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DID THE GOD PARTICLE

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CHRISTMASTIME?

The Higgs boson (whimsically nicknamed, The God Particle) is a hypothetical, massive, elementary particle. It is believed to be the agent that gives mass to the other particles and, if proven to exist, would require that science text books be re-written. For half a century, since the theory was developed, physicists steadily have been on the lookout for the Higgs boson.

Within the past few days, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, through two, separate and independent experiments, claim to have found the Higgs boson. Scientists are excited, but as trained skeptics, regard these reported findings merely interesting, as they await the flurry of similar research.

The reason the Higgs boson was dubbed The God Particle is because its discovery presumably (and mistakenly) would provide the definitive explanation of the universe’s existence, resolving all the mystery surrounding dark matter and the super symmetry (or not) of the universe. These are the things that unnerve those who are unable to balance religion with science.

This brings to mind our increasingly ignorant and anti-science legislators. While they decry our continuing losses in education and trade around the world, they do not seem able to determine what it takes to maintain and improve our status quo. Back in the 1980s we were well into the construction of the Superconducting Super Collider in the Texas desert. This project would have been very much larger than the LHC mentioned above. Its completion would have brought the scientific world to our door. These momentous findings conducted on the Franco-Swiss border would have emanated from within our own shores, with all the resultant prestige and economic fallout. This is a good demonstration of how shortsightedness can lead to great national loss: Because the Super Collider project was going to cost $12 billion, Congress shit-canned it! The almost trillion they pissed away in Iraq is a sad commentary on this lack of vision – not to mention the human sacrifice!

Would that the God Particle were able to detect any mass prevalent in the brains of some of our leaders!