The "God Particle"

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snarflemike said:
My take is that the cosmological anthropic principle has “won” in the sense that everybody pretty much agrees that the laws and constants of nature are quite finely tuned to bring about a universe in which life can come into existence. So now the dodge has become that this universe is just one of countless universes, and since by chance we got the universe with the right laws and constants, naturally we came into existence so we could notice that fact.

How convenient that all those countless other universes, which we cannot detect, nonetheless exist. Otherwise one might be tempted to think God had something to do with our own perfect-in-every-way universe. 😃
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Actually that is absolutely incorrect. The argument is actually a tautology, as a universe without life, would, logically then disprove God. The universe is, to 80 decimal places, NOT fine tuned for life. If every star has a habitable planet around it, then one billionth of one billionth of one millionth of the volume of the universe is then habitable. Not exactly fine tuned for life. The life of black holes is estimated to be 10 ^100 years. Most stars live to be around 10^27 years. Divide one by the other, and the answer is 0, to 80 decimal places.
 
Jason_Firestone said:
Actually that is absolutely incorrect.
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What, exactly, is absolutely incorrect?
The argument is actually a tautology, as a universe without life, would, logically then disprove God.
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So before life developed in the universe, God was logically disproved? God didn’t exist until the universe evolved enough for life to begin? I’m very confused.
The universe is, to 80 decimal places, NOT fine tuned for life. If every star has a habitable planet around it, then one billionth of one billionth of one millionth of the volume of the universe is then habitable. Not exactly fine tuned for life. The life of black holes is estimated to be 10 ^100 years. Most stars live to be around 10^27 years. Divide one by the other, and the answer is 0, to 80 decimal places.
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I think you’re misunderstanding the concept.
 
CutlerB said:
Hi there,

I’ve just come across a report about the Higgs-Boson, saying that the physicists from the LHC in Geneva were announcing something on Wednesday concerning their research on the particle. I know it’s commonly called the “God Particle” as it gives matter its mass, at least that’s what the theory says. Due to this name, I have a question.

Does this pose any difficulties for Christianity, or does it rather provide some scientific “proof” of the existence of God? Some of you have probably guessed it: I’ve seen “Angels and Demons” and obviously it influenced my concern about the matter. Maybe some scientists here can explain. 🙂
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It has nothing to do with religion, will not prove or disprove the existence of God, and will not impact our faith or salvation.
The expression “God Particle” is something dreamed up by the media for sensationalism purposes. Even the physicists condemn that expression.
On BBC last night Professor Bill Murray, one of the senior physicists at CERN said the experiments are looking at the mechanics of the universe and not into the mind of the creator.
 
snarflemike said:
Of course the stars and galaxies have the advantage that we can actually detect them, unlike the alleged billions of universes.
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We can detect the observable universe. What’s the rest of it for? It’s like building a house for someone with a basement they can’t access.
 
Bradski said:
We can detect the observable universe. What’s the rest of it for? It’s like building a house for someone with a basement they can’t access.
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The rest of it is to offer an alternative explanation (an alternative to God, that is) for the fine tuning of this universe to produce life. And the funny thing is, it doesn’t disprove God at all, even if true.
 
CutlerB said:
Hi there,

I’ve just come across a report about the Higgs-Boson, saying that the physicists from the LHC in Geneva were announcing something on Wednesday concerning their research on the particle. I know it’s commonly called the “God Particle” as it gives matter its mass, at least that’s what the theory says. Due to this name, I have a question.

Does this pose any difficulties for Christianity, or does it rather provide some scientific “proof” of the existence of God? Some of you have probably guessed it: I’ve seen “Angels and Demons” and obviously it influenced my concern about the matter. Maybe some scientists here can explain. 🙂
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Gotta remember, in the times of writing the Old testament, they had no idea what was up there in the stars, or underneath a microscope. The existence of God explained where everything that exists came from then. The existence of God is still that today, even though there are more things that we can see of our universe now than we did then. God lets Science in, why doesn’t Science always let God in?
 
ett said:
…The existence of God explained where everything that exists came from then.

The existence of God is still that today, even though there are more things that we can see of our universe now than we did then. God lets Science in, why doesn’t Science always let God in?
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Ett there is a very big ambiguity in what you are saying…which may explain exactly why Science doesn’t let “god” in.

I think it is this:
In the context you are discussing “God” actually has two very different meanings which many people do not seem to realise.
(a) “god” = a “place-holder”. That is, whatever causality we haven’t been able to work out yet we call “god”. e.g. god makes those lightning bolts, god caused that miracle. Where there is a black hole in causality we readily call that emptiness-without-a-name “god”. Nothing to do with religion, its just shorthand, a name for “don’t know” that makes us feel more secure. The names gives us the illusion of control (we control 'god" through ritual/superstition).
(b) “God” = that personal being, present in the salvation history of Judaism/Christianity who sometimes intervenes in history with wondrous acts on behalf of His People.

“god” is exactly what Science is vowed to eliminate - i.e. ignorance of causes. Typically Science seems to try and “explain” inexplicable natural realities by means of a set method/experiements to prove a link/mechanism between the unknown and the known. These connections are assumed to be hidden rather than non-existent. Science believes all inexplicable things have explicable causes. If we cannot find them it is assumed that causality is at work…its just that we don’t yet have the sophistication of tools/models/understanding to see them yet. But we will.

