You’ve doubtless heard the joke: We can’t call the Higgs boson the “God Particle” any more, because now we have tangible evidence that it exists.
But the label “God Particle,” attached to the poor unsuspecting Higgs boson by Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, continues to wreak havoc on physicists’ attempts to clearly explain what is going on. Last week’s announcements from CERN that the new particle discovered last July is looking more and more like the Higgs predicted by the Standard Model generated stories like this one, from CBS news:
The Higgs boson is often called “the God particle” because it’s said to be what caused the “Big Bang” that created our universe many years ago. The nickname caught on so quickly (even though scientists and clergy alike do not care for it) partly because it’s a great explanation of what it’s supposed to do — the Higgs boson is what joins everything and gives it matter.
That might be the worst paragraph I’ve ever read about the Higgs boson, and I’ve read quite a few. (H/t Faye Flam.) Originally I thought the journalist was just making things up, but it turns out that it’s Michio Kaku’s fault. (H/t Matt Strassler on Facebook.) There is a video linked to the article, in which Kaku says that the Higgs helped cause the Big Bang, and that’s why it’s called the God Particle. Another example where it would have been tempting to rag on sloppy popular journalism, where actually it’s a supposed scientist who is largely to blame. (Although the above paragraph is also wrong about things it should be easy to get right.)
For the record, the Higgs had nothing whatsoever to do with causing the Big Bang. (Kaku tries to link it to inflation, but they’re not related.) It also doesn’t “join everything,” whatever that means. It does give mass to elementary particles like electrons and quarks, which isn’t the same as giving “matter” (since that kind of doesn’t make any sense), and besides which it doesn’t give mass to protons and neutrons and therefore most of the mass in ordinary objects.
The “God Particle” label, despite being very catchy and therefore leading to more publicity than most elementary particles manage to muster, has done more harm than good for the public understanding of science. Non-experts, hearing that physicists have named something after God, might actually think they were being serious. Imagine that.
[Update: Matt Strassler adds his take.]
It’s not going away any time soon. Leon Lederman and Chris Hill have a sequel to the original book coming out, Beyond the God Particle, due later this year. I’m sure the book will be great at explaining the physics, and I’m equally sure the title will generate a lot more confusion. Get your disclaimers ready!
ooops wish there was a inbuilt spell check…it should read “have Gone to hell…gone…not ONE”
You can say that Steve, but everyone got to eat somewhere to satisfy his physical and psychological hunger… and faith is not for everyone. Some didn’t evolved enough serotonin receptors hence lack some parameters in their brain.. that’s just a theory. Maybe all were born with equal serotonin receptors but to some it atrophied for lack of usage, maybe they grew up without given any toys by their parents and relatives.. well, that’s another theory 😀
As a journalist who occasionally interviews scientists, I wonder whether the scientists commenting here, if asked to vet a description of the Higgs field and particle before the copy went to press, could have agreed on a description of a few hundred words and, let’s say, a few hundred words that would excite people who know nothing about physics to want to know more.
That’s the goal, of course. Hard to do well and hard to do well on deadline.
Sue (and whoever else is interested),
Matt Strassler wrote the sort of summary you describe (and did so quite well, in my opinion) in response to the shenanigans we’re discussing here:
http://profmattstrassler.com/2013/03/20/why-the-higgs-matters-in-a-few-sentences/
While there are lots of possible ways to phrase non-technical description of the Higgs field and particle, I think we scientists commenting here would agree that many of them are reasonable and not too inaccurate. I think we would also agree that Kaku’s comments are astoundingly inappropriate and misleading.
Thanks for the input Sue, deadline was one of my guesses when I had read another misleading article on which the author left out the pioneers and made it appear that Feynman invented the double-slit experiment. I commented she loves Feynman and didn’t bother to research.
Kaku’s comment could be irresponsible and detrimental to science, but it do motivate kids to use their key board and mouse. How bad it is anyway? I thought science is about never accepting anything at face value and always consider alternative explanations of given phenomena… and “proven scientific fact” is never appropriate as it only reflects the ignorance of those who say it. I think Kaku is a hero for sacrificing his reputation and initiating natural selection on who deserve to be in science. Just a thought, probably I’m wrong by your standard.
I am fascinated in your different alternatives in calculating the mass of a proton, and somehow you are telling me that the 1 gram of mass in a mole of carbon-12 in its ground state is not equal to the rest mass of particles within it? and your calculations explain the why? fascinating.
From reading into about the middle of Sean’s new book, I couldn’t help but think that the Higgs-like boson isn’t really the God Particle but the God damn particle.
