Seriously, stop calling it the "God Particle"

[Wintermoot]

the only place where somebody called something "The God Particle" was in Retromancer (a Fantasy/Sci-fi novel) I never heard anybody refer to the Higgs Bosson particle as God Particle.
I think it sounds stupid to call it that way.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, I never did. The so-called god particle should somehow endow godhood upon a person, which I don't believe will ever happen.

 

[tthor]

oh dear god...
ya, you're right, change the name..

 

[DracoSuave]

Rational individuals do not get butthurt over metaphors spoken with poetic license.

Any questions?

 

[Possibly]

I also agree with the OP... it's just misleading.

But I would like to point out that when a famous physicist was asked by a journalist why he had referred to it as the "God particle," he replied "because I can't call it the Goddamn particle".

(It may have been Leon Lederman, I don't have the source on hand right now)

 

[Altorin]

so you just had some random god bully on the bus who happened to be taking the bus right near a CERN building? That's pretty crazy.

 

[KirbyKrackle]

Rational individuals do not get butthurt over metaphors spoken with poetic license.

Any questions?

Yes, what led you to believe this person was in any way "hurt" or offended by the use of term "god particle", as opposed to simply mildly exasperated? I'm curious.

 

[Mad World]

And Genesis was a damn poem, as in, not to be taken literally. For crying out loud, how many times do I need to say this to damn creationists (I'm not shouting at you, OP, or anyone else, but expressing my annoyance at this ignorance).

Even if you're right (about Genesis being a poem), that doesn't mean that it's automatically false.

Anyway, it seems more narrative to me.

 

[Marik2]

Wait, it's actually called that outside of Angels and Demons? What the hell?! :S

And Genesis was a damn poem, as in, not to be taken literally. For crying out loud, how many times do I need to say this to damn creationists (I'm not shouting at you, OP, or anyone else, but expressing my annoyance at this ignorance).

Anyway, kudos on where you work, seriously good stuff man!

Genesis is a poem?

Ive never heard of that.

 

[Laser Priest]

Trying to fight ignorance is harder than trying to fight a god.

People are going to call it that, whether it is accurate or not.

I've never referred to it as such, but I don't often find myself in conversation about the particle.

 

[DracoSuave]

Rational individuals do not get butthurt over metaphors spoken with poetic license.

Any questions?

Yes, what led you to believe this person was in any way "hurt" or offended by the use of term "god particle", as opposed to simply mildly exasperated? I'm curious.

I'll try to explain the point to you, so you understand before you get overly defensive over the part of the statement that actually doesn't matter at all.

Particle physics often names things with whimsy rather than with 'technical terms.'

Units of measure like the 'barn' and 'outhouse', quarks that are 'strange' or 'charmed', 'spin', 'strong', 'weak', etc. 'God particle' is just yet another aspect of poetic license that is commonly used by this particular facet of the scientific community, one that is unique.

It's one of the things that is beautiful about that science.

Loosen up, yo.

 

[UberNoodle]

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'

Christ Force is awesome!

religious and science satire, i wonder why it never caught on? Oh yeah the whiners.

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'

Christ Force is awesome!

This is blasphemy! We all know that gravity is the result of the Flying Spaghetti Monster pushing us down gently with his noodly appendage!

Screw it, that's an awesome name. From now on gravity will be referred to as Christ Force!

For some reason, I think of the poster of Tron.
Christ FORCE!!!!!!!!!!

 

[KirbyKrackle]

Rational individuals do not get butthurt over metaphors spoken with poetic license.

Any questions?

Yes, what led you to believe this person was in any way "hurt" or offended by the use of term "god particle", as opposed to simply mildly exasperated? I'm curious.

I'll try to explain the point to you, so you understand before you get overly defensive over the part of the statement that actually doesn't matter at all.

Particle physics often names things with whimsy rather than with 'technical terms.'

Units of measure like the 'barn' and 'outhouse', quarks that are 'strange' or 'charmed', 'spin', 'strong', 'weak', etc. 'God particle' is just yet another aspect of poetic license that is commonly used by this particular facet of the scientific community, one that is unique.

It's one of the things that is beautiful about that science.

Loosen up, yo.

Now I'm curious as to why you think I'm being defensive, heh (and you never did answer my question). Also, while whimsical and charming and all that, terms like "strange quark" and "charm quark" are still the technical terms actually used by the scientific community. "God particle", on the other hand, is really more common as a lay person's term, and a poorly understood one at that, hence the problem for the physicists. I've never witnessed anyone in the physics community offended by the term's use. Irritated though? Oh my yes.

 

[chuketek]

...why he had referred to it as the "God particle," he replied "because I can't call it the Goddamn particle".

Side note, there is the OMG particle, which is a name I have no problems with. Mainly because it's awesome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray#Observational_history

 

[emeraldrafael]

How would you know off hand how many people at CERN are atheist? is it some kinda prerequisite for the job or something?

