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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145 comments so far
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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.
- Posted by Jack DorseyNot 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).
- Posted by AlexTo 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)?
- Posted by zafTom: 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!
- Posted by DanthraxI’m a fervent believer in the separation of church and quantum state.
- Posted by A studentYes 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…
- Posted by Donald RoseIt 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.
- Posted by Susan… donald rose, did you even read the article?
- Posted by xlniggerlxnothing 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
- Posted by Jed ClampettThe 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.
- Posted by Boyd“Physicists hope to resolve long-standing questions, such as why particles have mass and whether space has hidden extra dimensions.”
- Posted by brianconciseness 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.
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.
- Posted by Steve ChapelI don’t find the term offensive. I think it accurately expresses the deep mystery behind these as yet to be understood processes.
- Posted by MylesGod 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.
- Posted by AndrijI’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
- Posted by Tom HeneghanLet’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?
- Posted by Nate RogersOf 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.
- Posted by Tom HeneghanThe 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?
- Posted by Donald RoseRight, but they still haven’t found the Higgs Boson. That’s why they’re building this gigantic particle collider in the first place.
- Posted by Tom HeneghanThe GOD “PARTICLE”.Scientists have been smashing particles into smaller entities for the last 20 years!!!
- Posted by Donald Rose