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To: HiTech RedNeck
Will the summoned Higgs boson fill the accelerator with smoke and demand to be worshiped???

Particles, like so many things are sometimes named after their discoverer. In this case a guy named Peter Higgs. I guess calling it the 'god particle' makes for an accidental reference to the particle's creator, as opposed to its discoverer.

19 posted on 07/05/2012 9:19:32 AM PDT by newheart (At what point does policy become treason?)
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To: newheart

Actually its called the “GOD PARTICLE” because a scientist at FERMILABS wrote a book about his attemps to discover the particle, his actual intended name for the book was “The Goddamn Particle” because it was so impossible to observe.. but the name was later shortened for publication.

So the book was published as the “God Particle” and from there the name stuck.. It has nothing to do with religion or God.


20 posted on 07/05/2012 9:36:20 AM PDT by HamiltonJay
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To: newheart
More about the Higgs mechanism than I could ever possibly understand, from Wikipedia

I can't come anywhere near grokking all the esoteric stuff in this, but it sounds like they're saying the universe is full of this "Higgs field" and I can't tell if it in turn is supposed to be composed of Higgs bosons. If those bosons are all over the place why isn't it possible to get a handle on one directly -- why does it have to be forged in a multi-GeV fire?

21 posted on 07/05/2012 9:37:39 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew)
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