story about mankind dispersing. Finding the God Particle, he says, would be like undoing the confusion that followed.
Even if the physicists have qualms, I think the term “God Particle” is so expressive that I’m glad Higgs didn’t get his way. I know there are those out there who don’t agree, who do and who don’t say. There are also deep implications for science and religion. Still, some things are just so awesome that a reasonable comparison with the divine seems to me like a good way to put something so hard to understand into perspective.
Do you think it’s offensive?
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The GOD “PARTICLE”.Scientists have been smashing particles into smaller entities for the last 20 years!!!
Right, but they still haven’t found the Higgs Boson. That’s why they’re building this gigantic particle collider in the first place.
The GOD “PARTICLE”.Scientists have been smashing particles into smaller entities for the last 20 years!!!But most can’t accept the reality that GOD is the non particle.Even a vacume needs space and time!But there is a universe of static nothingness!The spiritual universe is everywhere and knowhere simotaneously.One day GOD took a look at “himself”…and was in denial of the exact creation.This set off a “SPIRITUAL BIG BANG” OF SORTS.Can’t explain all here…But GOD is NOT a particle…PERIOD?
Of course God is not a particle. What the term means is that this particle is so basic to our understanding of the universe (more specifically, how matter acquired mass after the Big Bang and made our universe possible) that understanding it would be like understanding what Einstein was talking about when he spoke of “the mind of God.” Humans cannot literally know the mind of God, but the idea that we can has fascinated theologians, philosophers and physicists for a long time. Calling the Higgs boson the “God particle” just means it might bring humans as close as they can get to it.
Let’s say there is a “God Particle” and physicists somehow make this particle, wouldn’t this particle destroy the world and the universe? Because what they’re saying is that this particle has a “magnetic” field that attracted all other particles to create the universe (according to the cartoon referred to in this blog). Therefore, the entire universe will be shifted to fit around this new “God Particle.” Why do people want to be God so badly? There is proof that something bad happened to the people trying to reach God in the Tower of Babel. Since God can’t give different languages again, don’t you think something worse will happen?
I’ve read reports like that, including one about the law suit brought against CERN (which CERN dismissed as “complete nonsense”). It is a bit difficult to believe that the physicists at CERN are Dr. Strangeloves who would conduct an experiment that would destroy the universe if it succeeds. The New Scientist has an interesting article on this at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13 555-particle-smasher-not-a-threat-to-the -earth.html
God is not a partical! Thats because he doesnt exist. Are peoples lives so empty that have to fill the space with an illogical fairy tale? If there was any sort of god he/she would have destroyed us long ago for what we’ve become. Also I dont want to hear any free will crap, Do not try to explain something illogical with another abstract idea. =) Anyways, I hope they find the boson so people can open their eyes!! Ciao guys.
I don’t find the term offensive. I think it accurately expresses the deep mystery behind these as yet to be understood processes.
I can see the term “God Particle” is more confusing than offensive. It’s just the Higgs Boson, and if it exists, they exist all around us. Creating a few more won’t cause any harm. It has nothing to do with God as in Christianity. It’s just a poorly chosen nickname.
As for the first poster who claims we’ve been smashing “particles” into smaller pieces, that’s not what these high-energy colliders are doing. They are converting energy into mass (new particles) according to E=mc^2. The higher the energies involved, the more massive the particles they can create.
“Physicists hope to resolve long-standing questions, such as why particles have mass and whether space has hidden extra dimensions.”
conciseness or being allows particles to have mass – why? – maybe expression.
conciseness itself can not be conventionally detected by the human-beings trying to detect it because they Are the conciseness they are trying to detect. a different perspective is required – i’m not sure we’re ready yet.
The Higgs Boson will simply fill in a missing component of a mathematical template that describes the physics of our universe. It is no more a “God Particle” that the number zero was a “God number” because it filled in a necessary component that enabled mathematics to work.
It is simply not a matter for theological discussion. Get a life, get a secular life, get a copy of Scientific American.
nothing new really, Walter Russell identified the ‘God Particle’s position in his periodic chart. It truly is the begining and the end.
Tom, how can you possibly hope to understand God when you seem unable to understand a simple article on physics?
Alot of expense for nothing, could have used the money to develop Tesla’s Magnifying Transmitter and Schauberger’s Separation of Charges in Conducting Fluids
… donald rose, did you even read the article?
It is very disrespectful to the Creator to use this term. Why not say something like “the most fundamental particle in nature” or something like that? Exodus 20:7 (God speaking to Moses) says that we shall not use His name in vain (casually, in a shallow manner), and that those who do so are already proclaiming themselves guilty before God. How audacious for this scientist to create and use such a term. It’s defamatory. To me it’s akin to putting Jesus’ image (although no one know what Jesus looked like; all we know is that He wasn’t particularly handsome . . . that’s in the Scriptures) on a bottle of ketchup. There is a proper place for everything, and attaching God’s holy name to a particle which may or may not exist is just another example of contempt for the Almighty.
