The elusive God particle

At our daughter's university graduation ceremony this past weekend the occasional address was delivered by particle physicist, Prof. Tony Gherghetta. In non-technical language he spoke of the joys of studying the universe's tiniest particles (quarks, gluons, and leptons) and went on to encourage the graduands to make sure they visit the public museum at the CERN particle accelerator on their next backpacking holiday in Europe. His straight-talking speech could easily fool one into thinking that the topic may not be all that complicated after all. Having read some books on the topic some years ago I decided to peruse what he may have written on the subject and clicked on a link from his profile page which led to the following abstract under the title, "Holographic Mixing Quantified":

We compute the precise elementary/composite field content of mass eigenstates in holographic duals of warped models in a slice of AdS_5. This is accomplished by decomposing the bulk fields not in the usual Kaluza-Klein basis, but rather into a holographic basis of 4D fields, corresponding to purely elementary source or CFT composite fields. Generically, this decomposition yields kinetic and mass mixing between the elementary and composite sectors of the holographic theory. Depending on where the bulk zero mode is localized, the elementary/composite content may differ radically, which we show explicitly for several examples including the bulk Randall-Sundrum graviton, bulk gauge boson, and Higgs boson.

Jolted back into reality by this bucket of cold water in the face I decided to read what National Geographic might have to say. Martha had gotten very excited after reading an article in the latest issue (March 2008) entitled, "Search for the God Particle". I see why she was so enthusiastic. The article talks about the mind-blowing new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, currently under construction under the French-Swiss border for the purpose of helping

physicists "discover how the universe works by observing it at its smallest scale". Dwarfing previous accelerators, this massive beast forms an underground tunnel in the shape of a ring 17 miles in circumference. Soon, physicists will be able to watch what happens when two beams of particles are sent coursing around the ring in opposite directions, accelerated constantly as they fly along until they almost reach the speed of light, and sent crashing into each other. The pileups will take place inside detectors, the largest of which, ATLAS, is seven stories tall! As the article says, "If all goes right, matter will be transformed by the violent collisions into wads of energy, which will in turn condense back into various intriguing types of particles, some of them never seen before". In particular, scientists hope to finally get their hands on a particle dubbed the "Higgs boson" which, since first theorized into existence in the 1960s by Peter Higgs in an attempt to explain what causes matter to have mass, has become the holy grail of particle physics. Playful physicists have dubbed it "the God particle".

The study of elementary particles is so complex and requires such a sophisticated understanding of mathematics - read the abstract quoted above - that we ordinary folk haven't got a hope of grasping anything but the simplest concepts of the topic. This very fact should fill us with a sense of awe and wonder for the Mind that conjured up such tiny and bizarre beasts. And think, too, about this: scientists have had to create a huge machine to "handle" these particles, yet God can manipulate them Himself without the aid of any contraption. He made them; He can spin them, accelerate them, "freeze" them, carve them up even smaller - in short, play with them as a child does with his toys. In the same instant God comprehends the awesome dimensions of space and is aware of each particle that makes it up. Such knowledge is, "high, it is too wonderful for us, we cannot attain unto it" (Ps. 139:6). Our God is awesome beyond comprehension.