I don't know about you, but it certainly didn't take more than a tenth of a second for the headlines proclaiming “The God Particle Found” to grab my attention and twist my imagination with fantastic scenarios. “What? They found a particle of God?” Remember, those headlines did not say “evidence of God” (which is another subject entirely), but rather “particle of God.” My mind raced with now-absurd questions. “How on earth did they find a particle of God? How do they know for certain this is a particle of God? Will they put it on display?” I would fly anywhere at any time to see an actual “particle of God,” and I am sure I would not be alone.
Anyway, sanity won out after those first few minutes of crazed speculation, and I read the articles. Okay, they were not talking about an actual “particle of God,” but rather a particle of physics. While logically, on the face of it, that sounded more grounded in reality, as I struggled to understand the obscure physics-speak, my eyes crossed and tangled with the remaining strands of my brain. I thought that maybe, if I could find a way to simplify this little bit of particle physics, I might be able to make some sense of it all. There are no doubt nonphysicists who can understand particle physics, how to put the details together in some sort of cohesive thought process, and my hats off to them. My mind does not travel the trails of obscure technical lingo quite that smoothly.
Here is my attempt to explain what this “God particle” business is all about. To get to it, though, we need to start with the basics to insure that we are all on the same page of understanding.
First and foremost, “The God Particle” is the catchy epithet given to a physics phenomenon more correctly known as the “Higgs Boson Particle” – a name not quite as dramatic nor destined to grab headline attention in today’s tabloid world.
Let us begin with a basic explanation of particle physics: It is that branch of physics which deals with the properties, relationships, and interactions of subatomic particles. Particle physics is interested in finding out what subatomic particles are made of, with the aim to study the basic building blocks of matter and the forces they exert on each other, to see how they interact to make the universe look and behave the way it does. It is the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces of nature. It attempts to re-create the universe just after the Big Bang with the hope of answering those eternal mysteries: “Where do we come from?” and “What are we made of?”
Right now we know of twelve fundamental particles: six quarks and six leptons. Currently there are hundreds of identified particles made from combinations of these twelve fundamental particles, and scientists are still finding more. Quarks combine to form larger particles, such as protons and neutrons, most of the matter in the universe. There are two main classes of leptons: charged and neutral. Charged leptons combine with other particles to form other particles such as atoms, while neutral leptons rarely interact with anything and are rarely observed.
What specifically is a boson? A boson is a fundamental force by which leptons and quarks are transmitted. Bosons with the same energy can occupy the same place in space. A boson has no “spin,” which is the rotation around a particle’s axis that sets up a magnetic field.
Let’s pause for a quick second to talk about the difference between particle physics and quantum physics. While they overlap, as we now know particle physics is the study of the fundamental particles (those quarks and leptons). Quantum physics studies interactions, not just of those fundamental particles, but anywhere that quantum theory is appropriate, such as atomic physics, lasers, nuclear physics, etc.
Who is Higgs? Peter Higgs is the guy behind all this brouhaha. He is a British theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh. Higgs first suggested his boson theory in 1964 as a “missing link” in standard physics, a missing link which explains how particles acquire mass. While other theorists may have proposed such a hypothesis, Higgs was the only one to explicitly predict the particle and identify some of its theoretical properties. Aptly named “Higgs Boson,” it has often been described as "the most sought-after particle in modern physics."
Without the Higgs Boson, our elementary particles would flit past each other at the speed of light. Those elementary particles that make up the visible universe would, consequently, have no mass. The Higgs Boson slows down the elementary particles. Such slowing down is interpreted as “inertia,” and since Galileo, inertia has been identified as a property of things with mass. So we have a mass (the Higgs Boson) slowing down the elementary particles which make up the universe to make up the visible universe.
Scientists found the Higgs Boson by using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. Until July 2012 there were only hypotheses and compelling theoretical structures. Now, facts can be gathered. Further work is needed to analyze Higgs Boson properties to determine if it has all the properties expected. Again, the Higgs Boson particularly is important because, without it, we would have no visible universe.
Remember, my explanation is a simplistic one. It is not meant to explain the detailed properties of quarks, leptons, inertia, fields, etc., or to explain the intricate details of the research. If you are interested in the mind-twisting world of particle physics, I encourage you to learn more.
Finally, the term “The God Particle” was coined for Leon Lederman's 1993 popular science book on particle physics, “The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?” Lederman gave the Higgs Boson the nickname "The God Particle" because “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.”
Until the next time, LLAP!
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