public – and convinced Lederman to accept the alternative he proposed. But, according to that account, his publisher rejected the epithet – possibly because of its potential to upset a strongly religious U.S. The book was titled: “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?” Physicists say Lederman, who over the years has been the target of much opprobrium from his scientific colleagues, tells friends he wanted to call the book “The Goddamned Particle” to reflect frustration at the failure to find it. It confuses people about what we are trying to do here at CERN.” According to people who have investigated the subject, the term originated with a 1993 history of particle physics by U.S. “Hearing it called the ‘God particle’ makes me angry. But Wells also has no time for theological terminology in describing it. As such, according to the theory, it was the agent that made the stars, planets – and life – possible by giving mass to most elementary particles, the building blocks of the universe hence the nickname “God particle.” “Without it, or something like it, particles would just have remained whizzing around the universe at the speed of light,” said Pippa Wells, another Atlas researcher. The field was posited in the 1960s by British scientist Peter Higgs as the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the Big Bang. It has nothing to do with God.” The Higgs boson is being hunted so determinedly because it would be the manifestation of an invisible field – the Higgs field – thought to permeate the entire universe. “It’s not doing justice to the Higgs and what we think its role in the universe is. “Calling it the ‘God particle’ is completely inappropriate,” said the German physicist, who divides his time between CERN and teaching at London’s Imperial College. Oliver Buchmueller, from the rival research team CMS, was a little less trenchant. It is ridiculous to call it that,” she told Reuters at a news conference after her colleagues revealed growing evidence, albeit not yet proof, of the particle’s existence. “The Higgs is not endowed with any religious meaning. “I hate that ‘God particle’ term,” said Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian member of CERN’s ATLAS team of so-called “Higgs hunters” – an epithet they do not reject. The exchange, as physicists at the CERN research centre near Geneva were preparing to announce the latest news from their long and frustrating search for the Higgs boson, illustrated sharply how science and the popular media are not always a good mix. “Well, I am the from the media and I’m going to continue calling it that,” said the journalist – and continued to do so. scientist politely told an interviewer on a major European radio station on Tuesday. So what has God got to do with it? “We don’t call it the ‘God particle’, it’s just the media that do that,” a senior U.S.
Scientists speculate that the other 96 percent of the Universe consists of dark matter (26 percent) and dark energy (70 percent), neither of which has been directly observed. “Don’t forget that the Standard Model only explains four percent of the Universe,” Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, said at a press conference. Very few people thought we would be where we are,” said Guido Tonelli, leader of the second major experiment, known as CMS.Įven if CERN does flush out the Higgs boson sometime next year, it will complete the picture for only that small slice of matter that is known. “We are at the beginning, but the progress has been huge. Both experiments showed telltale activity at a sweet spot around 125 GeV.Īfter a shaky start, the world’s biggest atom smasher has ramped up power to record levels, allowing scientists to sift through the debris of near speed-of-light collisions more quickly than expected.
One GeV is roughly equivalent to the mass of a proton. “If it exists, it is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range of 116 to 130 gigaelectronvolts (GeV),” CERN said, using the standard measure for the mass of sub-atomic particles. Taken together, the results provide “tantalising hints” that the sought-after particle is hiding inside a narrow range of mass, CERN said in a statement. The Web-cast presentation was made before several hundred scientists in an atmosphere charged with excitement and punctuated with applause. Orr said the potential for discovery “beyond the standard model (of physics)” serves as an exciting prospect because the discoveries “may be even more intimately connected with the structure of the universe.”ĬERN reported on Tuesday the midpoint results from two separate experiments that independently arrived at the same conclusion. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
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