Higgs Boson Blog

BIG BANG Theory – Higgs’ Theory of Negativity

Let me start by saying that being a musician first and foremost, sorry to disappoint, but what I know about the technicalities of particle physics could be inscribed on an ant’s ball-bag and still leave enough room for War and Peace, in every language. That said…

I believe it was the Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman who, much to Peter Higgs’ annoyance, coined the phrase the ‘God Particle’ to describe the Higgs boson so named after Peter Higgs. As I understand it, very simply, don’t worry; the hypothesis put forward is that the Higgs boson gives mass to all other particles in what scientists describe as the Standard Model. So basically, if this is true then the Higgs field, as it’s also known, is literally in everything we see and touch. Heady stuff indeed and you can see why Lederman would associate the particle with God, if indeed you subscribe to the concept that a God exists in the first place. I suppose it rather depends on how you view God doesn’t it. If you believe that God is up there directing traffic and generally interfering, in a third party Ten Commandments sort of way, then all these physics based theories would raise eyebrows. However, if you believe God exists in everything we see and touch then this surely raises some fundamental theological questions/arguments.

As I understand it there are many theologians, and I include the Bishop of Durham, and I suspect the Reverend Sir John Polkinghorne who used to be a theoretical physicist and worked with Professor Peter Higgs, who believe that the bible or the vast majority of stories contained within it are symbolic. If this is the case then Lederman’s conjecture would seem to have some merit, although I can’t help thinking that calling the boson the God particle was a cynical manipulation to whip-up media hysteria. Incidentally, Lederman apparently refers to the elusive particle as ‘she’. This would certainly explain a great deal wouldn’t it…train crashes, hurricanes etc..- Only kidding!

I think it’s worth pointing out that if the re-naming of the boson was not cynical then it was a statement of faith, which of course many scientists claim not to have, even though saying categorically that you do not believe in God is a statement of faith in itself. I happen to think that one of the biggest spin-offs of this experiment will be to cause people to re-evaluate how they perceive God, whether they believe in God or no. This is using science to rationalise religion and vice versa, clever.

As to the scientific merit and the cost of this project currently being conducted at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) which claims to be one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research and that its business is finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works etc. Anyway, I have noticed that they talk a great deal about the scientific benefits but they don’t actually say what the benefits are going to be. This is curious isn’t it; given that particle physics is purported to be an exact science based on violence (smashing particles together at high speed) and math? You would have thought that when the politicians agreed to hand over 12 billion dollars someone would have asked the question; what are we going to get out of it? Of course they did ask that question but it wasn’t quite meant in the same way. What exactly are going to be the benefits to mankind? That is the question; they could then present these benefits in the form of say a list, so we would all be absolutely clear as to what exactly we are paying for. I mean if this is going to procure similar benefits brought about by the moon landings then….Houston, I have a problem.

As hugely impressive as the Large Hadron Collider is, I’m afraid in the midst of a world economic down-turn and with the virtual collapse of the banking system which has to be propped up by the tax payer, I could think of better ways to spend 12 billion dollars, sorry. There’s much hoo-ha about worm holes, black holes and bum holes, in which many scientists seem to have disappeared up. I was watching one of the many documentaries about CERN the other day and at one point we were treated to a tantalising glimpse into the sort of characters that work at CERN, when one extremely gaunt looking bewiskered/pustuled specimen was wheeled out to give an interview, never mind the God Particle he looked like he’d never seen the Sun!! If ever there was a candidate who needed all the advances medical science could offer this guy was it.

I give you the head of CERN – Sir Blunderrbus Wigins, now there’s the look of a man who’s just won 12 billion on the lottery. Either that or someone’s just paid the electricity bill, which is alleged to be in the region of 14 million UK pounds, per year! One scientist said the cost of the CERN experiment is peanuts.
Well, maybe, certainly puts Stephen Hawkins $100 bet that they won’t find the boson in perspective.

Talking of which, let’s explore what medical science has done and more importantly is promising for the future and whether or not this is going to be of any benefit to the human race, ultimately that is. I think it is relevant to the CERN experiment. If medical science has its way in just 300 years time when you have your great great great grandfather munching and moaning through the Kellogg’s (that’s me, hopefully) trust me, you’re going to be thinking, when oh when is that fucker going to die!! Will this make for a happier society? I don’t think so. The problems of an ageing society and what to do with them are with us now, thanks to medical science. Even now it can be a very sobering and even dangerous business going to my local town where you run the risk of being literally crushed under-foot by enormous motorised wheel chairs being driven by ageing lunatics with dementia. These fuckers are taking more drugs than Ozzy Ozbourne yet they are deemed fit to be in charge of mini 4×4′s you can drive on the pavement! You could be blinded by the glare of chromium plated Zimmer frames…Don’t get me wrong, we all have to get old, well actually we don’t do we, but I’m afraid I don’t feel sorry for old people, they’ve had there life, its children I feel sorry for.