“God” no longer hurls bolts from the heavens thanks to Benjamen Franklin’s experiments.
But then, “God” never did - it was always “god”. And now, wrt lightning, “god” is dead.

We are always confusing the two when we do not understand the workings of nature.
“god” is just a personified “place holder” for “dahhhh … don’t know.” “god” is merely a privation.

I suppose wisdom is in knowing the things that belong to “God” and the things that belong to “god”.

“god” is dead, long live “God.” If science keeps to that then I won’t complain.
 
snarflemike said:
The rest of it is to offer an alternative explanation (an alternative to God, that is) for the fine tuning of this universe to produce life.
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My apologies, I’m not sure what you mean by this. How does the part of the universe that is not ‘observable’ become an alternative explanation for anything?
snarflemike said:
And the funny thing is, it doesn’t disprove God at all, even if true.
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Even if what is true? Fine tuning? I thought most people used that as an argument for design – hence God.
 
CutlerB said:
I know it’s commonly called the “God Particle” as it gives matter its mass, at least that’s what the theory says.
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I read somewhere that the physicist Leon Lederman coined a different name for the particle, but his publisher insisted in removing a few letters and capitalizing the first consonant…sometimes divine providence it’s just amazing.
 
R_C said:
I read somewhere that the physicist Leon Lederman coined a different name for the particle, but his publisher insisted in removing a few letters and capitalizing the first consonant…sometimes divine providence it’s just amazing.
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Yes, as it was pointed out somewhere above, it was a ploy to make the book title more marketable. there was an interview on PBS about it.
 
I know that I’m resurrecting an old thread, but I recently learned that the original name for the “God Particle” was actually the “g** d**** Particle,” so named by the researchers for the difficulty they had in searching for it. It’s ironic that the media (and Dan Brown) tried to make it about something momentous and challenging to religious doctrine when it was just an offhand blasphemous reference.
 
It is blasphemous and disrespectful. It has nothing to do with the confirmation of the particle which arises from the Higgs Field. Thus it is competely a misnomer. It was simply the confirmation that a missing piece of the puzzle of the Standard Model, (said to be the “last piece” of the puzzle, but even that is false as “super-symmetry” is still not understood), thus the model is still incomplete. It was nice to see CERN working as it had been thought might be possible, but it’s far from the completion of anything.

Even if, (as Penrose, and Kaku propose), the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotrophy Probe, and ISIS, (the spectacularlly huge telescope which will go up from NASA in the next few years), find “ripples” in the background data, (thus suggesting that the Multiverse ideas have some support), the findings, (just as the Higgs Boson mentioned here), have no real relevance to someone who has been blessed with the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. The data is interesting and quite useful for Astrophysics and Cosmology, but we still live practicaly here on this planet, day to day, new bosons or no new bosons. 😛
 
Arizona_Mike said:
I know that I’m resurrecting an old thread, but I recently learned that the original name for the “God Particle” was actually the “g** d**** Particle,” so named by the researchers for the difficulty they had in searching for it.
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Can you please cite the source of this info? It is obviously true that researchers have had a very difficult time finding this particular particle, while they have had little difficulty finding hundreds of other particles (often by accident). But I have heard (from numerous sources) that the source of the name was an invention of the media, not of researchers.

Personally, I find the Standard Model unconvincing. It is, without a doubt, the sloppiest theory in physics. It is utterly dependent (mathematically speaking) upon the existence of the Higgs field. It smacks of the Lorentz aether theory, the last great effort to justify the existence of interstellar and interplanetary substance “aether” (“ether”) against mounting evidence that the entire principle was flawed.

The Standard Model is collapsing under its own weight, just as the Aether Model was a century ago. Gravity (or, more specifically, mass) is it’s poison. We have reconciled Special Relativity with quantum mechanics (though it took 50 years), but every attempt to reconcile General Relativity and quantum mechanics blows up in our face.

Yet, even Feynman must admit that gravity exists. How is gravity possible? How is mass possible? There could have been no mass or gravity at the moment of the Big Bang (that much is certain). Matter had to acquire mass somehow (that much is certain).

There is no such thing known to science as matter without mass, or am elementary particle that emits a field which permanently imparts mass (of a predictable and uniform variety, regardless of the local concentration of such particles) to all matter within its proximity (whatever THAT might be). But the Standard Model demands that both things exist - otherwise it completely collapses.

The Standard Model is the Aether of the 21st Century. The Higgs-Boson is the last attempt to patch up a flawed understanding.
 
Can anyone link us to articles and or videos by apologists with knowledge of physics who can debunk anyone who tries to use the discovery of the “God Particle” as a means to dispute our faith?
 
Is the “God Particle” the same thing as virtual particles? I saw a vide some time ago by William Lane Craig who said that virtual particles can come from “nothing” because they come from a “vacuum” and that the"sea of fluctuating energy," which isn’t "nothing.
I think this may be the video: youtube.com/watch?v=Clr8uL3M7Ow
 
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