What Should 'God Particle' Be Renamed? Physicists Weigh In

Physicists love the Higgs boson, but they hate the God particle.

The elusive Higgs particle, which scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator announced Tuesday, Dec. 13, that they are closing in on, is popularly known as the "God particle."

The moniker, beloved by the press, is almost universally despised by experts who study particle physics.

"I detest the name 'God particle,'" Vivek Sharma, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego, and the leader of the Higgs search at LHC's CMS experiment, wrote in an email. "I am not particularly religious, but I find the term an 'in your face' affront to those who [are]. I do experimental physics not GOD."

Other physicists vehemently agreed.

"It's an awful name," Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, told LiveScience. "It does not convey the particle's true role, that it is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, and that it gives mass to the other particles."

Some physicists said a new nickname may be in order. They, along with LiveScience's Facebook fans, have offered up ideas, which range from "masson" and "OOM" like the Buddhist chant, to "Super Cool Non-Denominational Particle." Of course, others think "Higgs boson" works just fine.

Origin of the term

The Standard Model is the physics theory that describes nature's tiniest building blocks. Every particle included in the theory, except for the Higgs boson, has been detected experimentally.

On Tuesday, LHC physicists at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, reported their latest findings in the search for the Higgs, which indicate some preliminary hints that it is being created inside the atom smasher. The particle is thought to be associated with a field that is responsible for giving other particles their mass.

Much of the media coverage of the announcement included the term "God particle," which originated in the title of a 1994 book by Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman. The story goes that Lederman originally wanted to name the tome "The Goddamn Particle" because of how difficult it was to detect, but was persuaded by his publisher, Delta, to shorten it.

"It's a pity that Leon Lederman, otherwise a nice enough fellow, chose to go ahead with this moniker at the advice of his publishing agents to sell more books," Sharma said.

However, ever since the book came out, the Higgs boson hasn't been able to escape the nickname, at least in popular discourse.

"I feel the term 'God particle,' invented by a publisher to sell books and make money, insultingly misrepresents both science and religion," Rutgers University physicist Matt Strassler wrote in an email.

Sacrilegious

Many of the strongest objections to the name come because of its religious bent.

The name "carries almost no information about why the Higgs particle is important, it makes physicists sound pompous and arrogant, and it reinforces a very harmful presumption that physicists are trying to replace or compete with 'God,'" New York University physicist Kyle Cranmer wrote in an email to LiveScience. "In reality, physicists cover the full range from devotee to atheist. Physicists are generally driven to understand how nature works — as 'natural philosophers' we appreciate the beauty of its order and its chaos, perhaps more than most."

And ultimately, researchers say the term "God particle" simply doesn't fit the Higgs boson's actual characteristics.

"'God particle' is a bad name, in every way," wrote University of Michigan physicist Gordon Kane. "It has nothing to do with the physics. Most (all?) physicists dislike it."

However, hatred of the term isn't universal.

"It's a catchy name, so why not? :)" wrote Brown University physicist Greg Landsberg.

A new name?

In lieu of such a controversial nickname, many physicists didn't hesitate to offer alternative suggestions for a popular label.

"One possibility is the OOM particle (after the Buddhist chant, that is supposed to take you to Nirvana)," offered Kaku. "OOM for Origin of Mass particle."

Others also focused on the Higgs' role in bestowing mass.

"Why not the 'mass particle?'" suggested Boston University physicist Lawrence Sulak. "Or since it is a bosON, like the photON or the gluON, it could be called the 'masson.' Let your imagination go wild, 'stickyon,'  'inertiaon,' 'weighton.'"

But many physicists expressed their satisfaction with the simple term "Higgs boson," after Peter Higgs, the leader of the group that first theorized the particle in 1964.

"It is all very well for us to bemoan the 'God Particle' and say how much better the 'humongous space kablouie' is than the 'big bang,' but I don't think we will find better words than the 'Higgs boson,'" said CERN physicist William Murray.

