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Retro - oil on linon 2007
Now that I have your attention, let me explain the meaning behind the title of this article. Sometimes things aren't what they seem. Sometimes the same words mean different things to different people. For most Americans, God and Intelligent Design (ID) are terms that go together like peanut butter and jelly. The God Particle and Intelligent Design are clearly not a match to folks in the scientific community. Since I'm a "Science and Tech" and not a "Religion and Spirituality" Examiner, I will focus on the science and leave the religious aspects to others.
Now on to the technology that's designed to create the "God Particle":
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator. At a cost of $8 billion, the LHC is located in a tunnel 27 kilometers (17 miles) in circumference 175 meters beneath the Swiss-French border near the city of Geneva Switzerland. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the goal of testing various theories of high-energy physics.
On September 10, 2008, a beam of protons were successfully launched in the main ring of the LHC. Unfortunately, on September 19th, the collider was shut down due to problems with two superconducting bending magnets. It is anticipated that the problems will be resolved and the LHC will be operational again in October 2009.
When the LHC finally gets going at full power, trillions of protons will be set in motion along the magnetic track and set racing in opposite directions at speeds exceeding 99.999999 percent the speed of light while engaging in more than 500,000 head-on collisions each second. At 99.999999 percent the speed of light, a proton will cycle the 17 mile track more than 11,000 times every second.
The reason for the ultra high-energy head-on proton collisions derives from the worlds most popular equation; Einstein's famous E=mc2. That formula represents the notion that energy ("E") and matter or mass ("m") are interchangeable like convertible currencies (with "c" being the speed of light which represents a fixed conversion rate). Since the speed of light "squared" is an enormous number; more than anything else, E=mc2 represents the notion that a very small amount of matter can be converted into a whole lot of energy and, conversely, a whole lot of energy is required to produce a very small amount of matter. By accelerating the protons to incredibly high speeds, there collisions provide a momentary burst of tremendous energy which quickly converts into a broad array of other smaller pieces of matter commonly referred to as particles.
Among the vast array of other smaller particles which may be created immediately following the proton collisions is the Higgs particle, better known in popular parlance as the "God Particle". One of the mysteries of physics is the nature and origin of mass. What is mass and where does it come from? In October 1964, a number of physicists proposed an answer to this mystery. Included in that group of distinguished researchers was an English physicist by the name of Peter Higgs. Higgs suggested that space itself is pervaded by an invisible field, much like electromagnetic fields generated by radio and cellphone signals, that acts like molasses.
According Higgs' theory, when we apply a force to accelerate something (change its speed and/or direction), a molasses like field acts as a drag force which gives an object its mass. Since the 1970's, the physics community has incorporated this theoretical Higgs field as a centerpiece of the so-called standard model. However, the remaining component of the standard model that has yet to be confirmed is Higgs' "molasses" field. Scientists are predicting that if there really is a Higgs field, the energy created by the collisions in the LHC should be strong enough to chip off small chunks of that field creating what are referred to as Higgs bosons or, if your prefer, "God Particles". If these particles are created and detected, the standard model will finally be complete.
So the finial puzzle is why this yet to be discovered particle is referred to as the "God Particle" and what does its potential discovery have to do with Intelligent Design. The term "God Particle" first appeared in a book written about 15 years ago by a Nobel Prize winning physicist by the name of Leon Lederman. At pages 22-23 of his book, The God Particle, Lederman states that:
“This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddam Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one…
Lederman's book then goes on to quote Genesis 11:1-9, the Tower of Babel about mankind dispersing. Finding the "God Particle", he says, would be like undoing the the confusion that followed.
And what about the God Particle's connection to Intelligent Design? Well, who can dismiss the fact that an $8 billion machine built to create God Particles, extra spacial dimensions, black holes and other exotic bits of matter is not the product of an Intelligent Design. Only not the kind of Intelligent Design one associates when referring to God but the Intelligent Design of a large group of talented engineers.