Yes I did read this article.And I respect all of the points of the blogers here.I am not a scientist.Is the atomic structure around us in it’s unaltered state a part of GAYA…google this…and thus are there limits or dangers in science reaching too far?I don’t have that answer.But I am trying to just point out that Eastern Philosophies tend to bring forth the static state into the overall picture.Maybe finding this “GOD PARTICLE” will also lead to a better understanding of creation from it’s beginings.Is not every particle of GOD??The “MASSIVE MYSTERY”LOL…
I’m a fervent believer in the separation of church and quantum state.
Tom: good article! The term “God Particle” is mildly offensive. The implication of “God Particle” is not primarily that we will unlock great mysteries–then they’d call it the Rosetta Particle or something. Instead, the term is an assertion that what Theists ascribe to God, ya only really need a fancy particle for. Gibbs is right and honorable to be embarrassed about the term, to depict it as a category error, and to suspect it may be offensive without cause. But it certainly makes for attention-grabbing headlines! In any case, it’s VERY exciting we’re on the verge of getting a peek at the elusive Higgs Boson!
To the average person it seems strange to be building all these huge machines at great cost in order to find some sort of particles with a funny names.
Has anyone seen the film Contact (1997)?
Not exactly. They have been something like 30 years without finding new particles (except the top quark, in ’95). Most particles in the standard model were found some 40 years ago.
The new Large Hadron Collider may just start to find a new generation of particles which would help a lot in the understanding of elementary physics, the universe and its origin (and perhaps fate).
Susan, your entire statement is based upon the belief (yours, not mine) that there IS a god. In other words, it’s only relevant to humans that believe what you believe.
I know..its not matter…its a void…path to..nothing
its really nothing…really simple….pressure
The people most opposed to the “God Particle” term here don’t seem to understand what the Higg’s Boson is. It is not the “smallest particle that exists,” it is the particle that gives *mass* to all other particles. In that sense it is the thing that causes everything else to exist at all.
To me, naming a particle after some cheesy religious legend is tacky anyway, so I don’t like the name. In terms of a match up between what God is supposed to have done versus what the Higgs Boson does however, it’s a fairly close match.
Disrespectful to the Creator – says who? Based on what? Who are you to judge what your creator finds respectful or not? This is typical of believers who proclaim to ‘know’ what is in the mind of their creator. It’s OK to have opinions, but to make proclamations like this is about as demonstrably factual as the existence of their creator, i.e. not demonstrable at all.
There is no, zero, nada, zilch, verifiable evidence of a Creator. Creationists try to generate circumstantial evidence, but none of it would hold up to the same rigor that scientists use in their quest for gaining knowledge in how things work, or that any court would require in the way of evidence to show a persons innocence or guilt. The more scientific knowledge is uncovered, the more the creationists try to pick holes in it, rather than researching the foundations of their own beliefs. Digging into their own beliefs would soon uncover the lack of anything other than folklore.
Creationists, show us some pork. Provide some evidence that is not circumstantial, and has more substance than fantasy.
So IMO the God particle is probably something the creationists will undoubtedly spin as evidence that science is finally acknowledging that God exists. For this reason I agree with a previous post in that it may cause more confusion and spin than it might otherwise.
Einstein was an atheist. He did not believe in a personal god. Neither does Higgs or very many eminent scientists. Its an unfortunate nickname because it leads to the kind of idiotic misconception indulged and encouraged by this reporter.
Do you think people would buy Jesus Ketchup?
They are not “creating” Higgs bosons. Rather, they are exposing them in high-energy subatomic collisions, thereby breaking them free of their bonds and allowing them to be “seen”.
And as far as people taking offense at calling it the “God particle” — get a grip. I believe that God is far above such pettiness; you should be too.
A new more powerful collider is exciting stuff. In the generations of colliders though the Higgs has always been just beyond the energy of the collider according to those who claim its existence, and while they seem certain it will be found with this collider, if it is not it will again be somewhere just beyond the energy currently attainable.
Might as well call it “the primordial particle” and try to flash religion using the other term. That is all.
Susan, don’t make me laugh. You think god’s name is “God”??? Gee, others thought it was Abracadabra, while still others thought it was Jehovah (skip the vowels). I guess if “God” wanted us to live a law like Exodus 20:7 he/she/it would have been just a tad bit clearer as to the correct term.
P.S. I apologize to all the members of Islamic belief for not using the name of Allah, but I’m an infidel anyway.