I am of course a complete hypocrite in that if or when my hips give up the ghost I’ll be the first in the queue to take advantage of a replacement and I have to admit that if it were not for medical science I would not even be here. At the age of 14 I had peritonitis aka the devils grip. 100 years ago it would have killed me but thanks to medical interference I survived. I think the problem is perhaps that everyone wants to live forever and be free of disease, no one wants to suffer. What I’m trying to get at here is that science is following the wrong path and is taking things too far. Saving a life is one thing; creating or prolonging life unnecessarily is another. This is a very difficult subject and speaking as someone whose mother has Parkinson’s disease I have a deeply held personal view about it. My mother clearly benefits from medical advances, which is fine accept that I do have a slight problem with the fact that animals are used in the research, it’s a difficult one. However, I would say in defence of my argument that as far as the victims of Parkinson’s are concerned medical science is not prolonging their lives significantly beyond that which nature intended.

Take the science of IVF as perhaps a better example of the misdirection of funds. IVF is medical sciences answer for people who cannot have children. This is a hugely expensive and controversial service for people who self evidently want something nature has deprived them of. I defy anyone to go to the top of Tokyo Tower or any high-point in a major city in the world, look out across the landscape and think, yep, what the world needs is more people by people who can’t have kids…

When someone dies suddenly (with no particular reason) they don’t say, well he just died, we don’t know or cause of death unknown. They have to attach some learned aspect to it by giving it a name, that name is ‘sudden death syndrome’. In the words of the great Billy Connolly “you might as well eat white bread, not doing so you may live for another two weeks, but you won’t get that two weeks when you’re 35 and shagging yourself to death no no NO you get them when you are 95 with tubes stuck in every orifice”.

I recently took my daughter to see the new Pixar film Wall.E. Ok, I know what you’re thinking but, the film did have a point. I feel it is worth mentioning because it’s not difficult to imagine a world completely ruined and being circled by loads of fat fuckers in space ships waiting for robots to clean up the mess. Science is in affect aiding and abetting that very scenario, is it not. As I’ve already said, in my view science is pushing us in the wrong direction and resources are being misdirected because some politicians have invested their private fortunes in the engineering firms who construct machines like the Large Hadron Collider.
Of course we can’t reverse time, although I wouldn’t mind betting that there’s a boffin somewhere being publicly funded to find out if it’s possible, but we can slow down the march of so-called scientific progress. As deluded as it probably sounds when someone extols the virtues of returning to a bygone age, wouldn’t it be better if for instance our transport system here in the UK returned to steam? If they reinstated all the closed local railway lines, enthusiasts would run it for nothing! Ideal…and as for music and in particular my hi-fi set-up, I’ve gone back to a valve amplifier and do you know what, it sounds really good. Put it this way, you’d have to spend a small fortune to match the sound quality if I were to replace it with its modern equivalent. To compound the madness, I’ve just bought a bicycle, I haven’t sold the car though, I haven’t gone that mad, yet! But, you see my point; it is possible to readjust to a simpler way of life.

Anyway, why are the scientists placing such importance on this ‘quest for knowledge’ bollocks? Must we know how the universe works at any cost? What’s wrong with not knowing stuff, and unnecessary stuff at that, lets be honest. Did curiosity not kill the cat! Why do we have to advance at such a pace? I actually think that human survival on this planet will depend on halving the world’s population (at least) and the few that remain live as eighteenth century farmers. Otherwise, follow the science route and wealth and greed will get the better of us and in the words of someone we all, or most of us know (Frank Zappa) the meek shall inherit nothing. That’s true isn’t it, we live in societies based on greed and when we have used up the earths resources all that will remain are the meek, probably a few mud huts in Africa? So the meek shall inherit the earth, for what it’s worth, nothing, in the end. Old Zappa was right then.

I blame Gordon Brown (British Prime Minister) and T. Blair…this bollocks about ‘things can only get better’ and that an economy can be in a permanent state of perpetual boom without a bust. How wrong was that? And incidentally, ironic isn’t it that one of the principle architects of the LHC (Brian Cox) was the keyboard player in the band D-Ream from which New Labour (ex socialist right wing political party) procured their 97 election theme tune (things can only get better) one of the most annoying tunes on the planet, period. It would have been far better if our Brian were to have spent his time in search of the elusive groove and equally elusive tune.

If you ask me some things are better left as just theories…I’m afraid we are not going to live forever, there is going to be an end to the human race, we now have a small chance to prolong that process, why on earth are we not taking it? This, our Earth is the Garden of Eden, it is possible to make a better world for our children but not I’m afraid while we are burdened by the madness and greed of politicians and the scientists unquenchable thirst for unnecessary knowledge.

Higgs Boson

Posted on November 3rd, 2009 under Science • Tags: big bang theory, god particle, higgs boson found, higgs boson particle, large hadron collider, leon lederman, LHC, peter higgs, quantum physics. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback