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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 11:54 am
Not a physicist here, but have they really discovered "new physics"? As in, new interactions among particles?
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Well, it's a newly discovered particle, which is a part of physics. I believe the Higgs has to do with mass.
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 12:44 pm
The Higgs Boson particle gives Mass to other particles. It's the "Priest Particle."
....... No?
Anyway... I'm really excited about all this! I'm so happy for the guys and girls at CERN who have been working ever so hard for so long to achieve this. It is truly an historic event that science will remember for a very long time.
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:30 pm
This came up tonight with my friends actually. One of them told me they found the 'god particle' and she wanted me to read the article so I could explain to her what the implications were. I wasn't in the mood for research right there and then though.
Does anyone understand in a nutshell what the Higgs Boson particle is? I know that might not be what they discovered but I guess my friend wanted me to explain the 'worst case scenario' to her. She seemed quite shocked about this article actually, but hid it fairly well.
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Well, the way Hovik explained it to me was that it's the particle that gives things their mass. That means it's directly involved in gravity. As gravity is the "god" of the universe, it was named the "god" particle. We're going to gain amazing insight into mass and gravity. :3
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:45 pm
I think the name "Priest Particle" is vastly superior to the actual one. I'm surprised it wasn't the one used, especially given scientists' usual penchant for such jokes.
Incidentally, I got this from the FB wall of an old schoolfriend turned Church spokesman:
"Is the Higgs Bosun called the God particle because scientists really believe it exists and can see its work but can't prove it conclusively?"
prompting a "you are soooo very clever. How do you think these up? I'm well impressed" from an easily-pleased follower.
I replied thuswise:
"More like physicist Leon Lederman (who coined the name) was trolling."
I expect the replies to reach critical mass in very short order.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:45 pm
The higgs particle interacts with other particles, slowing them down, this is what mass is and why we aren't all exploding at light speed.
This is a very basic explanation that Terry Pratchett would call a "lie to children".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Also: I want some "Higgs Bosoms" to go with my Large Hardon Collider.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: CERN confirms new particle.
July 4, 2012 at 1:53 pm
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2012 at 1:58 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Uhhh, it's Higgs field, not Higgs boson, that is postulated gives certain particles mass. Higgs boson merely represent a specific predicted behavior of the Higgs field under excitation. Detection of Higgs boson suggest this behavior is real, and therefore is good evidence Higgs field itself is real and not a pure math construct.
If Higgs boson itself must interact with matter to give them mass, then we must be awash in a sea of Higgs bosons all the time since we have mass all the time, and we won't Need the LHC to detect it.
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