Not to give you the wrong impression about my habits and obsessions, but I was reading an article the other day about the race to find the Higgs Boss. There are only two contestants really: the LHC at the CERN in Switzerland, and Fermilab in Illinois. In case you're not aware, the LHC had a supermagnet malfunction back in the fall or winter sometime, and is offline until maybe September, giving the fellows at Fermilab a bit a cushion.
And let me add that by race, I want you to imagine asking a 6 year old to draw you a treasure map for something he may or may not have buried at some point.
Not to say the Higgs boson doesn't exist; it's just still hypothetical, if not predicted.
In any case, what is it exactly anyway? Well, I can't give you any technical answers, and I certainly couldn't draw you a picture, but as with most things, I can describe it to you via its effects on its surroundings.
So, all you need to know is this:
The Higgs boson is a hitherto unobserved massive scalar elementary particle that would explain, if verified, how massless elementary particles acquire mass.
And here our ship is dissolved into flotsam and jetsam, and we cling by on timbers of splintery intuition. Massless particles? Acquiring the property of mass?
And what if we go one step further? What if we say sayonara to the lab coats altogether and talk about emotions and relationships closer to our hearts and lives:
Is there some minutia that explains how love acquires the virtue of passion?
that explains how hope is seeded with desire?
Maybe if we keep crashing against each other with all the force and velocity of modern life, we might be able to sort through the wreckage one day and say,
"Yes, life did acquire living."
And let me add that by race, I want you to imagine asking a 6 year old to draw you a treasure map for something he may or may not have buried at some point.
Not to say the Higgs boson doesn't exist; it's just still hypothetical, if not predicted.
In any case, what is it exactly anyway? Well, I can't give you any technical answers, and I certainly couldn't draw you a picture, but as with most things, I can describe it to you via its effects on its surroundings.
So, all you need to know is this:
The Higgs boson is a hitherto unobserved massive scalar elementary particle that would explain, if verified, how massless elementary particles acquire mass.
And here our ship is dissolved into flotsam and jetsam, and we cling by on timbers of splintery intuition. Massless particles? Acquiring the property of mass?
And what if we go one step further? What if we say sayonara to the lab coats altogether and talk about emotions and relationships closer to our hearts and lives:
Is there some minutia that explains how love acquires the virtue of passion?
that explains how hope is seeded with desire?
Maybe if we keep crashing against each other with all the force and velocity of modern life, we might be able to sort through the wreckage one day and say,
"Yes, life did acquire living."
