# The God Particle



## TinyDancer (Jul 30, 2012)

I was hoping we could discuss this here, I find it pretty amazing.. but then despite the articles Ive read on yahoo about it.. I don't know anything about it. I do like its name.. hoping there really is more out there than what meets the eye.. so errr..


What is this 'God particle' exactly?


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## Bloggsworth (Jul 30, 2012)

Transportable gravity...


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## felix (Jul 30, 2012)

It's a boson, the quanta of the hypothetical Higgs Field, which would take the form of a field which permeates all of space and imbue all of the universe's particles with mass. 

Essentially, in the manner that a photon is the quanta of the electromagnetic field, the Higgs Boson or 'God particle' is the quanta of the Higgs Field (where quanta is defined as the smallest possible excitation of the corresponding field). 

If it can be found - and particle physicists working at the LHC have lately very tentatively announced the detection of a Higgs-like particle - it will complete the Standard Model of Particle Physics and thus confirm the validity of almost all modern physics (or at least indicate that we're on the right track, as the Standard Model doesn't take into account several large problems). 

Bit wordy, but I gave it a shot.


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## Terry D (Jul 30, 2012)

A very bad name to start with :sad:.

It's real name is the Higgs Boson.  Bosons are sub-atomic sized particles which are important to how the forces that govern the universe work.

For instance:  You may have heard of photons.  Photons carry electromagnetic force which we perceive as electricity, magnetism, and light.  Photons are a type of boson.

The Higgs Boson has been predicted to exist for a long time and, if it does in fact exist, may be the force carrier for what we call mass. It is believed that the Higgs is responsible for allowing other particles, and atoms, and everything else, to have mass.  Mass is what causes gravity, and gravity allows 'stuff' to clump together and become more 'stuff'.  Without the Higgs Boson the universe would still be a soup of energetic, tiny particles bouncing around without structure or form.

The Higgs is very fundamental to our understanding of how the universe works.  It was given the name "The God Particle" in a book by physicist Leon Lederman in 1993.  The book was about particle physics and was intended to educate people who didn't know much about the topic and therefore a catchy title was needed; hence _The God Particle: If The Universe Is The Answer, What Is The Question_.  Scientists do* not *call the Higgs, The God Particle; the media does.

The Higgs has been very difficult to find because it was created within an unbelievable small fraction of a second after the Big Bang, and recreating it (actually splitting it out of other, larger particles like protons) requires an enormous amount of energy.  Something we could not accomplish until the Large Hadron Collider was built.

The existence of the Higgs Boson still has not been proven.  The results announced recently only said that they detected particles which are consistent with what we would expect to see from the Higgs.  There is still much work to be done to confirm the findings.  It is a great step forward in understanding how the universe works, and tells scientists that they are on the right track in their hunt for understanding, but it's just another stepping stone, just like discovering the atomic structure of matter was a step.

The existence of the Higgs Boson -- if confirmed -- will not mean that God does not exist.  It will have no bearing on religion whatsoever.


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## ppsage (Jul 30, 2012)

felix said:


> It's a boson, the quanta of the hypothetical Higgs Field, which would take the form of a field which permeates all of space and imbue all of the universe's particles with mass.
> 
> Essentially, in the manner that a photon is the quanta of the electromagnetic field, the Higgs Boson or 'God particle' is the quanta of the Higgs Field (where quanta is defined as the smallest possible excitation of the corresponding field).
> 
> ...



If you really want to know anything about it, start here, there's lots of books, even ones for physics dummies. This has been around for about fifty years and really isn't much more difficult to grasp than the periodic table of elements. Without at least an inkling of understanding this model, just forget the whole thing.


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## Morkonan (Jul 31, 2012)

TinyDancer said:


> ...What is this 'God particle' exactly?



Felix's reply was good.

To add, I will say that you can think of it as that part of a particle with "mass" that communicates to the "Higgs Field" that particle's mass. In any respect, that boson communicates something to a pervasive field and that is intrinsic in our current understanding of cosmology and physics. If it were disproven, then there'd be nothing within the appropriately predicted energy range within the Standard Model to justify much of what that model depends upon. In short - We'd be proven wrong about our current understanding of the Universe.

As a consequence of this possible outcome, the search for the Higgs boson has been sort of Really Big Deal ™.


