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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I don’t think it is inappropriate at all. I believe he made this comment just because it seemed like the ultimately elusive particle that no one could find- or discover. I don’t believe he meant it to have any religious connotations, but people took it that way because they failed to think about the deeper meaning behind the coined term.
- Posted by Trey WilliamsThe term doesn’t make sense to me. Lederman’s first stated reason is a silly joke. The second reason is kind of a non-sequitur. Even if the Higgs boson is a key to unlocking all sorts of mysteries, the connection to the tower of Babel is pretty weak, as is the connection from ‘reversing the Babel curse’ to ‘God’. If the intended meaning is a fundamental key to unlocking mysteries, it would communicate a lot better to call it a “Rosetta particle” or something. The “God particle” comes off as just another example of scientists trying to reach beyond their domain of competence with blustery boasts.
- Posted by LarsYes, the name of God adds an impressive air to any term. But that doesn’t justify using it as a brand of dishwasher detergent. Tossing the name of God around *is* offensive because according to Christianity and Judaism, the 3rd commandment is “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” That’s why for centuries, the most observant Jews have avoided saying the Name at all, substituting euphemisms instead. For a non-believer (as I assume Lederman is) to co-opt God’s name for dramatic effect is unnecessarily irreverent, and possibly foolhardy. Higgs is wise to avoid it.
There will be no Higgs boson found. Ever.
It’s very simple. It’s far too simple. That’s why it will never be found. You simply cannot explain so very much with so very little.
- Posted by MattIf your entire religious belief is shaken by a simple “book title”… what does that tell you about *YOUR* faith?
You can name your Book anything you want… and it won’t change me 1 bit.
- Posted by EveryoneTo cash
How do you know Santa Claus (or Flying Sphagetti Monster) did not use a big bang to create everything?
think about the atom. such a small thing and yet so devistating. What could Santa (FSM) do?
hmmm. I wonder.
- Posted by Kpkeddieferrell
Your comment is a nice advertisement for you religion, now what religion would that be?
- Posted by KpkExactly when was the last time god or the word “God” explained or clarified anything? Is it the future of the “God particle” to be just a meaningless simplification?
- Posted by blesstheloudThere is validity to the big bang theory.There is alot of science and mathmatics behind these things.Maybe there have been a quadrillion big bangs.The theory goes that particles exist through the indecision and non resposability of beings.The swirl of the proton may be indecision as to where it should be.But the left over manifestations of creation become subject to agreed apon realities of motion and gravity,etc.These are just conjectures.If mankind can make it through it’s madness…I would hope that all of this great science can lead us to a new world.Man keeps making great strides forward as everything is falling into chaos!I know for sure that chaos exists.
- Posted by Donald RoseSelf righteous mofo’s, if you don’t believe in God don’t believe in HIM, but leave the believers alone. I get so tired of reading through your self righteous non-believing garbage to get to the points that are trying to be made by everybody else. If you want to make a point about how the only real religion is no religion, go to athiest.com or something. PHAGS all of you.
- Posted by eddieferrellTO NO_CREATOR
how do you know God did not use a big bang to start everything?
think about the atom. such a small thing and yet so devistating. What could God do?
hmmm. I wonder.
- Posted by cashMatt, your logic is inaccurate, if a religion is wrong most other religions also will go to hell. If atheist is wrong he/she may not go to hell. In fact god once told me that everyone except atheists will go to hell for insincerity.
Nate, I agree big-bang is just a theory supported by some evidence, but god concept is NOT EVEN A THEORY.
- Posted by KpkI responded to The Times yesterday on the Higgs particle at http://georgeshollenberger.blogspot.com/ . The term ‘God particle’ does not fit to Higgs or atheistic physicists.
- Posted by George ShollenbergerThe ultimate unknown is why does anything exist instead of nothing at all? William of Occam,a 14th century Dominican who also taught at Oxford, originally defined Occam’s Razor as ‘Unknown entities cannot be introduced to explain other unknown entities.” Of course, the Pope excommunicated him, but over the centuries Occam’s Razor has come to mean “The simplest explanation is the likeliest explanation and has been the basis of Science since the Enlightenment. Introducing God,an Unknown Entity(and which one, we have many Gods, are they all the same God?)to explain the Ultimate Unknown Entity, why anything exists, has been a known no-no for seven hundred years. Erwin Shrodinger, who brought us Shrodinger’s Cat, said, “Consciousness is a singular for which there is no plural” and Sir James Jeans,”The Universe looks more like a great thought than a great machine”. Perhaps, then, Consciousness may itself be numinous and anthropomorphic enough to serve as a valid, tangible, necessaary and sufficient target for worship.
- Posted by BruceThe Vedics of ancient india were very scientific for 4000 years ago.There was a basic understanding of smaller units of life.Not all studies of the supreme being are belief oriented.I would say that ADMIRATION and LOVE are GOD particles.Are emotions particles? My whole point is that NOTHINGNESS is part of the equation!Blair has it right.Can science find the nothingness?
- Posted by Donald RoseShould not be called God or Higgs particle. Maybe Grulnik, Hagen, Kibble particle.
- Posted by ChrisWhat nonsense. The problem is 15 billion years? Who calculated this figure? Why not 10 billion, 2 billion, 10,000 years, etc? None of the figures a comprehensible in any event. We found the atom, nuclei, quarck, ions, and always statting that the smallest. But there always will b smaller. Science is trying to exlain infinity!!! There is NO explanatio–like trying to find the ends of the universe–there is none. So it becomes easier to to believe either science and God for which there is no explanation nor touch nor feel, and, it follows that there is no such thing as an aethiest beause there has to be belief to jusity our existence because we will NEVER prove not learn why, how, when, from whence all this creation statred from–this fact is our limitation for wathever reason. Big bang/boson where did they come from–even the smallest particle will need a new explanation,. It is encumbent all talentse the brains to creat an utopian existence for all mankind instead of chasing whimsy and the unexplainable. ‘We are because we are.”
- Posted by ANDY POPOVCIt seems, one thing that everyone may be overlooking is “scale” - macroscopic or microscopic. What is being discussed is at entirely different scales, and that will affect the “truth” of what is being discussed. How we observe things will always be affected by the scale at which it is observed, and will make a lot of difference in the “results”.
- Posted by DonThe “God Particle” will turn out to be as elusive as God itself (or was it Himself?).
- Posted by George SchneiderI often find it sad that those who claim to love God so much refuse to marvel at His creation with the fullest ability granted to us by science and reasoning. If God created us all in His own image, then wouldn’t it be a waste of God’s creation not to use our intellect to understand this universe He is said to have created for us?
It would seem that the best, and therefore only way to truly know God would be through extensive study of the universe He created, since it is only that creation which we have to learn from.
- Posted by H. SapienIt is a very interesting experiment - what so ever. God is a ‘word’ that came out of a confused mid. Claritiy can be achieved through many spiritual practices like Meditation, Avatarepc.com etc. It is possible to experience God!!
- Posted by Nagaraja