God Particles on the Brain

The "God Particle" has popped back up in the news lately, and as a result I've had a few people bring it up in conversation... asking me about it, or pointing out its awesomeness. Since we all know how much I love talking about science, I wanted to write up a couple of responses (in regular-person, non-scientist English!) to the two most common questions I've gotten... (1) What is it, and (2) What do you mean it's the "God" particle?

(1) "What the heck is a Higgs Boson, and why do we care about it?"

Everything around you is made of matter.... rocks, water, air, toothpaste, yesterday's leftovers, everything. All matter is made of molecules, and all molecules are made of atoms -- carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, silicon, the whole list from the periodic table. But... what are atoms made of? Scientists have figured out they're put together from a bunch of "elementary particles", some of which you may (or may not) have heard of. Electrons, neutrinos, photons, six kinds of quarks (up quark, down quark, strange quark...), muons, gluons, etc etc -- 12 particles in all. We know a lot about these particles -- their charges, how they "spin", how they behave.

One thing is odd, though... they all have very different masses*. Photons (what light is made of) don't have mass at all. Electrons have a tiny bit of mass. Quarks can be huuuugely massive (relatively speaking) -- hundreds of thousands of times heavier than the electron. What exactly determines how much those guys weigh??? There are a few "models" that theoretical physicists (the ones who sit around doing tons of really hard math) and research physicists (the ones who build huge machines to smash atoms together) have developed to explain what we know about these particles -- including their masses.

The theory that seems to explain our observations the best, the "Standard Model" (since most physicists think it is true), predicts that in addition to the 12 elementary particles we've directly identified, there is one more -- the Higgs boson. This Standard Model says that all 12 of the elementary particles we've observed are actually massless -- they have NO weight at all, just like photons. Instead, elementary particles that DO have weight get it by interacting with the Higgs boson -- or, specifically, a "field" generated by the Higgs boson. Think of this Higgs field like a thick molasses that permeates the universe, and "sticks" to particles moving through it. Some stick more, some less, some slide through without sticking at all... but the more those particles stick, the "heavier" they seem to us Earthlings, as we study them.

So ANYWAY, this hypothetical Higgs boson makes all the math work out just right, so that the Standard Model very accurately predicts the way we see all of those elementary particles behaving. (In fact, the Standard Model, finalized in the 1970's, actually predicted the existence of particles that we didn't actually see until the last decade or so, once we had built atom-smashers big enough to detect them.) For at least 40 years, the Standard Model has stood the test of time -- so far. There's just one more particle left to find... the Higgs Boson.**

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (or its little brother, the Fermilab Tevatron) are hoping to smash atoms together hard enough that the Higgs boson pops out -- probably for less than a "septillionth" of a second. That's NOT very long. But it would be long enough to catch a glimpse of the little guy, and provide even more evidence that the Standard Model is right after all. This has physicists very excited -- in their own words, every time they switch on their atom-smasher, they feel like "a bunch of kids on Christmas morning," ready to rip open the biggest present ever.

(2) "Why is everyone calling it the 'God Particle'?"

The idea is that the Higgs boson is a lot like "God".... We can't see it, but (if it exists) it's literally EVERYWHERE -- all around us, inside us, permeating the universe. It's not that it actually has anything to do with God, or spirituality, or the supernatural, or anything like that -- it's just a catchy name that grabs people's attention (which is why the media -- and the movie "Angels and Demons" -- love it so much).

Although the term is popular in the media, most scientists actually are NOT fans of calling the Higgs boson the God particle... they realize that it grabs people's attention for totally erroneous reasons. (The Public: "WHAT? Science is trying to discover/disprove/explain GOD!??!?" The Media: "Well, no, not really. But we got your attention, eh?") Public controversy aside, most scientists also think the term overstates the importance of the Higgs boson, when really it's just 1 out of the 13 elementary particles. They actually held a re-naming competition to celebrate the 80th birthday of Dr. Peter Higgs (who first proposed the particle). The winning entry was the "Champagne Bottle Particle", which just goes to show you that sometimes scientists are pretty clueless when it comes to thinking up catchy names.

[Speaking of lousy nicknames, my first thought was to refer to it as the Kenobi Particle... ("It surrounds us, and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together...." -- Obi-wan Kenobi) Some physicists also joke that the term is short for the God-d*** Particle, because of how difficult it is to detect....]


Some people have been making a big deal out of the fact that the Higgs boson "creates mass" or "creates something from nothing".... isn't that God's department??? Does the Higgs boson "disprove" or "explain away" God? Well, no. The Higgs boson doesn't "create" mass... it IS mass (if the Standard Model is right), just like light IS photons. Getting closer to a fundamental understanding of what light (or mass) is doesn't tell us anything about how either of them initially got here (two of the most common options being "spontaneously" and "God created them".)


Rock it, Science! Rock it good!!!

--Travis

* If the term "mass" confuses you, just mentally substitute "weight" in whenever you see mass. They're not exactly the same, but close enough for our purposes.

**As good as the Standard Model is, there are other, competing theories that explain the behavior of the particles that we can see without the need for a Higgs boson. These "Higgsless Models" and the Standard Model make slightly different predictions about what we'd see when we smash atoms together. So, that's one major thing physicists do... set up experiments that would give specific results, results that would match up better with one theory much better than any of the others. Finding the Higgs boson is a perfect example of this.... the Standard Model says we'll find it under specific conditions, the Higgsless Models say we won't. Who's right? Only time (and massive atom-smashers) will tell...