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## TinyDancer (Jul 31, 2012)

I've read these twice and I think I was more lost than when I asked it, maybe because I wanted God, and I wanted magic, fairytales and rainbows and things. It could be a source of 'magic' though right? black magic? if it is the smallest particle and the first step to being something with mass or matter, and if magic and spirits exist.. then they must be somewhere and there must be some explanation for it.. for us. the reason we exist and if we have souls that carry on. I know its physics...but could it account for the spiritual?

I mean.. I know its physics (and apologize for my ignorance about the actual details behind that word) I'm trying to understand it lol. in time..


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## Rellek (Jul 31, 2012)

Simplest I've ever heard the recent discovery explained is this: Imagine a field of snow. Everything that goes across this field ends up with snow collected on its feet/shoes, there's no crossing the field without picking up at least a little snow in it. The field is (easily enough) the Higgs field, and the tiny bits that get stuck on everything that travels through it is the bosun particles, giving it weight or mass. Some very smart people at the LHC found signatures of these particles as they smashed atoms together at nearly the speed of light. "The God Particle" is particularly misleading, as one it can't disprove or prove the existance of a Creator, it just deepens our own understanding of the universe a little more.

And don't worry, there's still tons of bizarre, really strange theory and concepts in Quantum Physics. Get down to a small enough level and you'll find things acting downright, well.. magical.


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## felix (Aug 1, 2012)

TinyDancer said:


> I've read these twice and I think I was more lost than when I asked it, maybe because I wanted God, and I wanted magic, fairytales and rainbows and things. It could be a source of 'magic' though right? black magic? if it is the smallest particle and the first step to being something with mass or matter, and if magic and spirits exist.. then they must be somewhere and there must be some explanation for it.. for us. the reason we exist and if we have souls that carry on. I know its physics...but could it account for the spiritual?
> 
> I mean.. I know its physics (and apologize for my ignorance about the actual details behind that word) I'm trying to understand it lol. in time..



Physics cannot rule out metaphysical processes, but it will never move towards them either. 

The more you learn about modern science, the less places magic and God have to hide. If the Higgs mechanism has any validity then it is a cold, clear cut, mechanical process, devoid of the fluffy edges which fairies and spirits inhabit. 

If you're looking for the afterlife in the God Particle then you're looking in the wrong place.


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## Vlad_M (Aug 1, 2012)

I hope the tachyon can be applied and discovered in my lifetime. It may be possible to communicate with neighboring star systems using tachyon signals.


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## felix (Aug 1, 2012)

Well, a tachyon is a generic name for any particle that inherently travels faster than the speed of light. But all such particles are entirely hypothetical, and there's no current reason to believe that any such thing exists. 

Additionally, massive objects would still be bound travel at sub-luminal speeds, and so other star systems still couldn't be populated in order to communicate with them instantaneously. Unless you're talking about talking to aliens, in which case...well that's a whole other kettle of fish, but assuming that a relatively close star system had evolved incredibly similar sentient beings with a will to explore the heavens, they'd have to be at exactly the same developmental stage and understand the concept of any kind of communication that we would send. And they'd also have to have discovered the Tacyhon at exactly the same time.


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## Terry D (Aug 1, 2012)

felix said:


> Well, a tachyon is a generic name for any particle that inherently travels faster than the speed of light. But all such particles are entirely hypothetical, and there's no current reason to believe that any such thing exists.
> 
> Additionally, massive objects would still be bound travel at sub-luminal speeds, and so other star systems still couldn't be populated in order to communicate with them instantaneously. Unless you're talking about talking to aliens, in which case...well that's a whole other kettle of fish, but assuming that a relatively close star system had evolved incredibly similar sentient beings with a will to explore the heavens, they'd have to be at exactly the same developmental stage and understand the concept of any kind of communication that we would send. And they'd also have to have discovered the Tacyhon at exactly the same time.



Party pooper.


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## felix (Aug 1, 2012)

I know. I feel so mean. 

As a remedy:

If exotic matter is discovered with properties such as negative mass then it could potentially be harnessed to hold open the 'throats' of space-time wormholes, or to warp space around a spacecraft for use in the popular Alcubierre translight drive. Either one would effectively allow FTL without relativistic effects. The former is essentially the machine from the film 'Event Horizon' and the latter is very similar to the Star Trek Warp Drive.


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