Search for the God Particle

Has any one ever wondered about the following:

If a book (the Qur’an in this situation) is meant to be from God/Allah, why do two individuals of equivalent intelligence always come up with different interpretations of the text?

There are many contradictions in the Quran; the only people unable to see them are those completely brainwashed and have lost the ability to think rationally. They come up with all sorts of historical/non-historical justifications for these such as the arabic language/literary peculiarities etc. nothing substantial or scientific; perhaps they are not aware of this concept.

There are literally billions and billions of galaxies and star systems in our “known� universe; supposedly we are talking about a creator that is well beyond the confines of any material boundaries; why would such a “person� even care about what goes on in individual hearts and minds on a teeny weeny planet! Why would he be upset about, for example, a woman showing off a bit of skin or someone not observing some ritual exactly how it was prescribed (when there are literally hundreds of such, very contradictory, rituals in Islam amongst the sects; not to quote countless other similar examples.

If the “Loh-e-Mahfouz� was the first thing created with the deeds of all living things and their fate already prescribed, what the hell is the meaning of “the free will�?!

If a ruler of my country wanted me to abide by ceratin rules, I would expect them to be laid down explicitly and clearly for all to understand. Otherwise, I would think they were unjust in prosecuting me for misgivings; why are there so many ambiguities as to what the “true Islam� is; that definition is certainly not unanimous by anyone’s standards as we ll know; the interpretations are so varied and far apart at times that it is mind boggling!

According to the Quran, Allah gave his blessings to the Bani Israel but they betrayed his trust many a times, so he went off them completely and chose a different people for revival of his “Only and True Message�! Are we thinking that an omniscient and omnipotent God, with the inherent knowledge of everything, transcendent through the confines of time, made a mistake!! Then he tried to correct it by chosing arabia for his chosen messanger! How odd!!

Prayer is such a contradictory term, don’t you think. If all is already decided, does God change his mind if we were to grovel before him and grants us our desires as a reward; very confusing!!

The only answers I ever got for these as a child, and many other similar questions, was that we CANNOT work out God’s will and he is the only one who does; what the hell are we doing with our assess up in the air five times a day then!!

All of the above seem to be the desires of the needy and not fullfilled “persona� (to quote Al-Razi); Is it that we have created this “persona� is OUR OWN IMAGE rather than the other way around?

Is our “conflict� with the rest of the world sheer paranoia “they are out to get us�!! and the only reason we cannot accept this is our inherent “sense of pride� so deeply indoctrinated that we cannot listen to reason.

The reason I am talking about the Islamic context here is because that is my background and I wish to discuss the very foundations of this faith. It is all very well to hide behind the “good aspects� of Islamic history and ignore the other “less desirable� aspects, but the question is what it is all based on; without foundation, there is nothing left. I criticise any dogma based on “faith� and th other so-called faiths are no exception to this; however, I prefer people from those cultures to comment on their own cultural heritages.

Problem with being “moderate� is that moderation, whatever it might mean, harbours and nurtures extremist elemnts. Extremists to me mean people who are trying to follow their “faiths� down to the last letter. This Sufism etc have nothing to do with what Islam actually is; it is a digression from the mainstream. Sufis were always at the fringes of mainstream society and their ideas of “Sulha-e-kul� etc have nothing to do with the message of Islam; though I do admit it can make Islam a bit more palatable!

If we had all the “knowledge/Ilm� in the Quran, why would we strive for more; the whole idea of “the completeness� of “Deen/way of life� is not compatible with modernity of any kind, however that is defined. Of course we can cherry pick and find quotes to justify absolutely anything that WE WANT TO; that itself is the biggest weakness of religious dogma; interpretable with vast differences of opinions between individuals of equivalent intelligence!

Surely, they can't ALL be true!!!

Re: # 11
Createalpha, could you please exemplify any single "WHY" discussed by science, and I'll be on your side.
This is new science dogma akin to the church dogma ages ago that was repelled by the discussion of "HOW",...it is repelled by discussion of "WHY"

FREE AITZAZ AHSAN

My objective of posting this article and other similar ones on scientific topics is to provoke meaningful discussion about developing a science culture in the third world countries, particularly from my own personal perspective, in the Muslim world. I do not claim to know every thing; my own knowledge is very limited. I am not even a physicist. Even the best physicists don’t know every thing about physics. I am also ready to admit that there are some better qualified persons at Chowk who can write much better on these topics. I am trying to jiggle them to write.

These days, I am reading a very exciting book by Lee Smolin, the physicist who started the work on Loop Quantum Gravity. The book is called “The Trouble with Physics.� It’s a worth reading book. I am thinking of writing a review of this book. According to the latest developments in physics, there is a chance, a good chance, that Einstein’s relativity might be wrong or at least need revision, the same kind of revision that Newton’s theory of gravitation received from the theory of relativity.

So, there doesn’t seem to be an end to scientific discovery. There exists a negative feeling in some quarters of the Muslim world that since science will always remain incomplete and unfinished it’s not worthwhile to expend much effort in developing it. I believe that this is a defeatist attitude. Science must be explored and developed as much as is possible.

Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

Akbarhussein, there is no proof that this god's universe. Or if there is a god. There should not be even a discussion of god. It is stupidity of unprecendented scale. Creationists keep getting their "why's" explained in a scientific manner...more and more. Meanwhile, God's "hows" are a joke.

Boson or whatever...never will there be an end to this complexity. No matter how deep you go, there is always more...fractal style. This is God's universe.
It would be reasonable to discuss God on scientific terms only when scientific understanding starts to explain the WHYs behind these HOWs.

