Oh God, That Particle

Leon M Lederman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, says in his book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? that he gave the Higgs boson the nickname "The God Particle" because "the publisher wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing."

At Sensation TV, the TV News anchor was in a fine frenzy. They had found the Grand Old Man’s particle. What a great television moment this was. He had even managed to get Mr Particle Physicist to talk to him before the other channels hijacked him.

TV News Anchor: All these years, a lot of us on this planet believed God created the world, and you guys now say you’ve tracked down the actual culprit...the little fellow that started this whole mess... that God can be absolved of all responsibility?

Mr Particle Physicist: Er...apart from the fact that this little guy has been a vital missing link in our understanding of nature, and has also been maddeningly elusive, I’m not sure it has anything else in common with your ‘God’. In fact, if Lederman’s publisher had been less pernickety, we’d be popping the bubbly for the ‘Goddamn’ particle right now. And a damn good thing that would have been, too. At least it would have saved us the embarrassment of explaining away the ‘God’ in this particle.

As for your question about whether it started the whole mess, I really couldn’t tell you much about that at this point. All I can say is that this extremely short-lived little fellow most probably  started most of the ‘mass’ thingy...at least, that’s what many of us believe. 

TV News Anchor:  Can you explain that for our viewers, Mr Particle Physicist?

Mr Particle Physicist: Oh well...let me see... we believe that after the Big Bang, these chappies formed the sticky Higgs field, which by impeding the movement of the other particles, gave them mass. Basically these guys kept the other fellas from flying off in all directions...you know, sort of nudged them to stick together, eventually leading to the formation of stars and galaxies...and Rajnikant.

TV News Anchor: Some of our viewers want to ask you some questions. The first is one Mr Weight-Watcher.

Mr Weight-Watcher: If this is the particle that gives matter its mass, then can we fix our Body Mass Index by fixing the surrounding Higgs Field?

Mr Particle Physicist: Considering that these particles are extremely elusive and that we’ve spent trillions of dollars just to get a few signals from them, I’d suggest that you wait till we uncover anti-matter. You could perhaps use that as an antidote to the excess ‘matter’ you obviously suffer from.

TV News Anchor: The next one to call in is Ms Stock Exchanger. Come in, Ma’am.

Ms Stock Exchanger: Now that you guys think you’ve found your ‘goddamn’ particle, why don’t you put some time and money into tracking the elusive factor that helps people to make money on stock exchanges?

Mr Particle Physicist: Like I said before, we are only trained to track particles named after ‘God’, not the Big Guy himself.

TV News Anchor: And the last question comes to you from Dr Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India. Go ahead, Dr Singh.

Dr Manmohan Singh: Will CERN consider a bilateral agreement to supply equipment that could create a Higgs Field for politicians in India? We can definitely do with additional ‘mass’ support after all those ‘massive’ frauds.

Mr Particle Physicist: But Sir, you’ll probably need to put yourself through the Big Bang first and create yourselves anew before the Higgs field could do its job.

Dr Manmohan Singh: I will take up this ‘matter’ with the GoM.

TV News Anchor: With that we wrap up this special edition on the sighting of the ‘God particle’.

A voice booms across the heavens: That Goddamn particle has given me no peace in the past two days. Now everybody thinks they’ve tracked me down. I feel as though I’m already in the FBI’s custody. Hey you, Sound Angel, turn off that eavesdropping device that keeps me posted about what those earthlings are saying about me.