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.