A Quote by Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain



Telescopes are in some ways like time machines...
They reveal galaxies so far away that their light has taken billions of years to reach us. We in astronomy have an advantage in studying the universe, in that we can actually see the past. We owe our existence to stars, because they make the atoms of which we are formed. So if you are romantic you can say we are literally starstuff. If you're less romantic you can say we're the nuclear waste from the fuel that makes stars shine. We've made so many advances in our understanding. A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and shape of our Earth, and the layout of the continents. We are now just learning the dimensions and ingredients of our entire cosmoc, and can at last make some sense of our cosmic habitat.



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Friday, March 15, 2013

Higgs Boson – God Particle??

Higgs Boson particle confirmed! So what changes now? It could be our understanding of the standard model of Physics (Like how does matter acquire its mass? etc). That is huge!! It could be the answer to the very existence of our universe, planets… humans!


Image Source: http://www.businessweek.com

The term "God Particle" was coined by Leon Lendarman in his book about Higgs Boson. It really is not a GOD particle, it sure is going to be a very important particle that needs to fit the standard model of Physics that we know today. And that by itself is a challenge.

Out of reading elsewhere, I found out that scientists are now evaluating if there are more than one varieties of Higgs Boson particle. If it does, then the scientists will have to re-evaluate our whole standard model of Physics (ie; how do objects gain mass and why do some particles like Photons, do not have mass??). If they find out that there is only one type.. then it could be our answer to the question in bold above. Ie; they will know exactly why stuff happens the way it happens.

Either way it will be interesting to see how things unfold.

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