This is my response to Krauss's absurd ideas about the Higgs particle, published in the July 16 issue of Newsweek. I sent this in as a letter to the editor.
Lawrence Krauss’s outrageous enthusiasm for the supposed atheistic implications of the discovery of the Higgs particle is misplaced. Even if the Higgs particle is the real McCoy, and thus inflationary cosmology is vindicated, inflationary models cannot be extended to past infinity. While Krauss claims the Higgs particle solves the problem of “creating ‘stuff’ from ‘no stuff,” it does nothing of the kind, since quantum space is still something, and since it appears only after the Big Bang. We still need a Banger.
Lawrence Krauss’s outrageous enthusiasm for the supposed atheistic implications of the discovery of the Higgs particle is misplaced. Even if the Higgs particle is the real McCoy, and thus inflationary cosmology is vindicated, inflationary models cannot be extended to past infinity. While Krauss claims the Higgs particle solves the problem of “creating ‘stuff’ from ‘no stuff,” it does nothing of the kind, since quantum space is still something, and since it appears only after the Big Bang. We still need a Banger.
Hello Dr. Groothuis,
ReplyDeleteGreat reply! I just wanted to note that Krauss's name is misspelled once in the letter.
Keep up the good and godly work!
Godspeed
I cannot conceive how the Higgs boson and the associated Higgs mechanism are in any way physical "evidence" supporting atheism. Let me argue the contrary.
ReplyDeleteMassless particles (e.g. photon, gluon, graviton) travel at the speed of light. By special relativity, particles traveling at the speed of light do not experience time and hence can undergo no change except emission and absorption. The Higgs mechanism confers mass to particles that interact with the Higgs field, and thus makes it possible for the fermions to have mass. Hence things made of fermions (which include our human bodies and the things with which we interact, known as baryonic matter) experience time. The Higgs boson is why the Universe, our planet, and our species are embedded in history. The Higgs mechanism is God's way of assuring that His creation is not static and timeless.