Big news in the world of physics this week. The long sought “God particle” has been discovered! Associated Press reports:
To cheers and standing ovations from scientists, the world’s biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle Wednesday, calling it “consistent” with the long-sought Higgs boson — popularly known as the “God particle” — that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape.
Here’s the Guardian’s guide for how to explain this, depending on who you’re talking to.
And here’s perspective from cartoonist and commentator David Horsey:
Things so small and things so big boggle the human mind. Immediately, they conjure the ultimate unanswered questions: If all matter is given mass by the Higgs boson, where did the Higgs boson come from? It has been nicknamed the “God particle” because it makes everything else possible; did God make it? If so, where did God come from? Did this all start with a Big Bang and without a creator? What set off the Big Bang? And what came before it? And before that?
The news about the “God particle” is one of those challenging bits of information that can make everything else feel terrifyingly insignificant. It is a reminder that each of us is merely a tiny, carbon-based organism existing for a brief moment on a small planet that, by the scale of the universe, is no more singular than a grain of sand on a beach. We are dust in the wind, utterly inconsequential in the dark expanse of time and space.
At least that’s one way to look at it. Another way to see it is that, in all that vastness, only we are aware of the awesome complexity. Only we strive to know and understand. All the rest is mere physical phenomena. What we do in our brief lives on this small planet may be the only thing that matters.
BBC World’s “Have Your Say” program features debate on whether this scientific discovery signals the nail in the coffin of religion. Your thoughts?