Higgs boson....God particle or Cosmic creator?

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   A.Villarasaposted 10 years ago

   When the mainstream media labeled or nicknamed the Higgs boson, "God particle" scientists where aghast. Peter Higgs himself (one of the 6 physicists who in 1964 proposed the mechanism that suggested the existence of such a particle) said that labeling the Higgs boson the "God particle" was sensationalism at its worst.
   
   A few weeks ago, the Big Bang Theory  has been proven factual beyond an iota of doubt via the confirmation of the existence of what are known as gravitational waves (first described by A. Einstein 99 years ago) and the inflationary universe. This confirmation was reported by a team of researchers headed by astrophysicist John Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
   
   The Big Bang as formulated by empiricists of all stripes( astronomers,  astrophysicists, theoretical physicists, and experimental physicists) involved the rapid expansion of space from a single unimaginably hot and dense point a billionth the size of a nuclear particle, so that in less than a nanosecond a repulsive energy field inflated space to visible size and filled  it with a soup of sub-atomic particles called quarks.
   
   As far as my non-physicist mind could conceptualize, perhaps that "nuclear particle" was the Higgs boson, and that energy field was the Higgs field. Quarks in that field could have clumped together as the early universe expanded and cooled, forming protons and neutrons, the building blocks  of atomic nuclei i.e. Hydrogen and Helium that eventually led to all the visible matter that we now observe pockmarking the universe.
   Now maybe, Peter Higgs could be more accepting of the nickname "God Particle" on the particle named after him.

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   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   I don't see the connection.  The recent finding supports very rapid expansion immediately after the big bang.  The big bang itself remains unobservable.  Whatever caused it predates even fundamental qualities of the current universal like the Higg-Boson particle
   
   The term 'God Particle' was coined by  a scientist called Leon Lederman. It is not a literal reference to God but reflects how it is very important to particle physics and understanding, at that level, what matter is. Lederman, by the way, is an atheist--as is Higgs.

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      A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @Psyche: You might want to read the most recent scientific articles on the Big Bang and you might find it interesting that the Higgs boson/Higgs field have been mentioned/theorized as the mechanism that initiated the expansion of the universe.

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         psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         If you have a reputable source saying the particle from which the universe expanded was itself a HB particle I would be rather surprised.  All of these findings relate to a period after the big bang itself. These particles are of course involved in the post bang expansion as this is when matter came into being.

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            A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            @Psyche:
            The technology is not quite there yet, but scientists in the know, now estimates that it would only take a few more years for technology to catch up with the demand for observatories, specifically earth-bound gravitational observatories that could potentially offer a glimpse of the earliest moment of the universe using light waves and gravitational waves. Meanwhile space-based gravitational-wave observatory could make their appearance within the next 2 decades or so.

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            A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            @Psyche:
            As I mentioned in my OP,  astrophysicists have  indicated  that  in less than a nanosecond after the initial inflation, quarks were already formed, when the universes was approximately golf-ball sized. Since quarks   directly emanates from smaller sub-atomic particles i.e. Higgs-boson, it is not too unreasonable to assume that these smaller subatomic particles were involved in the initial inflation/expansion

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      A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @Psyche:
      Of course Higgs and Lederman were atheists. Did  you also know that the director of the upcoming movie about the biblical Noah and his ark, is an atheist?. What difference does it make?. Nothing really. Our specie's attempt at understanding the cosmos has nothing to do with religious/spiritual beliefs. You must know of course that a lot of empiricists are theists. So I guess your equation, if there ever  was one could now be balanced.

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   Emile Rposted 10 years ago

   I think we can safely say that any information currently available leaves the question of God up for debate. Attempting to use scientific findings in order to say yay or nay, definitively, is premature and grasping.

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      A.Villarasaposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      @Emile:
      I have always thought that the emipirical model is not suited to come up with the answer or the definitive evidence for God's existence.
      
      I wrote the post not to insinuate that Higgs boson is the  answer, but to stimulate a linear not circular philosophic conversation about the beginning of time as it relates to the formation of visible  matter, which as it turns out, occupies  only 4.5% of the whole universe, the rest being dark matter and dark energy.

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