‘God particle’ or ‘Higgs Boson’

Till now we have seen how, at the very beginning, it was just a tiny ultra hot form of Super energy, smaller than the size of an atom, which burst into a big bang and subsequently how the earth has come to be.

We started this article under the heading ‘In search of God particle’ and the first sub heading was ‘from Vedas to Higgs Boson’.

Now let us see what is meant by ‘God particle’ or ‘Higgs Boson’ in scientific terms. 

The Higgs Boson is named after Peter Higgs, one of the six Physicists who in 1964 proposed the mechanism that suggested the existence of some elementary particles. In the mainstream media the ‘Higgs Boson’ has often been called ‘God particle’.  The nickname is strongly disliked by many Physicists including Higgs. 

The unanswered questions in fundamental Physics, is of such importance that it led to the construction of one of the world’s most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date the ‘Large Hadron Collider’, able to create Higgs Boson and other particles for observation and study.

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility

Large Hadron Collider experimental facility- From the three photos seen above, one can imagine the scale of this experimental facility. 

The term hadron refers to composite particles composed of quarks held together by the strong force (as atoms and molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force) the best known hadrons are protons and neutrons.   

In lay men’s terms, this is to try to understand what happened during the initial stages of the creation of Universe, which is still a mystery.  

We are now coming to the end of the science part.  I think that the knowledge of science has come to an end at this point.  I may be wrong also.

Here we have to recollect what we have seen earlier, In the creation of this Universe and its 14 billion year old history.  

click on the picture to see enlarged view

Why is it that the elementary particles were named as ‘God partilcle’?  I think because, it is generally believed that “Religion begins where Science ends”.  

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, believed the universe had existed forever.  He believed that if creation of Universe was accepted then a creator has to be accepted, which will lead to the argument for existence of God, which he did not like. And subsequently all the Scientists believed in this theory for a very long time.   

In 1915, Einstein introduced his revolutionary General Theory of Relativity.  We have made tremendous progress in cosmology since the days of Aristotle. The General Theory of Relativity and the discovery of the expansion of the universe shattered the old picture of an ever existing and ever lasting universe.

But, the general theory of relativity on its own cannot answer some of the important questions in cosmology! For example, Why is the universe the way it is?

Though there have been many achievements in Science, till date not everything has been solved.  Will the Universe keep expanding forever? Or will it reverse itself into a big crunch, back to singularity? 

Still our questions remain unanswered by Science.

Where did we come from? 

Why are we here?  

continued........ 
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