The God Particle: Part one

I’ve always loved and appreciated Albert Einstein, a past native of Princeton, my parent’s hometown. One of his many quotes is: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science, becomes convinced, that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which, we with our modest powers, must feel humble.”

I’ve always had a strong belief in one God, obtained from my mother and a strict Catholic School upbringing. And I’ve always wondered why there has been such continued controversy between accepting scientific and religious truth together. Science discovers and explains physical reality. Religion has always explained spiritual and social reality. To me, both agree and are in complete harmony, since truth is truth, no matter what the the source.

For example, in the time of Moses it was forbidden to eat pork. This was conveyed as religious law, but was also a very protective social law. Centuries ago pork that wasn’t cooked properly caused a severe disease called Trichinosis. The Trichnia worm is a parasite, which creates severe sickness and even hemorrhaging. In the time of Moses, this was a common disease, especially since raw meat fed to animals could also cause the parasite to pass to humans. So Moses forbade the eating of pork.  It therefore follows that not eating pork was a great social law. Even the Prophet Muhammed confirmed this great law and added to it. Over 1.3 billion people follow this great law today.

But then times changed. Proper cooking methods improved dramatically. Last year only eleven cases of Trichinosis were reported in the U.S., and all were successfully treated. What I’m trying to say, is that this law, not eating pork, was a great truth, and science has confirmed the reason for this law as I just described. But then times changed, and eating properly cooked pork became safe. My example is merely to point out that science is truth. Religion is truth. But both are subject to the immutable law of the universe, which is “change.”

My faith in God was recently confirmed by an earth-shaking scientific announcement on July 4, 2012. It was the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle by scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva,  Switzerland. It was proven using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The announcement culminated a 48 year search for the elusive sub-atomic particle known as Higgs-Boson. Peter Higgs and others postulated in 1964 that there was a mechanism by which atomic and sub-atomic particles were able to gain mass, or concrete reality, and that all matter contained bosons.

The idea that energy and matter are made up of small invisible particles dates to the 6^th century before the common era (BCE).  It was Democritus, a Greek philosopher, who coined the term “atomos” in 450 BCE. Many consider Democritus the “father of modern science.” We now know that the atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons.  But we had no sure name for what held these components together until July 4th.

The Higgs-Boson, is commonly referred to as the God Particle, to the chagrin of scientists. It came from the title of the book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?   It was written and published in 1993 by Nobel physicist Leon Lederman. The book contained the author’s assertion that the discovery of the particle is crucial to a final understanding of the structure of matter.

We’ve all learned about atoms in school. We learned that each atom, smaller than any eye can see, is made up of a nucleus, protons and electrons.  Most of us are familiar with the chemical composition of matter, which we learned as the Periodic Table of the Elements. In that table for example, water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom bound together, or H2O.

Not only do atoms have a nucleus, protons and electrons, but they also have elementary or fundamental particles. You may have heard of quantum mechanics or particle physics.  These sciences describe how atoms move and act. Quantum mechanics describes the fields that atoms travel in, and particle physics describes things like baryons, quarks, fermions, bosons and other sub-atomic particles which make up the atom.  The existence of the Higgs-boson particle proves how elementary particles in atoms gain mass. Without the ability to gain mass, atoms could not exist. That’s why July 4th, 2012 is an historic day for science and mankind – man has finally discovered the force that holds everything in the universe together. But Higgs-boson is only one name for it. I think the God Particle is also apt.