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While the name is neither apropos nor descriptive, the moniker ‘God Particle’ sells newspapers and keeps particle physicists gainfully employed. It has not the savour faire of black hole or pulsar. The name, ‘God Particle’ was coined by 1988 Nobel physicist, Leon Lederman, current director of Chicago’s Fermilab; he wrote a book by the same title. (I found the book neither well-written nor adequately informative, even for a lay audience.) The correct name for the particle is the Higgs Boson, but that lacks the anti-God affectation so seemingly necessary in today’s science.
Regardless, what is the Higgs Boson, aka ‘God Particle?’
It is a sub-atomic particle theorized by English physicist Peter Higgs, in 1964. The Higgs Boson is hypothesized to transmit the force of gravity from one mass to another. The particle may or may not exist. That is the reason for the current excitement. Physicists are on the brink of discovering it. Or, perhaps not.
When Isaac Newton first published the Principia in 1687, he quantified the force that governs masses, namely gravity. What keeps the moon in its orbit? Gravity. What holds the Milky Way galaxy in a spiral? Gravity. What keeps you from flying out of your chair and sailing off into space? Gravity. So, Newton came up with some very good equations to describe gravity, but one problem bothered him to the day he died, something he called action-at-a-distance. Namely, how does gravity get from here to the moon? How does the moon, being up there, know the earth is over here trying to pull on it? And, what is it, exactly, that is doing the pulling? And, why cannot it push as well as pull?
No one had a better answer until, in 1916, Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity. Einstein said that space (spacetime) is not just an empty construct. There is a “fabric” to space that governs how masses behave. (Which, of course clearly means there is no such thing as empty space. But, save that for another day.)
Then, between 1928 and about 1950, the field of quantum mechanics arose. We found that nature consisted not just of protons, neutrons, and electrons, but all kinds of things, like neutrinos, muons, photons, gluons, and quarks, to name a few.
So, suffice it to say that at the current time, it is believed that a particle, the so-called Higgs Boson, is transmitted at the speed of light from one mass to another and that is how gravity information gets sent. But, where are these particles? Why have we not seen them? How do we prove they exist?
Simple. Find the Higgs Boson.
How do we do that?
First, you build something called a particle accelerator and name it the LHC for Large Hadron Collider. That will take a few billions dollars to build and require several thousand physicists to run. Not to mentions the thousands of engineers, construction workers, food service, gas stations, and shops to support the people.
The LHC is an underground circle, 17 miles long, that straddles the French-Swiss
border near Geneva. The entire facility and support organization is called by the acronym, CERN, which translates from French as European Council for Nuclear Research. It is the only laboratory like it in the entire word, probably because most countries do not have several billion dollars to spend on creating real jobs. The US was going to build a similar accelerator in Texas and call it the Superconducting Supercollider. But, that would have provided tens of thousands of high-technology jobs for the unemployed in the US and would have brought us to the forefront of international science, again. But, that idea was scrapped so we could bail out the banks, save the spotted owl, fund more wars, and fatten more pork for Congress.
The LHC physicists at CERN reported this week that they may be on the track of the Higgs Boson. They believe it is a massive particle, by sub-atomic standards, about 134 times the mass of the proton. It will be several months before the CERN physicists know for sure.
If they do find the Higgs Boson, it will be the discovery of the century, because that will confirm the current theory of how gravity works. Which would then mean that we have tons more work to do to refine the theoretical models.
If they do not find the Higgs Boson, it will be the discovery of the century, because that will mean we have yet to discover what might be transmitting the force of gravity and how.
So, Higgs Boson, here we come.
P.S. At this point in my physics lectures, some students always raise their hands and ask, “But, what it the practical use of all this?” Practical? Hmmm. Let us see. That same question was asked some years back about electricity. (Don’t experiment with electricity! It might not be practical!) That same question was also asked about the transistor. (Smash all your cell phones, iPads, and computers, lads!) It was also asked about the theory of relativity, which is required to run the navigation systems in your car and just about everything else we transmit globally.
Perhaps we should not take questions until we at least know if we have found the Higgs Boson.
P.S.S. A “boson” is not something you call your spouse. It is a general classification of sub-atomic particles. I left that out because it seemed unnecessary to the point.