The God Particle at New Year

Spent New Year's Eve in pleasant company over good food. Around the table was a Professor of Quantum Mechanics who was eagerly questioned on the subject of the Large Hadron Super Collider, and the Higgs Boson - a.k.a. "The God Particle".

Last year the scientists who crank the handle on this massive underground machine in Geneva announced that they think it "more probable" that the elusive particle exists, and their work continues under the gaze of the world's press who seem hungry for any news about developments. "But what use is it if we actually find it?" we asked our guest. None that we know of at the moment, came the answer.

And then came the observation about the politics of the scientific community surrounding the whole venture. Apparently, CERN sucks up between a quarter and a third of all Physics reseach money in the world! Our guest cautiously observed that there were many other candidates for research money in the field of Physics that have much stronger possibilities of spinning off into "useful" life-enhancing technologies than the God particle. But they are starved of funds because the CERN juggernaut has to keep rolling along. And keep rolling it will. When asked - what comes after they've found it? - the only reply was that there would be a bigger machine to create to smash things together at higher energies than before.

We do science because we are human. God has woven into our beings a glorious and frustrating thirst for understanding and problem-solving. So the hunger for spending vast sums on pure science will continue. And Christians will want to be part of the great endeavour of "thinking God's thoughts after him", as the Danish astronomer Johannes Kepler described his own scientific endeavours. Albert Einstein observed: "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe - a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."

The heavens declare the glories of God wrote David in Psalm 19. So do subatomic particles, we might add.