The God Particle and Other Things I Want Science to Prove
Science. It’s pretty crazy, right? We’ve used it to make all kinds of neat stuff: space travel, medicine, alternative fuel sources, Gak. But we’ve also used science to discover things about our universe. Discoveries are different than inventions; a discovery is finding proof that something is, whereas an invention is bringing something new into being. There are also theories, which are explanations of why things “is what they is.” A discovery can corroborate a theory, and they often do.
This week, a bunch of science-y guys made a big discovery (or big steps towards a big discovery) that will impact how we understand physics. Like, all the physics.
The Higgs Boson has been dubbed “the god particle” by some scientists, but mostly by journalists who don’t know much about science, like yours truly (unless you count Political Science, which I have a degree in [Clark University, class of 2011 {also, I’m being facetious, I’m not actually bragging about having a college degree}]). It’s a science thing that people have theorized about the existence of for a while; its existence would prove most of our theoretical understandings of physics.
Basically, the existence of such a boson would answer a lot of questions we still have about why there is stuff instead of there not being stuff. Stuff being like, all the matter in the universe.
But again, I only know political science. I could tell you what effect the Higgs Boson had on the 2011 US Congressional election (the answer is “none,” unless you count the fact that without it there wouldn’t be a United States, a Congress, elections or 2011), but I can’t tell you much about the boson.
But this discovery got me thinking about things I wish science could prove. Like, if the entirety of the scientific community were my own personal Mythbusters, what would I have them prove?
Gay marriage is okay
To establish this, first science guys would have to establish that there is a true morality, that “okay” has meaning. Then they’d have to establish the obvious: that there’s nothing wrong with loving people with the same naughty bits as you. This would also establish that hating people for loving the “wrong” person is just super silly. It would be awesome.
What caused the “bloop”
The “bloop” is this low frequency and incredibly loud sound that was recorded underwater by a bunch of science equipment (see, science does so much cool crap, right?) But no one knows what made it. So basically something very loud and very large is underwater and we don’t know what it is. I’m pretty sure we need to find out what it is, because it’s almost definitely some kind of badass sea monster.
That our conception of history is correct
There are a lot of crazy things (Easter Island, Stonehenge, Mayan architecture, maybe Atlantis, cave paintings, the Ancient Aliens guy) that suggest that maybe our current understanding of the history of the world is wrong. I don’t want that. I spent enough time learning history that I can’t deal with there being some sort of super-advanced civilization that existed in the 3rd century BC and had like a prehistoric internet or something. Let’s stick with what we have, and find some document that proves that there’s nothing we are wrong about in world history.
I’m an awesome dancer
Okay, this one’s important. This is a theory that lots of people believe in that just needs to be scientifically proven. First, scientists need to prove that it is possible for something to be objectively awesome, then they just need to watch my sick moves and correlate that with scientific objective awesomeness. Should be easy.
Life has meaning
Proving the meaning of life would be very difficult, so lets just turn it into a yes or no question: does life have meaning? Figure it out, science! Jeez, what’s taking you so long?And lets make sure the answer is “yes” because otherwise that’s kind of dismal.
Also this is gonna sound totally incongruous because I found this picture after I wrote this article, but this is the scientist that came up with the Higgs Boson theory watching the announcement that his theory is correct. Awesome.
