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Key scientist sure "God particle" will be found soon
Reuters via Yahoo ^ | 04/07/2008 | Robert Evans

Posted on 04/07/2008 8:05:12 PM PDT by rpage3

GENEVA (Reuters) - British physicist Peter Higgs said on Monday it should soon be possible to prove the existence of a force which gives mass to the universe and makes life possible -- as he first argued 40 years ago.

Higgs said he believes a particle named the "Higgs boson," which originates from the force, will be found when a vast particle collider at the CERN research centre on the Franco-Swiss border begins operating fully early next year.

"The likelihood is that the particle will show up pretty quickly ... I'm more than 90 percent certain that it will," Higgs told journalists.

The 78-year-old's original efforts in the early 1960s to explain why the force, dubbed the Higgs field, must exist were dismissed at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Today, the existence of the invisible field is widely accepted by scientists, who believe it came into being milliseconds after the Big Bang created the universe some 15 billion years ago.

Finding the Higgs boson would prove this theory right.

CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) aims to simulate conditions at the time of that primeval inferno by smashing particles together at near light-speed and so unlock many secrets of the universe.

Higgs was in Geneva to visit CERN for the first time in 13 years in advance of the launch.

Scientists at the centre hope the process will produce clear signs of the boson, dubbed the "God particle" by some, to the displeasure of Higgs, an atheist.

He came up with his theory to explain why mass disappears as matter is broken down to its smallest constituent parts -- molecules, atoms and quarks.

BIG BANG

The normally media-shy physicist, who has spent most of his career at Scotland's Edinburgh University, postulated that matter was weightless at the exact moment of the Big Bang and then much of it promptly gained mass.

This, he argued, must be due to a field which stuck to particles as they passed through it and made them heavy. If this had not happened, matter would have floated free in space and stars and planets would never have formed.

Higgs said he hoped the elusive boson -- which an earlier but less powerful collider at CERN and another at the U.S. Fermilab had failed to detect -- would be identified before his 80th birthday in 2009.

"If it doesn't," he said, "I shall be very, very puzzled."

But there may be no immediate visible proof -- despite some fanciful portrayals of what it might look like -- of the boson's appearance on the ultra-sophisticated computers used by CERN scientists to track the billions of collisions in the LHC.

"It all happens so fast that the appearance of the boson may be hidden in the data collected, and it could take a long time for the analysis to find it," said Higgs.

"I may have to keep the champagne on ice for a while yet."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: blackholes; god; higgsboson; particle; physics; science; stringtheory
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To: mathprof

I don’t know about the Higgs Boson,

But I know where you can find some Huge Bison.


21 posted on 04/07/2008 9:06:20 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Just saying what 'they' won't.)
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To: rpage3

Alternate headline: “Old guy about to die is sure validity of life’s work will soon be confirmed”


22 posted on 04/07/2008 9:07:39 PM PDT by billybudd
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To: garylmoore
Look out the window Mr. Higgs, do you see creation, every creation has a creator, and our Heavenly Creator is the one Who gives mass to the universe and makes live possible. I rest my case.

Fair enough. I could quibble that God being nonmaterial doesn't give the universe mass, but no matter.

The question is, how, within physical terms, does God do it?

23 posted on 04/07/2008 9:07:49 PM PDT by onewhowatches
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To: D-fendr
Yea... and what the heck was before the big bang? Who lit the fuse to make the big bang?

Nevermind...

24 posted on 04/07/2008 9:08:07 PM PDT by BreezyDog
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To: Strategerist
So should we shut down all science and stare aimlessly out the window regarding every unanswered question?

That would be contrary to the command of God.

Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and
fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of
the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.

25 posted on 04/07/2008 9:09:39 PM PDT by the_daug
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To: rpage3
the "Higgs boson," which originates from the force

May the Higgs boson be with you. Seriously, it would be impressive to find the gravity particle. A long time coming.

26 posted on 04/07/2008 9:15:17 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: Tucker39
I echo your quote and add this one to augment it:

Hebrews 1: 2Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power...

