God and Man at the Higgs Boson Level

. Cross posted at the Algemeiner. I wrote the other day how most physicists who speak of it are uncomfortable with the label “God” particle for the Higgs boson particle, the existence of which scientists at CERN confirmed on Wednesday. The rather casual, sensationalistic origin of the label clarifies that discomfort, as does, I suspect, unsurprising scientific worry that too conventional […]

The Real “God” Particle

I hate trooping off in a gang. Scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN believe they have confirmed the existence of what others have called the “God particle.” Everyone exclaims “Higgs boson!” But I cry out “neutral B-meson” to that. I understand that for physicists, this discovery completes and substantiates the “Standard Model,” by which they currently […]

The God Particle

Once upon a time in an intellectual land far, far away, philosophy concerned itself, among other matters, with questions such as the nature of meaning in life, how to live in the absence or presence of God, and why there is something rather than nothing. A great existential cartoon, which still hung on a bulletin […]