Oink!

"You FOOL!!! You've killed us all...."

Woo-hoo... Three cases of swine flu detected on campus here at CU-Boulder....  [Locks door and scrubs exposed skin with disinfectant hand gel]

In other news... my adviser (Rob Kuchta) is in the news:

"CU professor Robert Kuchta, of the chemistry and biochemistry department, along with former CU-Boulder professor Kathy Rowlen, developed and licensed a commercial technology in 2006 to determine the genetic signature of specific influenza strains within hours. He said the technology could easily be reconfigured to identify and track the swine flu. Kuchta said he'd be willing to let the Centers for Disease Control use the technology, which could prove useful in helping health officials stem potential flu pandemics."

Full story here.... and here's a good article from 2005 about the flu chip our lab developed.

Incidentally, I'm seriously not a fan of calling this the "H1N1 virus"...

• Firstly (and most importantly) -- "H1N1 virus" is not nearly as catchy as "swine flu."  :)
  
• Secondly -- Different strains of the "Influenza A H1N1" virus are what cause the regular "seasonal" flu every year! This is just one of many, many H1N1 strains (it's actually a hybrid of common human, bird, and swine A-H1N1 strains).  So, for crying out loud... calling it the "H1N1 flu" doesn't distinguish it at all from the regular flu! (I think the best name I've heard is the "hybrid" flu....)
  
• Lastly -- without a fun name like swine flu, we wouldn't have been entertained by irrational reactions worldwide, or by using Twitter to watch "uninformed panics unfold live"....

Pass the ham!

The Difference

Admit it, deep down, even the normal person wonders....

On an unrelated note... we went to Arches National Park over the three-day MLK weekend, and I took hundreds of photos. Shocker, I know... anyway, I'll have some of the best ones up soon. Check back in a day or two!

Hey, look..... Art!

In response to Lindsey's return to blog-dom (two posts in two days!), I've posted my own latest attempt at abstract art:


Actually, no, I lied. It's not art... it's SCIENCE!!! (Again....) It's actually yesterday's lab results from my research project at school. My feeble attempts at art are strictly limited to music and photography. And really, I think I approach even those genres from much more of an "analytical" perspective than an artistic one....

Expelled

Tonight I went to see Expelled, a documentary by Ben Stein, the economist and Nixon speechwriter... who you probably know much better as the deadpan teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. ("Anyone...? Anyone....?")

(Make sure to play the trailer all the way to the end... one of the best lines is in the last two seconds of the clip.)

It raises a lot of thought-provoking issues, and is actually really funny. Even if you don't agree with everything it says, it'll definitely be a conversation starter... which is one of the main points of the film: that this sort of stuff should be talked about, not ignored or suppressed.

Check it out.

Speaking of medical mysteries....

I saw this clip on YouTube a few months ago about the "Tree Man of Java" (superpowers sold separately):

For those with slow connections (or for those who need motivation to wait for the video to load), here's a shot of his "hands":


I ran into a recent article about his condition (a random combination of the HPV virus plus an incredibly rare genetic immune disorder) and the treatment he's been getting... which led me to an article on the man without a face....



....which, in turn, led to an article about a girl with two faces....


...which, logically, pointed me to an article about an 11-pound, 23-inch-tall 15-year-old. Here, she's pictured with a 13-month old, and her classmates:


It's interesting to note the role of religion in some of these stories. The guy with the facial tumor has firmly refused medical treatment until recently, since (until recently) the medical procedures involved would have required a blood transfusion, something he won't consider as a staunch Jehovah's Witness. Meanwhile, the girl is being hailed as a reincarnation of the Hindu god Ganesha. Her parents certainly don't mind... everyone who comes to pay their respects to the baby include a nice monetary gift.

More medical freakiness.... have you heard these news reports about the pregnant "man" from Oregon? That'll have to be a post for another day....

I guess Mendel knew what he was talking about...

My dad, many many (many) years ago.

My brother, last week.

Along with his manly good looks (and hairstyle preferences), Kelly has managed to acquire the best of Dad's leftover 70's clothes from Dad's well-stocked (and well-preserved) closet...

Science Marches On

I think most everyone would agree that we've come pretty far in the last several hundred years. We geniuses of the 21st century are aware that the earth's not flat. We realize that diseases are caused by invisible little creatures that live pretty much everywhere. I'm especially glad that we don't have to visit the local barber to get our infected tooth brutally ripped from our jaw without anesthetic. It even seems that we're finally getting around to developing a working jetpack... or, the German miltary is, at least:

But every so often we are reminded that we aren't totally on top of things yet. For example, it turns out that migrating birds seem to have the equivalent of a GPS unit in their brain... and we don't really have a clue how it works. Go us.

Speaking of brains, researchers recently were poking around in an obese man's head with electrodes, hoping to find the part of the brain that would suppress his appetite. (Is brain surgery really that trivial now, that we're using it to treat overeating?) When they zapped a particular spot in his brain, he found himself remembering a scene from thirty years prior. If they ramped up the juice, he would recall more intricate details, right down to what people were wearing. Turn off the power, though, and the memories would fade. They're hoping to use the technique to treat Alzheimer's patients. I predict that one day, grateful husbands everywhere will be using it to remember anniversaries, and their wives' birthdays....

Oh, by the way, we can talk to apes. It turns out they like candy as much as obese-brain-surgery-guy.

March, science, march...