Thread: God particle discovery is a win for science over superstition

Originally Posted by garyd

It does not disprove God. That is not the goal or task of science. It really should not even be called the "God particle" because that has lead to a lot of confusion. This will help science understand the make up of the universe, how matter came to be, even perhaps one day how the big bang started and why. There is a lot we still do not know. We don't know if the universe is infinite or if it is how to define infinite. All we are sure about is the visible (observable) part of the universe and we know it is expanding.

And that sir is precisely the point of my question. By the way Additional knowlege bereft of additional wisdom is like owning a Farrari but having no access to gasoline. Humans today have more access to more knowlege than any other generation in history. I have yet to see the slightest bit of evidence that we are in any measure better for it. And in certain respects we may well be the worse for it. Certainly in terms of excessive hubris.

I understand what you mean, but I do think we are better off now then we were say 2000 years ago. Who knows where we will be in another 2000 years? I agree that in some respect we still are the same, but man has been given a mind and we have not stopped thinking or trying to learn ever since. It is our quest for knowledge to reach the unreachable that keeps us moving and will perhaps keep us from extinction, if we do not destroy the world ourselves. If it was not for this drive we have, we would have never progressed past cave men and would have been extinct a long time ago. I am excited about our technology and the direction we are going in! I wonder what life will be like for humans in 2000 years from now.

Originally Posted by waltky

I have a problem with the Higgs field...

... if Higgs is the glue that holds atoms together...

... then why aren't all atoms the same?...

... Or rather, there would have to be varying degrees of the Higgs field...

... in order for there to be differing atoms of elements...

... for example, the Higgs field would have to be weaker in elements lower on the periodic table...

... and becoming stronger for elements of higher mass in the upper registers of the periodic table...

... otherwise there would only be one element which we know is not true...

... it seems unreasonable to say that the Higgs force is like a one size fits all scheme.

Slow down. Higgs is only one of the latest discoveries. Composition of the atom is an older one that will answer some of your questions here.

Each element is just a different arrangement of the three subatomic particles: proton, neutron, and electron. All atoms, essentially, ARE the same. Heavier ones just have more protons packed in there, which attract and carry around more electrons, giving them different chemical properties because essentially only the outer electrons of the atoms interact with others.

Distinguishing between different elements is no more than counting protons. Anything that has an effect on a proton (or its constituents), will affect all the elements without a need to rewrite the rules for each element.

A fair question can be asked, "How does the Higgs give mass to all the different massive particles?" But asking that about elements shows that you don't know what elements are or how they are distinguished from each other. It is outside my currently naive understanding of modern physics to give you a good answer, but to the best of my understanding, the Higgs field is one of many fields that exists across the universe. The associated "particle" is of little consequence to mass as far as I know. A particle is just the manifestation of the entire field interacting with the surroundings at a certain point. The talk of the "Higgs" mass was talk about how much energy would be required at a certain locality to have enough to possibly produce the associated particle... or cause the Higgs field to interact with the detectors in the collider enough to momentarily create the particle, which is detected by the way it predictably, and immediately flies apart into other particles.

What the Higgs mechanism does, naively and conceptually, is provide some sort of backdrop that prevents all the little field interactions from all the different fields from flying away as pure energy. The mechanism makes that energy stick as particles, which is our conception of "mass."

Now that I have posted my ignorance, I am hopeful someone with more expertise can come along and correct this and teach us all a little more about this stuff.

Originally Posted by garyd

It does not disprove God. That is not the goal or task of science. It really should not even be called the "God particle" because that has lead to a lot of confusion. This will help science understand the make up of the universe, how matter came to be, even perhaps one day how the big bang started and why. There is a lot we still do not know. We don't know if the universe is infinite or if it is how to define infinite. All we are sure about is the visible (observable) part of the universe and we know it is expanding.

And that sir is precisely the point of my question. By the way Additional knowlege bereft of additional wisdom is like owning a Farrari but having no access to gasoline. Humans today have more access to more knowlege than any other generation in history. I have yet to see the slightest bit of evidence that we are in any measure better for it. And in certain respects we may well be the worse for it. Certainly in terms of excessive hubris.

To me, science will be a waste of time if it does not ultimately result in the immortality of the human race. But it's my favorite way to waste time, and if immortality is not to be achieved, everything else is equally a waste of time, so there is nothing lost by trying.

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

No, "emotional" and "ignorant" are not contradictory and, in fact, often go well together.

Example?

http://youtu.be/FodfkqfJrhQ

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

To me, science will be a waste of time if it does not ultimately result in the immortality of the human race. But it's my favorite way to waste time, and if immortality is not to be achieved, everything else is equally a waste of time, so there is nothing lost by trying.

I realize your kidding.

I think one of the long term goals is to start colonizing in space and beyond interstellar travel. We only have about 1 billion years left on earth before the oceans start to evaporate as our sun starts to die. And more likely only around 600,000 years before temperatures get to hot for comfort.

I hear Andromeda has nice weather

I don't recall any religious person ever positing God as the physical reason mass has matter.

Originally Posted by Anobsitar

Example?

http://youtu.be/FodfkqfJrhQ

Just trying to help with the language barrier. The two words are unrelated. An emotional person may be highly educated or ignorant. An ignorant person can be highly logical, depressive of emotions or highly emotional. The concepts are unrelated.

Originally Posted by IndieVisible

I realize your kidding.

I think one of the long term goals is to start colonizing in space and beyond interstellar travel. We only have about 1 billion years left on earth before the oceans start to evaporate as our sun starts to die. And more likely only around 600,000 years before temperatures get to hot for comfort.

I hear Andromeda has nice weather

No, I'm very serious. Immortality is the goal. Longevity of our species through colonization of extra-terrestrial habitats is one perhaps more achievable. But I'm talking about personal immortality for each individual.

The illiterate sheepherders of the Middle East,

If they were illiterate you wouldn't know anything about them.

upon whose wisdom many people base their worldview, were wrong about the size, shape, structure, location, formation, behavior, age, and relative importance of the Earth.
They were wrong about astronomy, biology, chemistry, cosmology, history, geography, geology, medicine, zoology,

They didn't write anything about any of that stuff. Not in the way you want to suggest anyway.

the treatment of women and personal grooming. And pretty much everything else. In the absence of science, they operated on superstition. It’s not that they didn’t know the right answers, they didn’t even know the questions. Rather than real knowledge, they produced urban legends and destructive cultural behaviors that plague mankind to this day. The ancient religions possess no methodology for the validation of knowledge, but are quite good at the denial and destruction of knowledge. You can look it up on their Web sites.

They had atheists back then. Why didn't they set 'em straight? Why did religious people have to give us the enlightenment on the coattails of the reformers in order to get science going? Why do so many libertarians need to attack religion all the time? I understand that many of you are young atheists, and I'm not asking you to become a Christian (not right now anyway), but how are libertarians supposed to get any political traction with you guys acting this way? If you must post crap like this, at least take down the Gary Johnson sticker when you do it.

Originally Posted by MAYTAG

No, I'm very serious. Immortality is the goal. Longevity of our species through colonization of extra-terrestrial habitats is one perhaps more achievable. But I'm talking about personal immortality for each individual.

Ok, fair enough. Hard to tell when some one is joking or serious from a post.

Yea immortality would be cool.