It mentions the interpretation of quantum field theory that photons are created by vibrations in the electromagnetic field. But it then says that two photons are created from the Higgs-like boson that is a vibration in the Higgs Field, that is associated with the gravitational field. Could it mean that this interpretation of quantum field theory is wrong? And fermions are some kind of limit of stacks of bosons? How else could photons come from a vibration in the Higgs Field?
That is interesting, in my universe electron doesn’t vibrate to release photon.. it simply jump down and we call that jump as “quantum leap”. And it is distinguished from other wave that is not real in sense that it is just caused by interactions of ‘legitimate’ waves… ah well, virtual wave is real.. as real as the flirtation of a man with other women before he got married to his wife by mutual attraction 😀
@ Romulo Binuya
I think maybe we come from the same universe, and that is not this one. I never really went for that idea either, that is why I always look for a way around it. I wonder if these virutal particles do not have the same mass is because being stacked on each other could make them interact differently with the Higgs Field. IDK it is just an idea, I don’t see how a pair of photons could come from the decay of a Higgs Boson, when photons are produced by vibrations in electromagnetic waves. It would seem to indicate that they are really vibrations in the Higgs Field after all, and the Higgs-like boson does not agree with current theory in this respect.
Thanks for the insight Prof.Layman, it’s good to agree that we are in the preposterousuniverse where anything could go, like a proton who owes its existence to simultaneous possibilities going own within it. I don’t understand yet the higgs field, I have nothing in return. 🙂
I misspelled ‘going on’, and I consider that my return to your misspelled virtual. Isn’t it nice that a blog considered by some as graffiti with punctuation marks, could lift our lips into smile and sometimes broke it into guffaw? And raise not only our eyebrows but also our IQ. Btw, the commentator with a repulsive alias wants to kill the relativistic mass concept, I think that is not advisable. Relativistic mass is the gamma component of John Conway’s energy equation which is arbitrary according to frame of reference. Whereas in E=mc^2 m is the rest mass and is constant at all frame of reference, because c is not the velocity of m but a constant, namely the speed of light (in vacuum).
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Not the first time Michio Kaku said some kaka:
http://dangerousintersection.org/2012/07/21/idiot-astronomy-2/
@ Tony Mach
There is something called The Drake Equation, that figures the odds of intelligent life and I think he is a firm believer in it. He has admitted that there wasn’t enough information in the past to determine exactly what those odds are, but I think he may actually be using it on the new data that was found. He just may not have mentioned it in the news report. Before, we had no way of knowing how common planets around stars even where to even put figures into this equation.
It’s not only Kaku, Hawking and Sagan too to name a few… how about you what do you think about the Fermi Paradox?
I think it’s important to keep in mind that Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist as well as the author of many ‘popular’ physics books and a regular on damn near every science channel show. In a time when science budgets are being cut left and right, he serves the very important though unpopular task of keeping people interested in physics. Look at politicians who are in charge of our science budget and tell me that they don’t need to be told things like “YES! EXACTLY! the Superconducting Super Collider will find God” http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mgbjb8229f8
You might not like the method, but the people who don’t know what he’s saying isn’t accurate are also the people in charge of the budget that seem to only perceive scientific breakthroughs as going from the steam engine to a fully functioning inertial fusion power plant in 3 years for $500,000. In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson, “why are all of our politicians, Lawyers? Basically the most talented liars? Why don’t we have a single scientist or engineer in congress? wouldn’t that better represent the public?” Over exaggerating things on CNN (CNN…http://www.gifbin.com/981410) is what’s necessary when your civilization is controlled by some of its biggest idiots.
jump to 3:30 in the video if you’re impatient…
Thanks Meh, albeit it’s not good enough for me. Kaku is a hero is fine, but the conclusion that some in the congress are idiots is not acceptable, at least to me. Apparently Kaku don’t know how national economy works.
Anyways, this brouhaha about Kaku is telling me something related to quantum fields and how particles behave in it. It seems to me that Kaku’s remarks about higgs boson and the big bang is spin1/2, and it intrigues, inspires, and provoke the thoughts of his intended audiences which are in spin1/2 field. I believe Kaku is capable too (he should be) of spin zero behavior especially in physics symposium among his colleagues I.e. his magnitude must be precise, accurate, and unambiguous anyway you look at it… left to right and vice versa, upside down, or flipped. Spin zero, Hawking said is like a point, I said yep but to me it’s more like the word NOON.
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There is indeed some confusion about this. This article has made some of my ideas about the higgs boson a little clear.