For thousands of years the curious and the romantic have studied the night sky and wondered if anything else is out there. Four centuries ago Galileo Galilie answered the question of the ages.
hundreds of stars,
mountains on the Moon,
satellites of Jupiter.
The 4% Universe
According to physicists most of the Universe is still to be discovered.
In 2010, Richard Panek, a journalist not a physicist, summed up what he gleaned from physicists by saying, “only 4 percent of the universe consists of the matter that makes up you, me, our books, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown.” The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy And The Race To Discover The Rest Of Reality.
That’s a lot of unknown.
The Higgs Boson
That’s where the “Higgs boson” (in some circles known as “the God particle”) comes in.
The Higgs boson matters because its about matter.
(Timeout: “Bosons” are thought to be particles which are responsible for all physical forces. Other known bosons are the photon, the W and Z bosons, and the gluon. OK, keep reading.)
According to the theory laid out by Scottish physicist Peter Higgs in 1964, the Higgs boson is the physical proof of an invisible, universe-wide field that gave mass to all matter right after “the Big Bang.”
Jeffery Kluger writing in TIME explained it this way, “No Higgs, no mass; no mass, no you, me, or anything else.”
The Higgs Boson In 7 Minutes
The video is just over 7 minutes in length. Its an explanation of the Higgs boson (the God particle) and the search for the Higgs boson.
After watching, how do you feel? Do you feel like you know more or less?
Spoken Into Existence?
The Bible contains a revelation regarding the unknown forces holding our Universe together.
The first words of Genesis chapter one – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Where there was nothing, God created something. God spoke everything into existence.
He said…
“Let there be light and there was light.”
“Let there be water…and it was so.”
“Let there be dry ground and it was so.”
Faith and Science
I love the description of Creation in the New Testament. “For in Him (Jesus) all things were created: He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16,17 (NIV)
“He holds everything together by what He says.” Colossians 1:17 (The Message)
Faith and science go together like soup and sandwich.
Science is a way of admiring God.
Believing the Bible doesn’t mean you must throw out science. When science and God meet there is surprising agreement.
The God Particle
Why do journalists—not physicists—call the Higgs particle “the God particle”?
Its because Leon Lederman, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, wrote a book in which he wanted to call the Higgs particle the “god-!?*!” particle,” because it was so hard to find.
Apparently, Lederman’s publishers thought “God particle” would sell better.
APPLICATION: Are you intrigued by physics and the discoveries of science? Please leave a comment below. Thank you.
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Great piece PBJ. Humanity has always looked up and wondered. I don’t think that will ever end.
‘Science’ can be defined as ” the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.” There is nothing anti-God about that. I believe He welcomes us to enjoy creation including by observing and measuring it. I think He is big enough to handle anything we can discover at the end of an equation, a microscope or a telescope. What we take for granted today would have looked like magic in the year 1017 or 17. What will things look like in 4017?
Thanks Ryan. And thank you for the link about the surprising agreement between science and God.
interesting. while I will always believe God’s word over all, id be interested to see more of the science in terms of the bible if it speaks of it.