Perhaps all the "Higgs boson" term needs is a friendly adjective or two around it. Strassler proposed referring to the subatomic particle as "the evanescent yet essential Higgs boson."

LiveScience readers also offered a fount of good ideas via Facebook, including the "Vague Existo Particle" from Scott Dunn, the "Super Cool Non-Denominational Particle" from Amanda Callaghan, or the "Shy Particle,'' since it's so hard to find, from Jitesh Ahuja.

Or, a new moniker could make a nod to the $10 billion price tag of the LHC.

"Maybe we should call it the "Billion" to remind us how much it cost to find the damn thing :-)" Cranmer wrote.

BNP nationwide demonstration Monday

Dhaka, Dec 18 (bdnews24.com) — The opposition BNP will hold demonstrations on Monday in all divisional headquarters, including the capital, in protest against Sunday's 'attacks and torture on party members'. 

"The government attacked our members to foil the freedom fighters' assembly. Three hundred members and leaders were arrested," an agitated Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told the press on Sunday evening. 

"Awami League's goons set on fire buses at Motijheel, Naya Paltan, Press Club and Kakrail. Police and the goons were let loose on our men," he said after a meeting of the party's standing committee. 

He said the opposition would organise a protest march in place of victory procession, as scheduled earlier, on Monday. 

Similar protests would also be held across the nation at all divisional headquarters, he added. 

Fakhrul decried the 'government action' and demanded immediate release of the arrested and punishment to those responsible for the attacks. 

At least seven hand bombs exploded in the city and six vehicles were torched in Dhaka, Sylhet and Sirajganj ahead of an opposition programme in the capital. The incidents have left two dead – one each in Dhaka and Sylhet – while several others were injured. 

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia called an emergency meeting of the party's National Standing Committee immediately after the incidents on Sunday.

Learning is an interesting thing

Well hello my dear friends.
Guys what do you think about education? You guys should be thinking that it's for having a good job, a good job provides a beautiful wife also consisting a secured family. Others thinks that by learning you can become someone who can be rich or someone too much powerful. Well here is what i think;
First of all i think if i read well than i can buy luxurious stuffs like fancy cars clothes and i will have a good wife and my parents will be so much happy for having such wealth.

But is it really a good thinking or is these are the benefits of education? What do you guys think? If it's not then why do we think like this?
Answers are: these are not the way to think education. Well this is the teacher's fault. Because teacher's don't teach us that way the teacher cant give us the fun in our education. But there are still those type of teachers who makes the way of learning very much fun and they make studies like water
but then student don't get that then teachers are disobeyed and they just loses their spirits. But this number is getting too small day by day. I say that if we don't get the fun in our learning then why will student take it? In this days teachers used to force students take private tutors and this how they get extra payments and they just skips their work in the institution thus the lower class people don't get the chance to have the right knowledge. There have been a lot of writings about this type of article but no response. Well  i am writing this not for stopping private tutors. Because the private tutor thing will never stop because our whole education system is a nutshell. There are too much politics on our education. I just wanted to say that teachers should give us the proper meaning of education, they should guide us the way to make education very much fun. Then the students will take education as there first and foremost job work you can say everything. There is a lot of students who are really truly brilliant and their skills are quiet amazing. But we will have to think for those who are bad students we will have to work for their improvement because they have lost the good spirit and forgotten the necessity of education. If we can prove that education is the exciting thing in the world then they will accept the invitation of education. In the developing line of our education we should keep these fall out boys because the good students will be able to take care of themselves but the fall out boys wont be able to regain themselves so i am asking that the teachers should change their teaching style. Now a days we see that their are lots of university students who are very much smart and their teaching styles are too much exciting so i think that college and school teachers should learn something from them and they should convert themselves to the smart teaching. Thus education will be much more exciting then today.
Therefore i can say one thing that people always take the easy way rather than the hard way so its your choice to take. We all should take the good part of education and use it to know all our surroundings our environment and use it to save humanity and for a better future.

