Race For the "God Particle" Heats Up 397
SpuriousLogic writes "CERN is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, its American rival claims. Fermilab say the odds of their Tevatron accelerator finding it first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best. CERN's Lyn Evans admitted the accident which will halt the $7B Large Hadron Collider until September may cost them one of the biggest prizes in physics."
"God particle" (Score:1, Interesting)
What the hell does a boson have to do with gods?
I think we should go with Lederman's original idea, "the goddamn particle".[1]
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Universe_Is_the_Answer,_What_Is_the_Question%3F
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Interesting)
What data are they lacking? The math and physics from other experiments that suggest that the Higgs Boson exists, along with a lot of details about it? Or the fact that it is by far the simplest solution to a number of phenomenon? Remember, much more often than not, the simplest solution that fits the math tends to point to the correct answer.
Oh wait. They aren't lacking those.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway theres pretty reasonable indirect evidence for the Higgs, lets just say to make all our measurements consistant, it would be nice if a fundamental scalar existed around 115 GeV. And it would be even nicer if it generated all the masses in the Standard Module while it was at it. There is certainly enough to have a reasonable Bayesian prior.
Re:race? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It will explain how the universe was created (or at least bring us significantly closer), from a scientific standpoint. Finding it will not disprove the existence of a deity, nor will not finding it prove the existence of one.
2) It was nick-named that as a tongue-in-cheek 'We think this particle is everywhere but nobody has actually seen it.' (this came from an earlier Slashdot article, you can look it up for yourself later)
Re:race? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, Newton tried to cover up the Calculus, just so he could have the edge over other natural philosophers. Some competition is harmful. It depends.
Re:race? (Score:3, Interesting)
As true as the outcome may be, that still doesn't validate the necessity of a race to procure a speedier advancement.
You don't think that if the USA And the USSR had worked together that we wouldn't have gotten there just as quick, if not quicker?
We only had a "race" cause both sides decided to be assholes to eachother after WW2... this isn't a browser war, if we don't work together on it, we'll end up with a "winner" doing spacey stuff, and a bunch of losers back here on earth, and all that this new "class war" would create.
It's Pretentious More Than Annoying (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's just stick to calling it the Higgs Boson. God Particle is just a meaningless snippet that the scientifically semi-literate have latched onto because it sounds cool.
Just like Theory of Everything, actually.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with searching for something that only theoretically exists is that it is profoundly easier to prove that something exists (by finding it) versus proving that it does not exist ("we've done a lot of searching without result, but we cannot conclusively say this [x] does not exist"). If they find it, yay search is over. If they don't... well, they'll probably just keep looking until they rip a hole in the space/time continuum or create a blackhole that rips the Earth from existence... I'd rather them find it as not.
Re:Can we stop calling it the "God Particle" yet? (Score:3, Interesting)
> That is not true. It is based on different axioms than science, but not on lack of evidence. I
Correction. The axioms of science arose from the Judeo-Christian world view, so science has the same axioms. The main parts of the scientific method are:
(a) the universe is orderly (because it was designed by an orderly God.) so it's possible to discover its regular laws
(b) man is rational (because he was designed by a rational God and man is in the image of God), so it is possible for us to discover the universe through reason and observation
(c) it is ethical to manipulate the universe (i.e. the universe is not God)
(d) man can be irrational (because man is fallen) and delusional (due to pride and arrogance as a result of the fall) so he needs checks and balances (like the scientific community and statistical methods) to know truth.
Now the secular world drops off the reasoning Bacon and others used to formulate the scientific method, and many Christians don't bother looking up their own history and the assumptions of their own faith and assume that "science is worldly, so it's bad", but that's humanity for you.
What you're referring to when you say "different axioms" is not science but logical positivism, which states that the universe, matter/energy and natural law are all that ever existed or ever will exist and there is nothing outside of "nature" (As an aside, "nature" used to mean "God's will" but now means something far more limited.).
Logical positivism is completely compatible with some forms of Deism (i.e. God is a programmer of this "Game of Life" we call the universe, and he never debugs tweaks his program or otherwise interacts with the game), Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, Taoism (if you assume that Yi/Yang forces can be measured and quantified), and Greek Mythology (Greek Gods are just Q-like aliens which are a product of creation). But it is fundamentally opposed to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, and many other metaphysical theories.
Fortunately, science is neutral ground where these metaphysical theories may have dialog. Some metaphysical theories (e.g. Stoics who think Reason can be perfected so we don't need to do experiments, just philosophize) might think that some axioms are redundant, and some might think that some axioms are irrelevant (e.g. the world is just an illusion, so discoveries about the world are little different than wasting your time discovering the physics and science of WoW or a dream).
But for those that wish to discover their world, whatever the reason, science is a common language.
We just have to make sure that it stays a common ground.
Re:How do you give odds for that? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately all that is filtered by each person as they look at it ... We see the evidence of God, you would see Luck.
Wow, you just get better and better. Unfortunately? It's not unfortunate, it's close to proof that there isn't actually a god and people that have fortunate events happen to them that were out of their control attribute it to a god because they feel more comfortable than the harsh realisation that the universe decided that it wouldn't kill them ... yet.
Two houses sit next to each other near an airfield. A out of control plane hits the second house, killing all but one member of the family inside. The family in the first house spend the rest of the week praising god and the rest of their lives preaching his glory to all. The remaining member of the second family spends the rest of his week mourning and there rest of his life questioning god to himself.
See also : the pilot of the plane and their family. Pilot dies/God questioned Pilot lives/God praised delete as applicable.