Nasah re #4,5. The Higgs is by no means as elsuive or ghostly a particle as you conjecture it to be, nor is dark matter. The only difference between the two is that while the former exists only hypothetically as yet, the latter, we have enough evidence, does exist in the physical universe too, we just don't know its exact form and its characteristics as of today. Higgs 'field' behaves juts like every other fermionic or bosonic feild: a perfectly normal field causing the matter to interact in a certain way. And Higgs or no Higgs, there are no 'empty' spaces in the universe anyway, there is always one field or the other filling all those spaces, what we see as articles are the physical manifestaitions of those fields, resulting from their perturbation. That's what the advent of quantum field theory and string theory have taught us.

VRV #1, Just a little correction: Higgs is not the Bose's Boson per se, it's an etirely different object which does not follow Bose's statistics, and that's what makes it all the more difficult to hunt down.

Gill what about the E-8 stuff ....how is that connected with what you have said? Your somments and insight would be most valuable.

What a waste of time? Gill another taperecordsque piece from your keyboard.....there is no original thinking here just copied cutted gutted and pasted. you can only publish on front page because of the power you hold.

Damn. there. got it of my chest. Been missing MASADA. He has not commented upon the article as yet.

seriously Gill meister, you educate the uneducated, ill-informed, the great unwashed with your articles. Keep up the good work (T). WIll comment on the article shortly.

#4 Posted by nasah on November 29, 2007 5:37:13 pm

LOL!

Cat among the Pigeons

The darkness was all engulfing. It was overwhelming! It felt cold and lonely! I was alone in that large hall and feeling miserable.

Then there was light – and I was alone no more!

The space was full of strange folks in white coats. Yet, I still felt miserable and lost because they were all talking to each other and they were all ignoring me – at least that’s what I thought until I realized that they were not really ignoring me but they simply could not see me.

Perhaps I was dead and my spirit was roaming the American Physics Society mooch-offathon banquet! It was scary!

Was I really dead?! It was unclear.

But what was clear was that those folks were in a daze and they could not see me.

There was what could only be described as the ecstasy of intense sex writ large on those faces – those faces with their grotesque beards!

There was a low-pitch but very powerful background tune to which those heads were nodding – those heads with the unkempt hair!

And under it all, there was a deep, throbbing musical beat to which those bodies were gyrating – those bodies of the weird, funny shapes! Then suddenly, the ultimate scary thought came to me!

This was no banquet. These folks in white coats were all having sex!

But not the way we think of sex conventionally!

These folks had all discovered a secret, hidden organ which they were continuously stimulating and which was driving their life energy – to the exclusion of the common, mundane activities of life which constrain us common folks who can watch these folks do their act and who can only watch and envy!

We, who would watch mystified as “they� would continuously reach and remain in that exalted state of continual bliss.

And often, oh so often, we would desperately seek to find the source of that feeling – if only we could locate that, that special erogenous zone, that special touch-spot, we seek so desperately.

I focused on that bottle of vintage Champagne on the table – suddenly, a surge of warmth ran all through me. Perhaps it could be done!

Like those folks, I started repeating the mantra:

“Higgs, boson! Higgs, boson!�

I felt something. A momentum seemed to be building.

“Yes, Davis! Yes, Fermilab! Give it to me!�

The hype appeared to heighten!

“Here….I….come! Oh, God….particle!�

Then, suddenly – without any explanation, it all stopped! It was a false signal – a mere random fluctuation which occurs, every once in 10 billion chances.

Higgs boson remained elusive as ever – some particles are simply never meant to supercollide!

Darn those Theoretical Physicists! Such super-teases!

On the lighter side it would also provide us with the final proof that Ghosts do exist -- and they are made of Higg's particles!

Dr. Gill great piece -- lucid and brief -- whenever I look at the picture of the two chalices placed side by side against a dark background -- making two dark faces in profile trying to kiss each other -- once gets an eerie feeling that dark profiles of 'empty' spaces do not seem to be really empty.

Now we are told that they are filled with a 'particle' of emptiness -- called Higgs particles -- albeit an elusive particle like the dark matter -- that can be defined -- one way -- by the visible matter around it.

So ultimately there is nothing 'empty' about the empty space around us or inside us -- indeed.

If that is possible then I would like to propose that we all and everything that is made of matter -- exist in duplicate -- one made of particulate matter -- and the other made of the empty spaces inside that material form.

In other words -- for every 'form' made of particulate matter -- there must be supplementary/complementary 'form' -- made of 'empty spaces' -- beginning from in between the subatomic 'spaces' to the atomic spaces -- to the microscopic 'spacees' to molecular to macromaromolecular -- to well into the outside world of the macrospic spaces.

So Dr. Gill you and I may have a 'hamzad' copy of ourselves -- made up of 'empty spaces' -- having the same shape as ours -- living side by side or within us?

It will be nice for Cern to prove if our 'Humzads' are made of Higg's particles!

Crazy stuff this Higg's partticle business. Enjoyed your mind stimulating article. regards.

I hope Mr. Asadi spare Dr. Gill this time ;-)

Dr. Gill, very well written. It'd be a moment of truth for all scientists at CERN.

Fellow Chowkies,

Boson was named after the Indian physicist Satyendranath Bose who theorised abt it in 1924 & Einstein developed it later on. Higgs of course took it further which is now going to be tested at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for such a particle.

Dr. Gill, a great article. thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking forward to the happenings at CERN..