That Goddamn Particle

The Higgs boson news was a week or two ago, but I just came across an interesting interview that gets behind the naming of the so-called "God particle".

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And now to a little more about that man, the Higgs behind the Higgs boson - Peter Higgs. As we just heard, Higgs and his team proposed the existence of the so-called "God particle" back in the 1960s. I'm joined now by Victoria Martin, who is a lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. She has studied with Peter Higgs and worked with him at CERN. Welcome to the program.

VICTORIA MARTIN: Thank you very much.

[...]

SIEGEL: I want to ask you about this particle's nickname, the "God particle." What did Higgs, who I've read is an atheist, think about the nickname the "God particle"?

MARTIN: I'm sure - I actually haven't ever asked him this directly, but I'm sure he doesn't like it. Almost all particle physicists detest that name. It was actually Leon Lederman, who's a Nobel laureate, that came up with it. But he was trying to call it "that goddamn particle," and that wasn't allowed by the publishers so it became the "God particle."

-- National Public Radio

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I don't think they're joking.

That Goddamn Particle

The Higgs boson news was a week or two ago, but I just came across an interesting interview that gets behind the naming of the so-called "God particle".

_ _ _

And now to a little more about that man, the Higgs behind the Higgs boson - Peter Higgs. As we just heard, Higgs and his team proposed the existence of the so-called "God particle" back in the 1960s. I'm joined now by Victoria Martin, who is a lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. She has studied with Peter Higgs and worked with him at CERN. Welcome to the program.

VICTORIA MARTIN: Thank you very much.

[...]

SIEGEL: I want to ask you about this particle's nickname, the "God particle." What did Higgs, who I've read is an atheist, think about the nickname the "God particle"?

MARTIN: I'm sure - I actually haven't ever asked him this directly, but I'm sure he doesn't like it. Almost all particle physicists detest that name. It was actually Leon Lederman, who's a Nobel laureate, that came up with it. But he was trying to call it "that goddamn particle," and that wasn't allowed by the publishers so it became the "God particle."

-- National Public Radio

_ _ _

I don't think they're joking.

Of Suicide

“An act like this is prepared within the silence of the heart, as is a great work of art.”

-- Camus

In this extraction from Al Alvarez’s “Savage God”, we are still dealing with the idea that even the best of social theories that seek to explain and resolve suicides cannot really get at the heart of the problem, that it is too central a part of the human condition, the pain that life means for us. As he writes:

Perhaps this is why the more convincing the social theories, the more independent they seem of the material on which they are based. They are superstructures, often elegant and lovingly detailed, but built on simple misery, a terminal inner loneliness which no amount of social engineering will alleviate.

Of course, the problem is worse for some than for others, but everyone presumably has their moments of feeling crushed and abandoned, of feeling that life is a tough game they just were not built to play.

Of Suicide

“An act like this is prepared within the silence of the heart, as is a great work of art.”

-- Camus

In this extraction from Al Alvarez’s “Savage God”, we are still dealing with the idea that even the best of social theories that seek to explain and resolve suicides cannot really get at the heart of the problem, that it is too central a part of the human condition, the pain that life means for us. As he writes:

Perhaps this is why the more convincing the social theories, the more independent they seem of the material on which they are based. They are superstructures, often elegant and lovingly detailed, but built on simple misery, a terminal inner loneliness which no amount of social engineering will alleviate.

Of course, the problem is worse for some than for others, but everyone presumably has their moments of feeling crushed and abandoned, of feeling that life is a tough game they just were not built to play.