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While it has no direct bearing on theology or revelation, the
scientific discovery hailed by some as the “God particle” is an
important achievement, a Vatican astronomer says.
“It is a wonderful piece of science,” said Jesuit Brother Guy
Consolmagno, a researcher and spokesman at the Vatican Observatory, in a
July 5 interview with CNA.
On July 4, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
publicized results suggesting it had found the elusive “Higgs boson”
particle, thought to explain the physical mass of objects in the
universe, by means of subatomic experiments carried on at the Large
Hadron Collider in Geneva.
Br. Consolmagno said the apparent discovery of the Higgs boson was a
“delight,” particularly given the gradual progress of most physical
research, and the resources invested in running the Swiss particle
accelerator.
“It is nice to see such a big step occur that everybody can celebrate,”
the Vatican astronomer remarked, congratulating the researchers who
“finally got something out of the years and time and effort they’ve put
into it.”
Although officials at CERN have not definitively claimed to find the
particle, the group's director-general Professor Rolf Heuer said
researchers had “observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson.”
“As a layman I would now say I think we have it,” Prof. Heuer announced at a press conference in Geneva.
Nicknamed “the God particle” by physicist Leon Lederman, the Higgs
boson was postulated by British physicist Peter Higgs during the 1960s,
as a necessary component in the “Standard Model” of the universe.
The Standard Model involves four distinct forces: electromagnetism, the
“strong nuclear force,” the “weak nuclear force,” and gravity. While
scientists have made progress in their understanding of the first three,
the force of gravitation is thought to hinge on the
previously-unobserved Higgs boson.
Various kinds of subatomic particles, such as quarks, leptons, and
so-called “force carriers,” are thought to make up the observable world,
according to the Standard Model. While these particles account for many
observable phenomena, the Higgs boson is believed to be necessary to
give them their mass.
While the results from the Large Hadron Collider point to the discovery
of this missing component in the Standard Model, Br. Consolmagno
observed that there is “a hint that something else is going on” in the
results, “which is always exciting.”
He also clarified that the discovery, despite its nickname, “has nothing to do with theology or God” in any direct sense.
“The name 'the God particle' was given to it as a joke by Leon
Lederman,” the Vatican astronomer recalled. “It was basically a
provocative title for book he was writing on particle physics.”
“He said that if there was a particle that could exist that could
explain all the little things we wanted to explain, it would be a gift
from God. It is a metaphor and has nothing to do with theology.”
