Seriously, stop calling it the "God Particle"

[MartialArc]

Personally I'd kinda like for string theory to go away as I've never really felt it deserves the attention it got. Seems like academic politics made it the leading theory over actual scientific merit. So in a way I'm glad to finally see it get tested in some way, and hopeful that when no higgs boson is found the fiasco ends. I realize that it probably won't, and the string theory faithful will just keep hammering away trying to make it work. Holy crap! It's almost like a religion itself! =). Maybe God particle is somewhat of an adept name.

On the other hand, failing to find the higgs boson will certainly be used as ammo by creationists.

I don't see much upshot either way =\, so I'm very torn.

 

[chuketek]

IAMA=I am a. It's basically a Q&A session that's very popular on reddit. You write a brief introduction "IAMA physicist working at CERN," people ask their questions, and you respond for however long you want.

Sure, sounds like it could be interesting.
Although my code has now finished compiling and I need to get back to work...

 

[Von Strimmer]

What are you doing on this website? You should be with LHC practicing science!

Now go do science!

and lo, xkcd did say: http://xkcd.com/303/

Haha good little comic. You could always bring out the tried and true "Can it wait for a bit I'm in the middle of some callibrations".

 

[Sjakie]

I never heard someone call it 'The God particle' and I always keep an eye out for news about CERN and the LHC, (because it's the coolest machine ever built since the space-shuttle) yet i never seen that.
Probably because i am in a country where journalist still try to appear objective.
Frankly, i would not bother with reading religous texts unless your interested in finding outdated moral standards or actually are looking for God.

 

[Woodsey]

"(I do actually intend to read the bible at some point, just because I don't think hardly any of it's true doesn't mean I don't think it's important)"

Its not important.

And yeah, I once had a guy tell me I "didn't know my history" because I said the Earth wasn't 4000 years old. The source he cited? The fucking Bible.

Mind you this was on Youtube (although by this point he'd decided to start messaging me because he was so sure of himself.

 

[chuketek]

Personally I'd kinda like for string theory to go away as I've never really felt it deserves the attention it got. Seems like academic politics made it the leading theory over actual scientific merit. So in a way I'm glad to finally see it get tested in some way, and hopeful that when no higgs boson is found the fiasco ends.

I may be exposing my admittedly limited understanding of the finer aspects of theoretical physics (I'm more on the experimental side of things actually). But I don't actually think the Higgs Boson has anything to do with String Theory. As I understand it there is no way to check the validity of string theory, so your point about string theory being like a religion stands and has indeed been made by many before.

Also, it's by no means confirmed but we are getting indications in the data that the Higgs is there. So rejoice! Creationists don't get any more ammo, but neither do the damned string theoreticians!

 

[Griffolion]

My mistake, it wasn't a journalist who coined the phrase, but you can bet your ass it's the media who perpetuated the name. And yes, it does get called that a lot.. *really*.
Try bringing the subject up with someone over the age of 35 without a scientific background and I'll bet you that >50% will answer, "Oh, you mean that "God Particle"?"

Well, it's one of those things. It's a catchy, evocative name that allows 'lay' people to grasp what the topic is. If I may give a less scientific and more commonplace example:

Anyone with the internet has a wireless router or an integrated wireless modem/router. I personally call it the router, or, if i'm wanting to be very informal, the 'wireless box'. However there are many I know that call it the 'HomeHub', which is the name the British ISP BT give to their wireless modem/routers they supply when someone signs up to their service. They may not even be with BT, they could be with Orange, O2 or whoever, but often they call it the HomeHub because it's a catchy name that describes in very lay terms what they're on about. Apple do a similar thing by calling their wireless router 'Airport'.

So yeah, most people don't do their research and call it by what the media says to them, but for some part, it serves the purpose of providing a widely understandable name for things. I get that you call it the Higgs Boson and obviously whatever other names it holds within academic circles, but for the lay population 'The God Particle' is more graspable.

As for instantly bringing in religion/God/faith into this and acting so defensively (as was quoted in the OP) is utterly ridiculous. Look, I follow the Christian faith, but it doesn't take much to see Genesis as a poem. I think it's amazing what you guys are finding out every day, it's what happens to advance us all as the human race. I simply see God in everything in the universe. The answer isn't to avoid 'science' but to utterly embrace it as showing us how this amazing place called existence works.

But yeah anyway, keep at it.

 

[chuketek]

Frankly, i would not bother with reading religous texts unless your interested in finding outdated moral standards or actually are looking for God.

"Its not important.