Comments
Absolutely great article Fred, wonderful information!
Wonderful, Fred. I appreciate that you take a truly factual approach to the scientific search for the God particle.
What happens if matter is also irreducibly complex? What happens if the reactor starts an unpredicted and catastrophic chain reaction with devastating environmental results? What happens if this leads to new weapons technology that will....
Easy to say, "You can trust these guys!" But, I can assure you that they playing on dangerous ground. Like you said, there's lot's of energy bound up in those tiny lil protons.
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"The Large Hardon Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator." Not yet it isn't.
'And what about the God Particle's connection to Intelligent Design? Well, who can dismiss the fact that an $8 billion machine built to create God Particles, extra spacial dimensions, black holes and other exotic bits of matter is not the product of an Intelligent Design.' Apart from the question mark, have you missed out a paragraph or two there, Fred? What has anything you have written about this god particle got to do with the existance of God? You simply make a statement couched apparently as a rhetorical question that leaps from nowhere to validate your headline. No logic, no proof, just an opinion. I trust this is not the usual journalistic standard of the Examiner.
I believe that Chris Cavanagh missed the entire point of Fred article. Reading the complete article, it's clear that what he's saying is that God has nothing to do with Intelligent Design in a religious sense. Read his last paragraph. The Intelligent Design he's referring to is the design of the Collider and God has nothing to do with it.
Good info but it seems that you failed to address a more important story. The LHC is a threat to mankind. Do some checking and you will see that there is a lot of fear about this machine...
Quantum distance through entanglement is known but not understood. The two gate electron experiment is observed but unexplained. When the collider experiment ends in utter disaster then maybe someone will finally admit this futile experiment is a last ditch exercise to rescue flawed scientific theory. Then again there might not be much left to care either way.
Just because it's nickname is the 'God' particle doesn't mean it literally has to do with god.
The argument presented in this article basically states, 'we had to intelligently design an experiment to create the God particle, therefore, the particle must have been created by an intelligent designer (God).'
The thinking in this article is infantile at best. Using this author's logic, ALL experiments ever performed support ID simply because the experiments were designed. This, of course, is absurd.
Bob - The title is just a play on words. If you had read the entire article, especially the last paragraph, you would have realized that my reference to Intelligent Design had nothing to do with God. The LHC was the product of the intelligent design of its builders not God!
The LHC is not a threat to mankind, as Lee Hatten implies. Tabloid articles aren't the best resources for building an academic understanding for particle physics.
Great article. My 2 fears about this are practical. This cost WHO how much money? Could this money have been better spent elsewhere? Since this has been halted because of a problem - do we really know what that problem is? The scientists are resting their careers on this endeavor and may cover up problems that could be dangerous or could cost a lot more money.
To answer Becky's questions:
The LHC is an internationally funded project costing approximately $8 to $9 billion. My belief is that it will me money well spent. At a minimum, it has created lots of construction jobs in Switzerland and France.
I wrote several articles on the LHC including an August 6th article (Large Hadron Collider - not yet ready- Doomsday postponed!) reflecting the current problems and repair status.
I believe your concern that since careers are resting on this endeavor, costs and safety issues may be covered up has merit. I will be writing something about those concerns shortly.
It is interesting to speculate on what mankind will become in a few thousand years or so if the rate of our collective knowledge continues to expand at the rate it is currently expanding, or in a few hundred thousand years if the rate of knowledge increase slows. Will there be any difference in the level of intelligence that exists in the being we refer to as God and that of the intelligence level of man. What is it that man is capable of becoming or evolving into in you prefer? At that point in time, wouldn't those beings in a world that has progressed only to the level that we are today refer to the men and women who posses that knowledge and ability as Gods? At that point we would have reached the point of understanding that creating a solar system such as ours would not be the least bit impossible, and the solar system that we would then create would undoubtably be "intelligently designed".
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