A
few days ago I was going through a blog in the Times of India that cried out that Higgs Boson has been confirmed. I
treat ToI as fluff, as sensation seeking. Yet, this trumpet blaring caught my
attention and I suffered through the post. As expected the post was light
weight, ironically, dealing with the heaviest elementary particle thus far
located.
The
next morning I noticed a similar headline on Huffpo [2]. My curiosity was re-ignited. This article was a little
better, though much of it has been thrashed in the media over the past few
months, including in a detailed series by Dennis Overbye in The New York Times [1], that had included
sharp human-interest angles.
Yet
the Huffpo article, which is
prominent only for the fact that it mentioned the assertion by the team leader
of one of the two experiments that the Higgs (or, something close enough)
exists at the 5 sigma level [in a comment] sent me to a number of select tweets
[3].
Now,
this is a post that tries to create a meaningful context out of these choicest
of 140 character long thoughts about supposedly the deepest question, does God
exist. If only Douglas Adams were still alive, we would have got the answer,
42!
But
before getting to the tweets let me tell you the filters I used to select the
tweets to discuss here. The tweet has to mention / even imply / argue against at
least one of the following: God (His existence), religious scripture, and
atheists. To set the stage further, I am also copy-pasting a comment on the
article below:
“For
those that have a background in physics beyond the high school level, just
enjoy this new discovery and bask in the wonderment of it all. For those
detractors, especially the religious ones, don't even waste your time. This is
truly a wonderful moment in the history of science and a big relief after a
long hold your breath period. I believe that what's next will be even more mind
boggling.”
Now to the tweets.
Naming of the particle must have come at an inspired moment, to bring out the stupidity of people who equate reality with the name it is given!
Perhaps unwittingly these tweets confine God /
Jesus (Bible being the accelerator or the proxy) within the CERN facility; in
particular in the detection chambers of the ATLAS and CMS experiments. So
limited is He!
The implication is that the question “Who created God?” has already been answered! The tweets help in exposing stupidity, not that we needed a USD 10 billion facility, and 6,000 scientists and engineers working on the project to do this! The money spent on CERN to locate the God Particle served at least one useful purpose!
This is fun, because it breaks the monotony of the tweets presented thus far and has a tone of irreverence. But, I do wonder why not like the Trishul, for example?
This
is the scientific illiteracy embedded in society one has to confront. A serious
question – Do you know whether the next
time you jump off (no hang-glider etc. strapped on to your back) the roof of
a building you will not rise up or float in air? If your answer is yes, can you
prove it? If No, what will you do to
make it a Yes?
OK,
but elementary particles cannot be distinguished from one another and do not have any personality. How exactly,
then, your God is different than my God (never mind I do not have a God)? Seriously,
God is a burning bush in The Ten
Commandments. Do you sport a head of burning bush? (That was cheap, but
cheap begets – this word is such a favorite of the writers of Bible –cheap,
unfair and dishonest!).
This
one takes God out of CERN! I am now confused – is God inside CERN or outside
it? Even Hiranyakashibu was not so confused!
The
above exhausts the tweets I had chosen to comment upon. I would not want to
test your patience beyond this, even as I tested my own even writing about it
(and, I am sure it shows), not to mention the preparation that went into this
post. I can only hope you will appreciate my tenacity.
I
have to thank the scientist who thought of naming Higgs Boson as God Particle.
It gave me a chance to assess stupidity, beyond my own.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
References
2 comments:
The world belongs to the ignorant, the foolish and the wicked. Times of India belongs to them too.
If God indeed makes an appearance on the earth, the very people who swear by him/her will be the first ones to kill him!
So Matheikal,what you are saying is this: if one is wicked, foolish and ignorant, he or she will feel at home within the 140 character universe of Twitter, all the while tweeting!
RE
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