If you guys like it then give me your comments and advice.                            

India admits signing Tipaimukh agreement

Amid widespread resentment in Bangladesh, India officially admitted on Tuesday of signing an agreement for setting up a hydro-electric project at Tipaimukh in the state of Manipur.

In response to concern expressed in Bangladesh media over the development on Tipaimukh dam construction, the official spokesperson of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) came up with a statement on Tuesday after four days of mysterious silence.

Bangladesh on Tuesday urged India to hold consultations and share all relevant information of Tipaimukh project before New Delhi goes ahead with its plan to build dam on the common river.

The spokesperson said a ‘Promoter’s Agreement’ has been signed with the purpose of setting up a joint venture company (JVC) between the government of Manipur, NHPC Ltd. and Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd (SJVN) on October 22.

“The JVC will be established under the name and style of “Tipaimukh Hydroelectric Corporation Limited” or any other name as approved by the concerned Registrar of companies,” the statement, which is available in the MEA website, said.

It would be recalled that a 10-member Bangladesh parliamentary delegation led by Abdur Razzak, former water resources minister and current chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources, had visited India in July 2009 at the invitation of government of India, the spokesperson said.

“It had been clarified to the delegation that the proposed project was a hydro-electric project with provision to control floods and that this would not involve diversion of water on account of irrigation,” the statement said.

Subsequently, it said during the visit of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in January 2010, “our Prime Minister had reiterated the assurance that India would not take steps on the Tipaimukh project that would adversely impact on Bangladesh. The assurance was again reiterated during the visit of our Prime Minister to Bangladesh in September 2011”.

Exam is at the door

Well hey my dear friends how are you all? I hope that all of my friends are all right. friends right now i am in bit of a trouble because from tomorrow our first semester exam will start, its like something is burning inside of me i just couldn't say it. So please my dear friends please wish me and my friends who are giving exams in this month.

Jawbone Found in England Is from the Earliest Known Modern Human in Northwestern Europe

A piece of jawbone excavated from a prehistoric cave in England is the earliest evidence for modern humans in Europe, according to an international team of scientists. The bone first was believed to be about 35,000 years old, but the new research study shows it to be significantly older -- between 41,000 and 44,000 years old, according to the findings that will be published in the journal Nature. The new dating of the bone is expected to help scientists pin down how quickly the modern humans spread across Europe during the last Ice Age. It also helps confirm the much-debated theory that early humans coexisted with Neanderthals.

Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Associate Professor of Biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team, explained that the fragment of maxilla -- the upper jaw -- containing three teeth was unearthed in 1927 in a prehistoric limestone cave called Kent's Cavern in southwestern England. Records from the original excavations, undertaken by the Torquay Natural History Society located in Devon, England, indicate that the jawbone was discovered 10 feet 6 inches beneath the surface and was sealed by stalagmite deposits. "In 1989, scientists at Oxford University dated the bone as being about 35,000 years old. However, doubts were later raised about the reliability of the date because traces of modern glue, which was used to conserve the bone after discovery, were found on the surface," Shapiro said. "We knew we were going to have to do additional testing to re-date the bone." Because the remaining uncontaminated area of bone was deemed too small to re-date, the research team searched through the excavation archives and collections in the Torquay Museum to obtain samples of other animal bones from recorded depths both above and below the spot where the maxilla was found.
Members of the research team then obtained radiocarbon dates for the bones of wolf, deer, cave bear, and woolly rhinoceros, all of which were found close to the maxilla, and all of which could be dated at between 50,000 and 26,000 years old. Using a Bayesian statistical-modelling method, the scientists then were able to calculate an age for the maxilla. The new date indicates that the bone is between 41,000 and 44,000 years old.
Tom Higham, Deputy Director of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit and a member of the research team, said: "Radiocarbon dating of ancient bones is very difficult to do. Because the initial date from this fragment of jawbone was affected by traces of modern glue, the initial measurement made in 1989 was too young. The new dating evidence we have obtained allows us, for the first time, to pinpoint the real age of this key specimen. We believe this piece of jawbone is the earliest direct evidence we have of modern humans in northwestern Europe."
Shapiro explained that the new and more-accurate date is especially important because it provides clearer evidence about the coexistence of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. "If the jawbone is, in fact, 41,000 to 44,000 years old, that means it was from a time when Neanderthals were still present in Europe, so we first had to confirm that the bone was from an anatomically modern human, and not a Neanderthal," Shapiro said. Shapiro and her team first tried to extract mitochondrial DNA from one of the teeth, but there were insufficient amounts for valid DNA sequencing. Eventually, team members were able to use a virtual three-dimensional model based on a CT scan of the jawbone to carry out a detailed analysis of the fossil. They compared the external and internal shapes of the teeth with those of modern human and Neanderthal fossils from a number of different sites. They found early modern human characteristics in all but three of the 16 dental characteristics.
Studies of the maxilla have been under way for the last decade, but it was only with the application of the latest investigative and dating techniques that the research team was able to make this breakthrough in identifying the jawbone as the earliest modern human so far known from Europe.
"Comparative data were lacking for some of the traits our team was studying," Shapiro said. "So, thankfully, our team member Tim Compton of the Natural History Museum in England helped by building a completely new database to help discriminate modern features from Neanderthal features. While the dominant characteristics are certainly modern, there are some that are ambiguous, or that fall into the Neanderthal range." The research team believe that these ambiguous features may reflect inadequate sampling of modern human variation, shared primitive features between early modern humans and Neanderthals, or even interbreeding between the two species. "We'll have to delve a little deeper and do more work to resolve these questions," Shapiro said.
Another exciting feature of the new study is that it could help solve the apparent discrepancy about the known dates of the Aurignacian period -- a time of cultural development in Europe and southwest Asia that lasted from around 45,000 to 35,000 years ago. Previous researchers have discovered artefacts and tools from this period that are thought to have been produced by the earliest modern humans in Europe. However, strangely, these artifacts have been found to be much older than the rare skeletal remains found in the same vicinity. While Aurignacian tools and ornaments have been dated at as old as 44,000 years, tests to pinpoint the age of relevant human remains have resulted in dates that reach no further than between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago, indicating a significant gap.
"The new date and identification of this bone from Kent's Cavern is very important, as we now have direct evidence that modern humans were in northwest Europe about 42,500 years ago," Higham said. "It confirms the presence of modern humans at the time of the earliest Aurignacian culture, and tells us a great deal about the dispersal speed of our species across Europe during the last Ice Age. It also means that early humans coexisted with Neanderthals in this part of the world, something that a number of researchers have doubted."
In addition to Shapiro, Higham, and Compton, other members of the research team include Chris Stringer, Roger Jacobi, and Chris Collins of the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom; Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in the United States; Barry Chandler of the Torquay Museum in the United Kingdom; Flora Gröning, Paul O'Higgins, and Michael Fagan of the University of Hull in the United Kingdom; Simon Hillson of University College London in the United Kingdom; and Charles FitzGerald of McMaster University in Canada.
The research was funded by two organizations in the United Kingdom: the Leverage Trust, established at the wish of William Hesketh Lever, the first Viscount Leverhulme, and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Smoking picture of Borneo

Satellite image of thick smoke in Borneo from numerous wildfires, most of them likely started by the "slash-and-burn" technique of local deforestation for agriculture, though logging activities may have started the fires accidentally. The exceptionally heavy smoke is caused by the burning of the peat in the peat swamp forests of the area and it results in air pollution, disruption of air traffic, and significantly adds to greenhouse gas emissions. Image: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

Scientists measure dream content

Patient in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. Bottom: Activity in the motor cortex during the movement of the hands while awake (left) and during a dreamed movement (right). Blue areas indicate the activity during a movement of the right hand, which is clearly demonstrated in the left brain hemisphere

