US Person recalls the echos of triumph surrounding the "discovery" of
cold fusion in 1989. Hailed as the ultimate clean solution to our energy problems, the sun in a test tube turned out to be little more than a hoax ("pathological science"), another of a historically long line of disreputable claims in the field of science. Creationists are found of referring to the
checkered record of scientists too eager for acclaim and financial reward as they attempt to dismantle the evidentiary edifice of evolution or the impacts of global warming. Just a year ago it was claimed by European scientists, some of them connected with CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland, super luminal neutrinos were discovered. The claim was greeted with justifiable skepticism by most of the particle physics community since such a discovery would put Einstein's special theory of relativity by which we understand the universe into doubt. Indeed, the OPERA program claim was subjected to rigorous scrutiny and a measurement error was discovered, not faster than light neutrinos.
 |
| Higgs congratulates physicist Fabiola Gianotti |
Now, after 40 years of searching and billions spent, CERN scientists using the biggest accelerator ever invented, the
Large Hadron Collider, claim to have smashed two protons traveling at the speed of light to produce the "God Particle", or more humbly, Higgs' boson. The claim that the elusive boson has been found is a landmark development in science akin to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Higgs' boson is fundamental to the "Standard Model" of physics--or how the universe exists--because it is this sub-atomic particle which gives every other its mass. The discovery is presented as provisional, but CERN scientists associated with the effort and the $10.5 billion accelerator are jubilant
[photo, top] because the degree of confidence in an actual discovery is at the 5 sigma level--less than one in three million chance the results are random. Two sets of experiments independently confirmed the existence of a new sub-atomic particle with a mass of about 133 times that of a proton equivalent to 125.3 GeV. The Standard Model predicted the mass of a Higgs' particle to be 125.5 GeV. A neat, much desired conformation to quantum mechanical equations to be sure. However, the Standard Model also predicts more than one tyoe of Higgs' boson. Thus, CERN scientists are cautious about the exact identity of the new particle pending further research. Nevertheless, celebrity physicist Steven Hawking admitted he would have to pay up on his bet of $100 that the Higgs' would never be found.
Professor emeritus Peter Higgs, 83, who conceptualized the boson in 1964, never liked the name, "God Particle" notwithstanding his atheism. As
Der Spiegel acutely wrote, matter only comprises 4% of the universe, the rest is composed of
dark matter and dark energy of which man knows nothing. Higgs, a winner of the prestigious Dirac Medal, is an odds-on favorite to win a Nobel Prize now that the particle he theorized on a rainy weekend in Scotland has been located. Dr. Higgs and six other physicists developed the theory of the Higgs field, which if collided with enough energy, they thought would produce a fragile, but heavy sub-atomic particle. Higgs shed a tear at the seminar announcing the confirmation of his "one big idea", something he did not think would happen in his lifetime. The boson, because its exact physical mass was unknown and its life span in the millionth of second, eluded
stalking scientists at CERN's Large Electron Positron Collider and the Tevatron at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Both of these accelerators are now shut down. The Large Hadron Collider was created in part to search for the Higg's boson. That a "boson-like" particle has been detected to a great degree of certainty is a vindication of man's current mathematical model of nature, but what is absolutely certain is more questions about the ultimate nature of the Creation will be asked than ever answered by mankind.
