Individual Project: Why God Particle is Important

Why the God Particle is Important

It is not easy to have rational discussion of innovations these days. Five days ago, another new documentary called “Particle Fever” was released by Mark Levinson about Higgs boson. Before you ask, Higgs boson is not a who, it is a what. For physicist, they usually call this the “God Particle.”

Scientists say they have proven the existence of the Higgs boson - a never-before-seen subatomic particle long thought to be a fundamental building block of the universe (Thompson, 2013).

So going back to the fundamentals of physics and science, all things in the world are made up of atoms. But what are atoms made of? It is so ironic to think that the tiniest subatomic particles caused the greatest headaches of our biggest thinkers. But the most ironic thing here is that this “ripple” led to creating the biggest and most expensive (you must have $8 billion to buy it) gadget ever – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  

This is what I read and heard about the god particle and LHC. LHC was built in CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. It was just in 2012 when they had proven that Higgs boson is for real after several experiments and “attempts” in operating it. Some people believed that there is a possibility that when the machine is turned on, it can destroy the world because it could generate a black hole that will devour the earth (Boyle, 2008).  The experiment was done and we now found the Higgs boson. We also found out that the world has not yet ended.

Why is it called “god particle” anyway? Thanks to my friend who became an exchange student in CERN last year; I don’t have to look up to the internet the history behind it. Although the hypothesis about it says that this ripple is the subatomic particle that is holds all the electrons of all the stuff in the universe, sad to say, it is not where it actually came from. My friend (Alvin) told me that trials in the search for this not only zapped their energies off, it zapped their patience, too. For this reason, they decided it to call it the God-damn Particle. To make things sensational, they removed that damn word because they say, it sounds cooler and nicer without it.  It turned out that this inside joke for them became the layman’s term for ordinary people.

Maybe ordinary people would think why spend more than eight billion dollars for this when there are a lot more depressing problems the world has to face. The answer is simple. It is because we have to know. It is so important that scientists believed that if it is never found out, the whole subject of quantum physics would go back to the realm of Philosophy- a subject where we put things left unanswered. Come to think of it, the price of the question is worth that much.

I take a romantic view of quantum physics. Maybe I will never understand what is it, but I love it and I want to know more about it. And just like what my every commentary and reaction paper should say in the end, before any invention/ discovery can be a smashing success, it has to be imagined first. And like any other challenges, take risk.

References:

Boyle, Alan. 2008. Discovery or doom? Collider Stirs debate.  Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24556999/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/discovery-or-doom-collider-stirs-debate/#.UxvZLT-Sxns/. Accessed 7 March 2014.

Greene, Brian. 2013. How the Higgs Boson was Found.  Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-the-higgs-boson-was-found-4723520/?no-ist.  Accessed 8 March 2014.

Scott, A. 2014.  To Scientist in Pursuit, a Bit of Matter Is No Small Matter. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/movies/particle-fever-tells-of-search-for-the-higgs-boson.html?_r=0. Accessed 9 March 2014.

Thompson, Nick. 2014. What is the Higgs boson and Why is it important? Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/13/world/europe/higgs-boson-q-and-a/.Accessed 7 March 2014.

Note: Other information written in this blog is told by Alvin Bendicio, a 2013 summer student in CERN and a BS Physics graduate in UP Diliman.