The part about "upholding all things" is very mysterious (like the 'God particle' being asserted here). It also contains the force we've been seeking -- the force that keeps the particles apart, giving space and mass to the objects in the universe, keeping all from collapsing in on itself. Quite remarkable, actually. The Apostle seems to have been given some rather sophisticated insight into it.

27 posted on 04/07/2008 9:30:35 PM PDT by Migraine (Diversity is great...(until it happens to YOU).)
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To: Supercharged Merlin
The fact that God created a member of mankind who could build such a complicated machine is proof that He is there. It is silly, logically, to think that anything will detect a particle of God...wake up morons, God's particles are already all around us in the form of birds, trees, water, earth, humans, dogs, cats, women with fertility built-in, emotions, smog, oil, dinosaurs, life, death and the ability to believe in a power so great as to create it all???

Get down on your knees and pray...particles of God will rain down and give you peace, you fool!
28 posted on 04/07/2008 9:32:54 PM PDT by Stayfree (FLUSH HILLARY.COM)
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To: mathprof
On the other hand. . .
29 posted on 04/07/2008 9:34:46 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know. . .)
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To: Tucker39
There’s your “boson” Mr. Higgs! Right there in verse 17.

Um, no. Those are just verses from a religious text, which explain nothing to those who aren't willing to accept them on blind faith.
30 posted on 04/07/2008 9:34:59 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: libh8er
So you might say we're all Waiting for Godon.

<}B^)

31 posted on 04/07/2008 9:42:57 PM PDT by Erasmus (It takes branes to make an alternate universe.)
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To: D-fendr

I worked on some of the data network requirements for this thingy. the first 20 minutes of operations should pump out enough data for a single man to read non-stop for the next 200 years.


32 posted on 04/07/2008 9:54:11 PM PDT by CJ Wolf (Let Freedom Ping List - Ron Paul - Ron Paul - Ron Paul - Join it.)
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To: CJ Wolf

On the other hand a Married man wouldn’t be allowed to read non-stop. He’d have to take 174500 years of 20 minutes on the john reading, getting hollered at just 10 minutes into it.


33 posted on 04/07/2008 9:56:56 PM PDT by CJ Wolf (Let Freedom Ping List - Ron Paul - Ron Paul - Ron Paul - Join it.)
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To: Stayfree
It is silly, logically, to think that anything will detect a particle of God...

It's editorial hyperbole. It would be a crowning achievement towards verifying the Standard Model, but God particle is simply pushing things for journalistic sensationalism.
34 posted on 04/07/2008 9:59:01 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: rpage3

A couple more interesting articles written for laymen about the Large Hadron Collider:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080331122534.htm

And these guys have an interesting theory on its potential.
Two men have theorized the Collider could destroy all life on earth (but not to worry it’s just a “small chance of annihilation of the planet”).

“Fight to save Earth from tiny black hole”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/fight-to-save-earth-from-tiny-black-hole/2008/04/01/1206850910851.html


35 posted on 04/07/2008 10:09:31 PM PDT by 444Flyer (Fight to Win.)
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To: rpage3

” The Higgs Boson exists not” - Hoseya


36 posted on 04/07/2008 10:49:10 PM PDT by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole....)
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To: Strategerist

So should we shut down all science and stare aimlessly out the window regarding every unanswered question?

You want the answers to questions? Look to the Word, it will answer all your questions.


37 posted on 04/07/2008 10:54:59 PM PDT by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: libh8er

Saying a Heavenly Creator created everything is avoiding the question.

It’s simply a matter of Faith. And about questions, truth will be unfolding to the believer throughout eternity.


38 posted on 04/07/2008 11:00:08 PM PDT by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: onewhowatches

The question is, how, within physical terms, does God do it?

Simple, He is God!


39 posted on 04/07/2008 11:02:25 PM PDT by garylmoore (Faith is the assurance of things unseen.)
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To: CJ Wolf

One would expect this effort to advance computational sciences almost as much as particle physics. FWIW I know plenty of grad students who would do it for a modicum of pizza and nice European beer...


40 posted on 04/07/2008 11:07:54 PM PDT by Eyes Unclouded (We won't ever free our guns but be sure we'll let them triggers go....)
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