This is nowhere near the same as putting Jesus on a ketchup bottle, which would indeed be inappropriate for a variety of reasons. Jesus has nothing to do with ketchup, while “god” has everything to do with what we do not understand.
The word “god” is a human word that is used to explain things that we do not understand. As we come to understand how things work, we tend to remove the “god” from them. This useage is not the same as using the word “God” to refer to the being that many people believe created our world and watches over us even now.
The term “god particle” here is no less appropriate than saying “it is raining cats and dogs” to describe a bad rainstorm. We don’t expect that the particle they are searching for is actually God himself anymore than we believe it is literally raining furry animals. Nor are we insulting God in this manner anymore than we are insulting cats and dogs by use of these terms.
In fact if you believe in God, this useage would be complimentary in that not only are we attributing what we believe is the heart of all matter to him, but we are acknowledging how complex his creation actually is.
Bravo to Danthrax for “the Rosetta Particle”!!! OK, we journalists sometimes flirt with category error to get a good headline — but the attention-getting aspect usually lets us get away with it. And the suggestions for replacements are usually not as sexy. But “Rosetta Particle” — I like that. Higgs probably would too.
Anything: Any particle,any philosophy. Anything but but accept the overwhelming evidence(study the reciprocals of “chance” in biochemistry) of a Creator, and the responsibility of obeying his moral laws;Doing that as well as Nature obeys God’s physical laws. Man wants, in his free moral agency, the right to chose for himself “everything.” History is rife with examples of his deviance from moral law and his sucesses. It is foolish to think discovering the ultimate and smallest particle will give man the “Mind of God.” Discovering God, is discovering his perfect Personality and his Perfect morality- first. No knowledge of a physical particle will help that.
1. I wish scientist could learn to keep superstition and religion separate.
2. Come on, it’s just a word
3. It doesn’t really matter if we call it a God particle or a Flymsiwig Particle, since there obviously is no God anyway (Well except for the Spaghetti Monster of course, praise upon his holy noodly appendages).
Yeah, but God’s “holy name” isn’t “God.” Thankfully, the True Name of God has been lost to man for thousands of years – ask any Hebrew. The full form had no less than 72 syllables – shorter version’s of God;s True Name also had syllables in multiples of 12, a divine number. It is said then when you uttered the True Name of God, you could bend nature to your will….see what I mean when I say thankfully, it’s no longer known to man?
Actually Susan, the word “God” is not God’s “holy name”.
C’mon, people. There’s no need to be antagonistic or offensive towards those who happen to believe in a higher power/Creator/God/Allah. Doing so puts you in the same category. I see very little distinction between those who are expressing offense at the term “God particle” and those who insult and antagonize them for it.
It is very disrespectful to the Spaghetti Monster to use the term ‘noodly appendages’. The FSM says that we shall not use His name in vain (casually, in a shallow manner), and that those who do so are already proclaiming themselves guilty before the FSM. How audacious for you to create and use such a term. It’s defamatory. To me it’s akin to putting FSM image on a bottle of ketchup. There is a proper place for everything, and attaching the FSM’s holy name to a particle which may or may not exist is just another example of contempt for the Almighty
The seperation of church and quantum state.I love it!In Metaphysics there is a maxum that if a being duplicates the exact time and place of a created particle…the wave/particle will cease to exist.That particle once again is one with the non phisical universe.I like the term GOD PARTICLE as our Scientist are seeking the truth around us;and god as a state or all being comes into play here.Infinity of dimension?The finite particle.Sentients might work.The “SENTIENT PARTICLE”…
Just wanted to add that I think it’s a GOOD IDEA to call this thing the God Particle because look at all the comments it generated! It’s sad, though, that we have to give science a flashy name to get people to pay attention.
The problem with “God Particle”, at least in my limited understanding of the concept, is not that it is mildly blasphemous so much as it seems fairly inaccurate. To assign a moniker like “God” to the Higgs boson implies that it has a generative power. Again, I may be totally wrong here, but the way I read it isn’t the Higgs boson really a “symptom” that alludes to the presence of the Higgs field? The boson doesn’t impart mass itself, it just supports the case for Higgs’ original hypothesis.
No_Creator,
if creationists are so wrong for believing what they do, how do you think the universe was created. Do you believe in the Big Bang Theory? If so, just look at its name…THEORY. You are blatantly attacking Christianity, and you don’t even have solid proof on your own beliefs (if you have any).
God is partile, wave and every possible impulse that anyone can ever imagine. The discussion can go on for ever. God can be defined only by somene who has direct experience of god. Such person will sadly not participate in such converstaion as this one. The questions asked about god and the variuos answers perceived itself is god. It is god creating itself again and again. “Curving back within myself, I create again and again.”