The ability to dream is a fascinating aspect of the human mind. However, how the images and emotions that we experience so intensively when we dream form in our heads remains a mystery. Up to now it has not been possible to measure dream content. Max Planck scientists working with colleagues from the Charité hospital in Berlin have now succeeded, for the first time, in analysing the activity of the brain during dreaming.
They were able to do this with the help of lucid dreamers, i.e. people who become aware of their dreaming state and are able to alter the content of their dreams. The scientists measured that the brain activity during the dreamed motion matched the one observed during a real executed movement in a state of wakefulness.
The research is published in the journal Current Biology.
Methods like functional magnetic resonance imaging have enabled scientists to visualise and identify the precise spatial location of brain activity during sleep. However, up to now, researchers have not been able to analyse specific brain activity associated with dream content, as measured brain activity can only be traced back to a specific dream if the precise temporal coincidence of the dream content and measurement is known. Whether a person is dreaming is something that could only be reported by the individual himself.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, the Charité hospital in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig availed of the ability of lucid dreamers to dream consciously for their research. Lucid dreamers were asked to become aware of their dream while sleeping in a magnetic resonance scanner and to report this "lucid" state to the researchers by means of eye movements. They were then asked to voluntarily "dream" that they were repeatedly clenching first their right fist and then their left one for ten seconds.
This enabled the scientists to measure the entry into REM sleep -- a phase in which dreams are perceived particularly intensively -- with the help of the subject's electroencephalogram (EEG) and to detect the beginning of a lucid phase. The brain activity measured from this time onwards corresponded with the arranged "dream" involving the fist clenching. A region in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain, which is responsible for the execution of movements, was actually activated during the dream. This is directly comparable with the brain activity that arises when the hand is moved while the person is awake. Even if the lucid dreamer just imagines the hand movement while awake, the sensorimotor cortex reacts in a similar way.
The coincidence of the brain activity measured during dreaming and the conscious action shows that dream content can be measured. "With this combination of sleep EEGs, imaging methods and lucid dreamers, we can measure not only simple movements during sleep but also the activity patterns in the brain during visual dream perceptions," says Martin Dresler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry.
The researchers were able to confirm the data obtained using MR imaging in another subject using a different technology. With the help of near-infrared spectroscopy, they also observed increased activity in a region of the brain that plays an important role in the planning of movements. "Our dreams are therefore not a 'sleep cinema' in which we merely observe an event passively, but involve activity in the regions of the brain that are relevant to the dream content," explains Michael Czisch, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry

The government has nuked a power deal

The government is going to ink a landmark deal with Russia today to finalise arrangements for installing the country's first-ever nuclear power plant at Rooppur in Pabna.
The deal comes nearly two years after Dhaka signed a crucial framework agreement with Moscow on Russian cooperation to install the 2,000 megawatt nuclear plant by 2017-18 at a cost of around $1.5 to $2 billion.
Yeafesh Osman, state minister for science and information and communication technology, and Sergey Kirienko, director general of State Atomic Energy Corporation of Russia (Rosatom), will sign the agreement on behalf of their respective governments.
“This is a landmark event for us . . . this will greatly help us to meet our energy demand. We need energy to build our desired Digital Bangladesh,” Osman told BSS.
It would be the final government-to-government deal, he added.
The two countries prepared the groundwork earlier inking a primary deal in February this year.
Officials familiar with the process said after today's agreement, Rosatom and Bangladesh's Atomic Energy Commission would need to work out the issues of costing and equipment procurement under two subsequent deals.
Dhaka-Moscow cooperation under the agreement would include “design, construction and operation of nuclear power and research reactors; nuclear fuel supply, taking back the spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste management”, they said.
International Atomic Energy Association allowed Bangladesh to install nuclear power plants in 2007 along with seven other developing nations.
Later, Russia, France, South Korea, China and Pakistan expressed their interests to install the power plant.