The God Particle - Does it Exist?

What comes to mind when you hear of the country Switzerland? Swiss Miss® hot chocolate or Swiss banks? The Swiss Alps or the Sound of Music? Maybe the Geneva Accord? What about 500 feet underground? Well below your feet there is a ring 5 miles in diameter - a circular tunnel called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is hunting for the God Particle - the Higgs boson. The name the God Particle comes from Leon Lederman's book by the same name. He gave it the nickname "The God Particle" because this particle is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our understanding of the structure of matter, yet is so elusive. For a little more background, refer to our discussion of Atomic Glue in a previous blog.

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The Higgs Boson - The Answer to
The Theory of Everything?

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The Large Hadron Collider is a circular ring 17 miles (27 kilometers) around that's buried beneath the Franco-Swiss border. It is thought to be scientists' best chance of finding the Higgs boson, because the explosions the collider creates smashing protons together pack more energy than anything else on Earth. This energy, when converted to mass, should be enough to produce one of the most elusive particles in nature. Scientists expect that the collider will either demonstrate or rule out the existence of the Higgs boson, thus validating the Standard Model or possibly extending the search for the Theory of Everything. The Higgs boson is an elementary particle that is predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics.

One of the theories of particle physics combines two of the four fundamental forces, the weak nuclear force and electromagnetism, and predicts the Higgs boson. Finding it will attest to the existence of the Higgs mechanism. The Higgs mechanism is critical to understanding the basic properties of matter. It suggests that the Universe is permeated with a field, similar to an electromagnetic field, which gives the appearance of mass to sub-atomic particles. Without mass, we would have no atoms and thus no Universe. This field can be pictured as a pool of molasses that "sticks" to the otherwise massless fundamental particles traveling through the field, giving them mass and converting them into the components of atoms. If the Higgs boson is discovered, then the Higgs mechanism would be considered more than just a theory. Its discovery would further substantiate the Standard Model as essentially correct, as the Higgs boson is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model that has not yet been observed.

In December 2011, the two main experiments at the LHC independently reported that their data pointed to the possibility that the Higgs boson may exist. It has not been confirmed as of today. Although no conclusive answer exists yet, it is expected that the LHC will provide sufficient data by the end of 2012 for a definitive report. Theories that do not need the Higgs boson also exist and will be considered if the existence of the Higgs boson is ruled out. They are described as Higgsless models. One such Higgsless model proposes that spacetime isn't curved only by volumes, or only by mass, but by a special type of volumes: "Volumes with mass".

All of these theories are very interesting but difficult for the average person to grasp. I will leave it to the particle physicists to do the theorizing and I will stick with molecular chemistry. Finding the Higgs boson is not going to change the way I drink (or don't drink) my coffee.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV) - "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."