A last day of Zen and since it is Sunday, I thought I would post a quasi-religious article…..
For centuries people have been in search of God and none so far have actually concrete proof of the existence….but has all that changed?
The leaders of two experiments, Atlas and CMS, revealed their findings to a packed seminar at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva, where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together at near light-speed in the Large Hadron Collider.
The experiments generated such excitement by independently reaching very similar conclusions. But the scientists were quick to warn that their results have not yet reached the level of certainty that would let them claim a discovery — hence Higgs’s caution.
Under what is known as the Standard Model of Physics, the boson is posited to have been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter after the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago – leading some to nickname it the “God particle.”
Its discovery would fill the last remaining hole in the model. However, that does not mean it must exist, and some eminent physicists such as Stephen Hawking believe it does not.
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, a vast underground particle accelerator that costs 200,000 Swiss francs ($215,000) an hour to run, is designed to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang to allow particles such as the Higgs boson to be found and studied.
While the boson’s discovery would cement current knowledge about particles such as electrons and photons, proof that it does not exist would undermine the foundations of accepted theories of the make-up of the universe.
The particle is so short-lived that it can only be detected from the particles that it decays into. In the course of millions of collisions, the scientists are hunting for a significant excess of a particular combination of decay particles.
Okay it is a particle and not the actual deity….but it is still a big leap for the big bang! Wait! Are they saying Hawkings was wrong?
“traces of the elusive boson”
Let’s call it the BOSS for short. God would be okay with that wouldn’t he/she?
Larry, I knew you could find a great way to turn this…
Of course the Boson exists. What the hell does Stephen Hawking know except how to operate a wheelchair with his tongue. Who do ya think wrote the Bible???
Okay Hansi….after a good laugh there is NOT mush more to add….thanx….
How does one square the giant, infinite, immortal, guy in the sky with the smallest, shortest lived, particle in the universe?
Q….we humans think for something to be great it must be big…..
Hawkings can sometimes be thought of as a bit of a progressive thinker. He likes the touchy subjects and thus doesn’t seem to me to be all that afraid of going against the grain. If anything, it seems so far that Hawkings is right rather than wrong on this matter, but time will (or won’t) tell. All in all though, we are still looking for pegs to put in the holes of our equations, and rightness or wrongness still lies within the realm of speculation.
Hi Page……Hawking is a great thinker and so was Einstein but even the best of us can have an off day…..thanx for the visit
Who said it was his off day hah? We still need the data to say anyone was off.
Page, true that….even the best are wrong…or as my grandfather would say, “not wrong just mistaken”….
Hawking was wrong about black holes. He may be a genius, but he’s not perfect. I’ll wait until the final results come out.
Morning Tim…..I sure the thing will be adjusting a couple of times before all agree…if ever….
I’m not trying to be argumentative, but it sounds like you think the Higgs has been shown and thus “Hawking is wrong.” Now definitely Hawkings has been wrong before, a la what timthesocialist said, but he isn’t yet wrong on this. Not that I care about Hawkings hah, but it is important to note that the Higgs boson isn’t in the bag yet. Far from it. The “standard model” still has a bit of sweating to do. 🙂
If you are a scientist, then I will bow to your premise, all I was doing is trying to report stuff that seldom is seen by politician geeks like myself…
My bad if I was coming off rude or abrasive. Sometimes I get nit-picky on details! (and unreasonably so at that)
Morning Page…..no problem….like I said if I were a scientist I could be more knowledgeable on the subject…..I do not mind a good debate and I appreciate the participation….