Anyway, more to the discussion part, I havent been following this. it honestly hasnt sparked my interest enoug, cause I just dont care. Its not affecting my life and most likely wont ever (unless it destroys the world or something). So whether you call it a God Particle or a Higgs Boson is meaningless to me as a Roman Catholic.

...

though I have to say, its always "refreshing" when an nonreligious/religous person has a run in with an individual of the other group and then has to make it as if the group is against them. because thats clearly never been done before on here.

 

[IkeGreil29]

Congrats on such an awesome job.
That aside, it'd be like asking people to stop thinking of evolution as a "I adapt to survive automatically" rather than "I am the product of random mutations which luckily made my ancestors survive and therefore be able to transfer it all the way down to me".

 

[DracoSuave]

Now I'm curious as to why you think I'm being defensive, heh (and you never did answer my question). Also, while whimsical and charming and all that, terms like "strange quark" and "charm quark" are still the technical terms actually used by the scientific community. "God particle", on the other hand, is really more common as a lay person's term, and a poorly understood one at that, hence the problem for the physicists. I've never witnessed anyone in the physics community offended by the term's use. Irritated though? Oh my yes.

And they can take it up with the guy who coined the phrase [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Lederman] and who, in writing his book [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Universe_Is_the_Answer,_What_Is_the_Question%3F], brought knowledge of the Higgs boson hypothesis into the lay-persons' understanding.

 

[KirbyKrackle]

Now I'm curious as to why you think I'm being defensive, heh (and you never did answer my question). Also, while whimsical and charming and all that, terms like "strange quark" and "charm quark" are still the technical terms actually used by the scientific community. "God particle", on the other hand, is really more common as a lay person's term, and a poorly understood one at that, hence the problem for the physicists. I've never witnessed anyone in the physics community offended by the term's use. Irritated though? Oh my yes.

And they can take it up with the guy who coined the phrase [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Lederman] and who, in writing his book [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle:_If_the_Universe_Is_the_Answer,_What_Is_the_Question%3F], brought knowledge of the Higgs boson hypothesis into the lay-persons' understanding.

Oh, I'm sure that's unnecessary; he seems to be aware of the issue and a bit ambivalent about it himself: http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2008/04/09/is-god-particle-the-right-term-for-massive-mystery-in-physics/

Higgs seems a bit put out too.

At any rate, I think you're a bit off about it being a common term in the scientific community (although perhaps it is used by physicists in your area?). It seems "Higgs boson" is more typical for the physicists while "god particle" is really more a case of one person using the term and it then getting picked up by the media (it's such a perfectly sexy and controversial term, after all; I'm sure reporters quite frequently bank on the misunderstanding in order to start a kerfluffle over the article.) It would seem that perfectly rational people in the scientific community do get "butthurt" over the use of the term "god particle" and for perfectly rational reasons too (such as it causing unnecessary confusion and misleading people as to what the physicists are actually doing)!

EDIT: Also the comedy goldmine that is the comments section of the article I just linked to demonstrates one of the problems with the "god particle" term: its tendency to derail sane discussions about physics very, very quickly (like, first sentence quickly in this case) into how the evil scientists are trying to replace God, etc. because people completely misunderstand what's actually going on based on the terminology.

 

[chuketek]

How would you know off hand how many people at CERN are atheist? is it some kinda prerequisite for the job or something?

I have no idea how many are atheists. What I said was that I doubt any are any creationists (I could be wrong, there may be one or two).
There are plenty of Christians at CERN.
I don't even have any particular problem with creationists, I do have a problem with the media popularising a term which causes misunderstandings.

 

[Ytinasni]

Wait, it's actually called that outside of Angels and Demons? What the hell?! :S

And Genesis was a damn poem, as in, not to be taken literally. For crying out loud, how many times do I need to say this to damn creationists (I'm not shouting at you, OP, or anyone else, but expressing my annoyance at this ignorance).

Anyway, kudos on where you work, seriously good stuff man!

As someone of a slightly more scientific mind who also happens to be christian (I know, I'm a living oxymoron) I would hope that noone would take the old testament literally though I find that that is just not going to happen based on the history of the subject.

And I know its hard to believe this but believe it or not the only things christianity state with certainty are the existence of God and that Christ died on the cross for our sins and that eventually there will be rapture at some undetermined point in time. (as well as some of the details that go into that concept, but you get the picture- nothing about christianity states that there is something wrong with trying to understand how the universe ticks-editgoeshere: in fact, I'd hazard a guess that even though genesis "explains" creation, it's meant to be taken in a meta way just to emphasize the omnipotence of God rather than a brief history of how the world was made)

My dad always taught me that the universe was created to be understood with math and as an extension physics, we just haven't figured it all out yet.

Good luck to you folks at CERN who are less interested in atheism vs religion and more interested in understanding.