Higgs What?

It’s Einstein’s theory, the Peter Principle, and the Dunning-Krueger Effect.  So why is it Occam’s Razor?  Why isn’t it Occam’s method, or Occam’s rule of thumb, which is what it is?

Boson, Boson, Who’s Got the Boson?

I never got the whole Spike Lee thing, either, why he’d refer to his films as “A Spike Lee Joint.”  It’s not a joint, dude, it’s a movie.  The word joint is used for too many other things as it is.

Which brings us up to the Higgs Boson.  This is apparently a very big deal and all the scientists are excited about it, so I guess it’s cool, but Higgs Boson?  I get the Higgs part, it’s named after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, who was one of the first to suggest it’s existence, back in the 1960s, but everybody was doing acid back then and they’re just getting around to confirming his theory now, but what in the world is a boson?

As a nickname, they call it “The God Particle,” which seems a bit presumptuous even to me, and I’m an atheist.  What do they mean “God Particle,” did it create the universe?  Well, I guess that is sort of what they’re saying.  The Higgs Boson is what puts the Tron in Neutron, the oomph in the atom.

So, I’m very happy that scientists are learning more about atoms and I’m sure at some point this will impact our lives, hopefully in more positive ways than negative ones.  But it’s all over my head.

You know what would be cool?  This is what I thought when I first saw the headline “Cern Scientists to Make Huge, Gigantic Announcement.”  I thought they were going to confirm that phantom faster than light particle that they thought they’d discovered last September.  Now, that would be Star Trek stuff.  That would be seriously cool.