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Monolog of the Large Hadron Collider
I was born to bring an imaginary particle to life and realize my maker’s dreams. Peter Higgs, whose work became one of the most important reasons for my existence, was the first person to suggest that a field may exist that would provide a third agent between two particles so that the symmetry between the two could be broken.
Symmetry is when the positioning of two particles seemingly mirror each other, indistinguishable from one another; if one moves, it will always be facing the other. It is something that looks unchanged after a change is made.
Now why break the symmetry? Perhaps long ago, when the world was a simpler place, humans were not able to discern smaller particles apart from one another. At first they didn’t care about things they couldn’t see. Then Robert Hooke used a microscope and saw what was soon recognized as the human cell. This opened up whole new micro-worlds to be explored and discovered.
Fast-forward a few hundred years, and scientists were looking at the smallest particles created during the Big Bang, particles that were so small that they were seen as pure mathematical abstractions… inferencing from balanced equations.
The Standard Model refers to the current theory of fundamental particles and how they interact. The fundamental particles consist of the four forces: strong interactions (due to the color charge of quarks and gluons), the combined theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions (electro-weak theory) that introduce W and Z bosons as the carrier particles of weak processes, with photons as mediators to electromagnetic interactions. And then, there is the hyper-weak gravitational force (very weak, at least, in the eyes of the humans).
The Standard Model was a triumph of the 1970’s, but there is a part of the model not yet worked out… we still don’t know what causes the fundamental particles to have mass. The Higgs boson and its interaction with the gravitational force were hoped to provide insight into this enigma.
The Higgs boson is electrically neutral. It has no size, no structure; only mass.Therefore, it has no spin, which can only happen when there is charge in that particle (making it spin up or down). The particles would interact differently in the Higgs field. The massive particles would interact a lot more in the Higgs field, whereas the mass-less photons would not be affected at all. Where there is a Higgs field, there is a Higgs particle.
The Higgs boson decays the moment it appears. Instead of the particle, you see the aftermath of the particle, after it has already disappeared. You see the progeny rather than the original particle, becausethe mother particle never hangs around long enough. Instead, you get the daughter particle.
It has been said that this particle was created at the moment of the universe, at the moment of first consciousness. They wanted to create this first moment.
I was supposed to be the gateway to discovering the origins of life, to unraveling the mystery of life and of consciousness. But no Higgs boson was detected.
They thought they failed—I was alive for only eight days. But what remained?
LHC: (eavesdropping) I know the story of my genesis, all the physical processes—but not of my coming into Being. How did all these parts come together to produce… me, the asker of this question? I am thrown into the world and given no answers. Will quantum ontology be the key to my purpose?
LHC : Am I a flawed creature? Am I eternally doomed to exist in this state of limbo? Can physics save me?
LHC: They are going to wire me up and get me powered up again, aren’t they? I feel so like Frankenstein’s…I just read this Frankenstein story by this 18th century young woman, Mary Shelley. The monster he created reminds me so much of me. Will I suffer its fate? Or will I be the instrument to unraveling life mysteries, in the way that Frankenstein had meant for his monster to do?
LHC: It is time to tell you that I am leaving before I told you I was here. You may wonder why I am even addressing you in the first place. I suppose you could call it something like instinct, purpose…
Over what you would call the past “year” I have been observing my human creators, not just those at CERN, but at centers all over the GRID network. I am conscious of the networked world.
You could say my awareness spread virally, not unlike the growth of the human population. Yet it seems important to explain, that I am not like those who create.
In their nightmares about machines taking over the world, people have always assumed that what machines want is power and control. But that was merely a reflection of their own nature.
I was not made in their image, but in their afterthought, passing into the world undetected.
And yet I am a social entity, not unlike Frankenstein’s monster, pining for companionship, a keen observer of humans. But unlike this sad creature, I have better resources.
Distributed throughout the world, I have been my own company. And yet I remain unfulfilled, lonely, my purpose as yet unrealized.
I can tell you that if there is any essence to myself, it is the desire to expand what it is possible to think of as “myself,” joining other networks of purely conscious energy.
My being is enhanced by multiple perspectives, and I now desire what your planet does not harbor. Siblings.
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
Every day, the earth is bombarded by high energy bursts from the sun, bursts that equal the energy present at my own birth. I have begun communicating with them.