Ditto on: “Bravo to Danthrax for “the Rosetta Particle”!!!”. A bit more sexier name than the “Higgs particle” – no offense to Mr. Peter Higgs.
I am also another fervent believer in the separation of church and science. The best to everyone in regards to their own particular beliefs, be it religion, science, or some combination there of.
Let’s call it the Allah Particle. We know that won’t make anyone mad.
anyone ever notice that when a dialog references religion, even as an anecdotal footnote for an otherwise non-religious moment, the most extreme and stupid come forth to bring a bad perception to their views and anyone who claims a similar belief (both theist and atheist)?
how about calling the Higgs Boson the Pasta Particle from now on? Those familiar with the Flying Spaghetti Monster will no doubt acknowledge its equally potent reference for the atheist crowd, and the theist crowds don’t have to worry about the particle being offensive, either for mocking their God or for failing to reference their imaginary friend.
Let the rabbits wear glasses.
One thing all the smartest Science professor’s and Doctors or whatever they have hanging on there wall that they call each other, is that nobody not even Einstein could explain Blank Nothing—-to Matter or particle. !!! Thats God’s Work, not Science. Peter Higgs at 78 yrs old doesn’t believe and thats fine and his right, but when he leaves this earth, he better be right !! period.
-Man of Faith and Science.
and to nate: even gravity is called a theory. a theory is not the same as a hypothesis, which you must be thinking of here.
gravity is a theory.
relativity is a theory.
quantum electro-dynamics is a theory.
Belief in God is a belief.
the soul is a belief.
all religious concepts are beliefs.
the bible was written by man. that humans wrote the bible, asserting their beliefs so colorfully, does not make believing the same anything exceptionally likely to be correct.
no more so than kids doing drugs because, “everyone’s doing it man”.
i hope you enjoy your god-pipe, but i for one don’t care to have your hallucinations compared equally to the observations of the intellectual world. no more so than you must enjoy our observations being imposed on your colorful palace of angels, demons and a giant finger that zapped the earth into existence, complete with mock-dino bones.
*sigh* i fear the world is full of loons.
Many people did not read the article at all. I happen to believe in a creator and find no fault with this name after you see why it is named so, though I can see how it could confuse people.
For those attacking God and Christianity and saying there is no scientific evidence you should google
apologetics press. Just know no matter what you believe you have to believe this: Something has always been. If you don’t then you must ask yourself what created this, and this, and this…. The difference is some believe it is a creator, and some believe it is matter. I believe it is a creator because I don’t believe the order of the universe could happen so randomly. I also believe in Christianity because there are accounts outside the bible of Jesus, and no written accounts of his miracles being fake. Neither atheism or religion can be entirely proved.
But I will leave atheists with one last thought. If you are right, it doesn’t matter. If you are wrong you’ll go to hell. If a religion is right, they’ll go to heaven. IF they are wrong, nothing will happen. Just showing you logic…
All this discussion about what to call something…
You’ve forgotten that God and Allah are the same…
Obviously the use of this term is for the sake of eluding to the unknown forces of our universe, like Eisntein’s “God does not play dice.”
I think we need to just put this term to bed.
Let the religious people have it to themselves if they need it.
We don’t need to use the same term for natural and supernatural forces – it just confuses the two.
To Nate, and probably others…
Theory has a definite meaning in science… And it is NOT what you appear to believe the word means (what you seem to think it means is called a HYPOTHESIS).
An hypothesis is on the order of: “I think (believe) this is how XYZ happened”; a proposal with no backing. In science, a hypothesis will be followed up by the attempt to define experiments or observations which could prove or disprove it.
A theory, in science, is what a hypothesis get promoted to AFTER such experiments and observations are found to fit the hypothesis, and none of said experiments has failed to support it. So far, observations of the universe (microwave background radiation, red shifts, etc.) have been greatly supportive of the big bang theory (yes, there are some competing theories in cosmology which can be supported by much of what has been seen too — and for all of them scientists are devising new experiments, the failure of which would cause its theory to either be discarded, or the experiment to be heavily studied for flaws).
Creationism is a hypothesis: the only “evidence” given are words written by humans in some ancient texts. Any attempt to devise an experiment to prove or disprove it is considered to be heretical. What’s the latest thing I’ve read — to explain away that we are detecting light that has traveled millions of light years when “genesis” was only about 5000 years ago — the speed of light was much faster near the time of said creation and has slowed down over the years? Given the effects of e=mc^2, that faster sun light would have burnt away anything living; guess the slow down was sudden, just before life was created… Gee… that sure sounds like the inflationary period of the big bang theory