I think you misunderstand, I wouldn't read the bible to try and understand philosophy, morals or the natural world. I'd read it to try and understand Christians.
edit: I don't mean this offensively, "Christians are incomprehensible" or anything like that. I simply mean that there are a lot of Christians, the Christian faith as a whole has had a massive impact on world history and by definition they do believe in some aspects of the book, either literally or figuratively. This is why I say it's important.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

It's just a nickname like someone calling a massive laser a 'deathray' I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

 

[Jake Martinez]

As a scientist, you ought to know that correlaton is not equal to causality.

This person was a creationist, their confusion about the Higgs Boson probably has less to do with some journalist labeling it the "God Particle" and much more to do with an innate suspicion of anything that might counter their belief system, and of course, how the progress of scientific understanding is viewed as a constant threat to this system.

Or to quote the great Yogi Berra, "Some people, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."

 

[Pat8u]

what is this thing you talk about I should pay more attention to the science news these days

 

[dyre]

You work on the LHC? That's awesome. And I've never heard it called the God Particle, but if anyone does, I promise to correct them!

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

Never heard it called that - but I see what you're saying.

I think that the term 'God particle' is a bit self-conflicting, mixing religious and scientific terminology together.

That's like calling gravity the 'Christ force'

 

[manythings]

-snip-

It'll happen right after people stop calling it a mouse because it's not really like a mouse. Never heard the term "God Particle" though. Is it really a thing on the continent?

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

Never heard it called that - but I see what you're saying.

I think that the term 'God particle' is a bit self-conflicting, mixing religious and scientific terminology together.

That's like calling gravity the 'Christ force'

Only if religious doctrine said that Jesus is what pulls you down. The God Particle is a decent analogy as theists believe God created the Earth and the Higgs Boson is the closest thing we have to that, if only in analogy.

No, I'm not a theist, I'm agnostic. Just getting that out of the way. I find it to be an apt nickname, if a bit overdramatic.

 

[SuperNova221]

Surely it's just a pantheistic colloquialism? I don't see what's so bad about it. Sure, those ignorant of science will misunderstand it and those ignorant of science and theistic will think it's some sort of attack against them but there's nothing new there.

 

[MartialArc]

Personally I'd kinda like for string theory to go away as I've never really felt it deserves the attention it got. Seems like academic politics made it the leading theory over actual scientific merit. So in a way I'm glad to finally see it get tested in some way, and hopeful that when no higgs boson is found the fiasco ends.

I may be exposing my admittedly limited understanding of the finer aspects of theoretical physics (I'm more on the experimental side of things actually). But I don't actually think the Higgs Boson has anything to do with String Theory. As I understand it there is no way to check the validity of string theory, so your point about string theory being like a religion stands and has indeed been made by many before.

Also, it's by no means confirmed but we are getting indications in the data that the Higgs is there. So rejoice! Creationists don't get any more ammo, but neither do the damned string theoreticians!

It's a pretty loose connection, you are mostly correct though. It is predicted this thing exists, whats at question is its mass. Supersymmetry makes predictions about the boson which could be tested by LHC IIRC... If the mass of the boson is found to be too large it breaks quite a few flavors of string theory. So realistically once they exclude its existence below... say 300GeV one component to make some flavors of strings work is out the window. LHC goes up to like 7TeV so if we fail to find it completely there.... then like the OP said, back to the drawing board.

String is technically a falsifiable theory, as falsifying quantum mechanics would by extension also falsify(all) string theories. But if you accept it as falsifiable on that merit then it makes no new predictions. And there is no positive test for it yet.

But hell, I'm an Electrical Engineer turned to Physics(Infrasound mostly) so we're like the blind leading the blind here =). Maybe the OP will indulge us some more.

 

[thetruefallen]

I believe in God, this i will tell you. I don't go to church but i call myself a Cristian. I have never believed that the bible is a verbatim historical account. Thinking of it from "God's" perspective, if the goal is to see just how long it takes for our species to either eradicate itself or grow to consume the entire universe then a direct hands on approach would destroy any integrity that the experiment had. What would be the point?
However if God was to just specify the laws of physics and give mass to the universe defined knowing that the laws would eventually make something stable out of the chaos. then wait. find a planet in the cosmos that can support the experiment and plant the seeds (something that would eventually mature into the most primitive forms of singled cell life). Go from there. Even if it was His goal to create us as we are right now evolution is still the most sensible way to do it, like a streaming continual update. I'm basically likening all existence to the dev cycle of a video game, its never really the same idea at the end as it was at the start.
All the Higg's Boson is to me is a part of the level editor. Even if we don't find it, it will not be the first or last time that humanity has been sent back to the drawing board for our fundamental understanding of the workings of the universe.
(sorry for the wall of text)