The Cracked Acorn: Higgs Boson

My foraging for a set of reasonably priced tires found me in the early morning line at the Goodyear Center. Others had the same mission. The line was bogged down by a young lady tutored on the proper tires for her auto. Someone muttered, “What are we building, a starship?” The salesman heard this. “You fellows, be patient; she’s a real looker!” In silence, we waited to see Captain Janeway of the Enterprise.

Theoretical physicists are searching for the “God particle.” (July, DISCOVERY magazine). In 1964 British physicist Peter Higgs decided that this one subatomic animal was necessary to unite all those in the zoo of the Standard Model. His idea was to explain the “big bang” and ignite it. If all the particles are summed together, they have a zero mass(weight). What gave the matter(particles) mass to create all we now see and enjoy. Higgs implies a force field (Higgs Field) where all lives the particles.

Back to Goodyear: Our young lady lightly dances into the room. She draws more and more attention (weight) till eventually, all those around her are also in a weighted state. She may fly around the room till she loses all her speed. Unnoticed are interested parties(clusters) near the door. When she has almost spun down, the groups give life to her, and more electric particles again gain weight. Our damsel is our Higgs Boson(God Particle), the long-sought-after culprit responsible for combining and giving mass life to electrons and neutrons. What has this to do with anything? Leon Lederman tries to answer this question in his book- THE GOD PARTICLE: IF THE UNIVERSE IS THE ANSWER, WHAT IS THE QUESTION? With every open door, more are opened but not the final answer to “What is the Question!” A three billion dollar collider at Geneva, Switzerland, could provide a clue if there is a Higgs Boson or if it exists at all. Eight hours of data gathering will equal 3 million DVDs of binary data. Vague ideas abound on how this will be processed within our lifetime.

Conclusion: We are looking for something we think exists but are not entirely convinced of since the physicist community is evenly divided. Some say this particle has appeared several times. We just do not have the means to detect its presence. This heavy particle may have an atomic weight between lead and uranium. The collider may never be built to harvest this baby, and our best efforts could bear fruit in several years. The present machine uses 107 GeV (107 billion electric volts). To acquire visibility may require a possible (not sure) an almost 200 GeV–if this happens, the whole planet may experience a permanent blackout. I add to all this intellectual speculation my comment, “Isn’t God wonderful!” This lump of spongy cerebral mass is trying to seek God.

Newton sat in an orchard, and an apple, plumping down on his head, started a train of thought which opened the heavens to us. (“The COURIER-JOURNAL,” Louisville, Ky.)