The excitement following the purported “discovery” of God particle is not so much as to the discovery of the particle, because its existence was postulated as early as 1960, but to the achievement in succeeding to isolate it. The discovery merely confirms that the Standard Model theory is valid. Other particles predicted by this theory have been more or less confirmed the theory.
The discovery teaches us something fundamental about the building blocks of the universe, specially how the fundamental particles that build the world around us acquire mass. The particle was virtually impossible to isolate over the past decades. Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University, who predicted the existence of the particle, never anticipated that it would be possible to isolate it in his lifetime — so much so that it was known as “Goddamn Particle.”
Now two scientific teams have successfully detected the subatomic particle that matches the predicted characteristics of Higgs, after analyzing the debris of trillions of collisions at the $8bn Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Even amid this excitement, nothing new has been generalized, though the scientific community has merely arrived at a conclusion that the elusive subatomic particle — believed to give all matter size and shape — has been almost confirmed. Science will now be able to explain that matter has mass, which when combined with force of gravity results in weight.
The importance of the God particle can be drawn following the outcome of the discovery of radiation by Einstein, which eventually led to nuclear weapons, radiation therapy for cancer patients etc. Likewise, about 150 years ago, James Clerk Maxwell, an English scientist, developed a scientific theory to explain electromagnetic waves. His applications led to gadgets like TV, radio and even internet.
The challenge now is to carry forward the experiment, aimed at understanding how subatomic universe works, rather than how it all started because the God particle is still ambiguous. There are other aspects of sub-atomic physics and of the cosmos that are unexplained. The gravitational force for instance is still not fully explained. Or, for that matter, the dark matter which comprise about a quarter of the matter in the universe, but continues to remain unseen.
Needless to say, there’s need for further investigations to be carried out to determine the data needed to reveal whether the God particle has all the properties of the standard model Higgs boson, or whether some do not match, implying new physics beyond the standard model. Scientists are yet to identify its other properties, explain all current observations, including the slightly higher than expected energy and absence of some other particles. Arriving at a definite clear cut conclusion will take further time.
The God particle will hopefully help in understanding the universe, safely steam ahead and investigate super symmetry, antimatter, even Dark matter, throwing open new scientific frontiers, which may eventually lead to new applications, unheard, unseen and never thought of.
