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Pope Francis appoints "God particle" physicist to Vatican panel

Juliet Palmer — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 06:50:59 +0000

Fabiola Gianotti's life and work for the past several years have had a lot to do with collisions. But it's the kind of collision that yields good things.

If her work on a Vatican commission entails any sort of conflict with other members, such "collisions" could yield similarly good fruit.

Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed Gianotti, the director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The Italian experimental particle physicist is perhaps best known for having overseen the work that led to the discovery of what many call the "God particle." Read more

Pope Francis appoints "God particle" physicist to Vatican panel

Scientists say they've found the God particle

admin — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:01:55 +0000

Scientists have announced they believe a subatomic particle discovered last year is indeed the Higgs boson (or God particle), they have been searching for.

"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said spokesperson Joe Incandela.

The findings were announced during the Moriond Conference, a gathering of physicists in the Italian Alps.

Scientists say they've found the God particle

Vatican scientists welcome discovery of "god particle"

admin — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:29:56 +0000

Brother Guy Consolmagno, a researcher and spokesman at the Vatican Observatory, has described the probable finding of the Higgs boson particle, the so called "god particle", as an important achievement. While it has no direct bearing on theology or revelation, the scientific discovery hailed by some as the "god particle" is an important achievement, Br Guy says.

Theoretical Physicist Fr. Gabriele Gionti also from the Vatican Observatory says "It is a wonderful piece of science.

"The fact that we see this harmony in nature, like the harmony that is in the Higgs particle, the fact that we now have a mechanism and a particle that is able to explain how to give mass to other particles, is not against the fact that there is a benevolent God who created the Universe," said Gionti. Listen to interview

The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs who, along with others, proposed its existence in 1964. The existence of the Higgs boson and the associated Higgs field would be the simplest known method to explain why certain other elementary particles have mass. In this theory, an unseen field permeates all of space; various other elementary particles obtain mass when they interact with it.

"God particle" is the name physicist and author Leon Lederman gave to the Higgs boson in his book "The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?" It's meant to communicate the importance of the particle to the understanding of physics; Lederman has also said that he settled for the "God Particle" because the publisher rejected his intended title, "the Goddamn Particle". Higgs, himself an atheist, does not agree with the "god particle" nickname as it "might offend people who are religious".

One of the primary goals of the Large Hadron Collider ("LHC") at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland—one of the most complicated scientific instruments ever built—was to test the existence of the Higgs boson and measure its properties which would allow physicists to confirm this cornerstone of modern theory.

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Vatican scientists welcome discovery of "god particle"