What is God Particle?
The word “God Particle” was first coined by Physicist, Leon Lederman who used this as the title of one of his most popular book in the year 1993. At the time when he introduced this word, it was difficult for the people to believe about the existence of such word or article. They took it as a joke.
Some felt that inventing these names and putting them in front of the world would be derogatory to the religious sentiments of the people. But, in 2012, the scientist have accepted and detected the long sought Higgs Boson. Higgs Boson is another name for ‘God Particle’ and it was detected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is considered as the most powerful particle accelerator on the Earth.
This is that particle that is responsible for giving mass to all elementary particles that possess mass like the electrons and protons. Those elementary particles like the photons that make up light etc., which are not having mass, do not get mass from this God Particle or the Higgs Boson.
The God Particle is responsible for building the tiniest thing present in the universe. The Higgs Boson is responsible for the existence of soil, water, minerals, plants, trees, insects, animals, even the micro organisms, except gravity. If there is no God particle, then there will be no earth. The knowledge of the existence of the God Particle is just the beginning; there is a long road ahead which will help us to know a lot about the formation of the earth.
This particle explains how the sub atomic universe came into function and how it works. The scientist always carried a question mark about how this universe begun and the discovery of the God Particle would definitely be an introduction of the answers. This particle was called the God Particle or the Goddamn Particle because no one was able to find that thing.
This particle has nothing to do with religion or spirituality but it is something whose existence was apprehended by many physicists but cannot be discovered yet. The discovery of the God Particle of the Higgs Boson is one of the greatest in the history.
Importance of the name
God Particle of Higgs Boson, the name brings a feeling of proud to all the Indians. The particle was named after peter Higgs and an Indians physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
The word Higgs was taken from the name of a scientist, Peter Higgs who was one of the six who wrote papers about the working of such particles and their role in the existence of the world and the word Boson was taken from the name of an Indian Physicist S.N.Bose. Sir S.N. Bose is a contemporary Albert Einstein.
Large Hadron Collider
Detecting the Higgs was not an easy task. For this purpose the United States began to invest in this discovery and built a giant atom smasher beneath Texas in the year 1980’s. This became an expensive business for the government of the United Nations as it was a 2 Billion Dollar black hole. This was the beginning of the research.
CERN, which is a nuclear research organization established in Europe operate the Large Hadron Collider. This collider is the largest particle accelerator in the world. Inside the LHC, almost 17 mile ring of tubes and superconducting magnets, beams of high energy particles collides at the speed of light. It is some 175 metres underground near Geneva.
It was built between 1998 and 2008. There are almost 10,000 scientist from over 100 countries are working on this super structure. Finding of the Boson or the God Particle at LHC is one of the topped scientific achievements since half a century.
In 2012 when the Higgs Boson was discovered, it was not an achievement of a single day, but since half a century a process was in action.
For the last 18 months the scientists were working hard over this project by smashing protons together at high energy in the 10 billion Dollar large Hardon Collider. The scientists could find the traces of the existence of the Higgs Boson.
Failure of Standard Model Theory
A Standard Model theory was established which proved how elementary particles and forces interact in the universe. But this theory was inefficient to prove how all the particles get their mass. The answer to this question was found after the discovery of the God Particle.
There are many particles present around us that comprises of mass and after the discovery of Boson, it was clear that this God Particle is responsible for giving mass and creation of the universe. This filled the loopholes present in the physics. Therefore, the discovery removed the defects of the fifty year old Standard Modern Theory.
The Working of the God Particle
This theory generally revolves around proving how the particles obtain mass. The energy of the God Particle exists around the entire universe and provides perpetual flow of energy to all the particles. There are n numbers of particles in the universe and these particles are scattered in the universe.
There are few particles which attract the others and then form a group of particles. These particles which are attracted are the Higgs Boson. They interact with each other and form heaver particles. Its discovery has strongly supported the Standard Model of particle physics that scientists believe govern the basic building blocks of matter.
God Particle as a Historic Milestone
Higgs Boson or the God Particle will not solve all the mysteries attached to the working and the formation of the universe, but it is a step forward to the answers of the existence and the continuity of the universe.
To Support Standard Model Theory
The name Standard Model came into existence in 1970’s to a theory of fundamental particles and how these particles interact and attract the other particles. The theory is based on the existence of a few particles and other additional particles. There is total number of 17 named particles in the Standard Model theory. The last particles discovered were the w and z Boson in 1983, the top quark in 1995, the tau neutrino in 2000 and the Higgs Boson, also known as the God Particle the year 2012.
The theory of Standard Model could not give everything to the physicist wanted. There were many gaps between this theory and therefore the apt utility of the theory could not be achieved. Every particle in this universe consists of mass but the theory of Standard Model failed to give the information that how a particle get this mass.
With the discovery of the God Particle of the Higgs Boson, the physicists were able to acknowledge this fact. Therefore the discovery of the God Particle complements the 50 year old theory of the Standard Model.
Understanding the Mass
The universe consists of many particles which are in motion. There are few particles which attract the others. Like if we take the example of the college, the bright students are surrounded by many others for whatever reason it is, whether clarifying the doubts, getting the answers etc. and it forms a bigger group of the students.
Likewise, the particles also attract other particles; those particles who get attracted are the Higgs Boson which are the sole reason for the smaller particles to acquire mass. Everything in this universe except the gravity has mass and maximum of those particles get the mass from this God Particle. Therefore, this theory is based on the principle that the particles which are scattered throughout the universe are mass less bodies which gets their mass from the God Particle.
Like the prism, which scatters the white beam of light passed through it, the Higgs Field is thought to break the mass symmetry of some particles which are otherwise symmetrically mass less. The Physicists soon understood that Higgs were not enough to attract and coordinate with other particles; therefore a force carrier called the Boson was required for attracting the particles.
Therefore, the God Particles validates much how the scientists believe the universe was formed. This God Particle is invisible, universe wide field that gave mass to all mater right after the Big Bang, forcing particles to coalesce into stars, mountains, planets and everything in the universe.
Conclusion
This is a massive scientific effort in the development of science and a step forward in getting the knowledge about the formation of Universe. Though Stephen Hawking once told that this God Particle would swallow the entire Universe, but at the same time we all know that it is one of the biggest human achievements.
The earth is our home and humans want to know how this earth was formed and how they exist. The God Particle is the answer. To be justified, the discovery isn’t just the answer, but it is a victory for those who were brave enough to raise the questions which no one could even think in their dreams.
It was a new understanding about the creation of the universe as the God Particles are the crucial building blocks that led to the formation of the universe.