Some Thoughts On Higgs Boson

I'm not very sociable, but there are people on this planet I would go out of my way to have a beer with. David Horsey is one of those people. His July 5, 2012 cartoon and column provide a pretty good reason why. Yes, both have his trademark snark, but his column raises some pretty serious issues which he deals with in a wonderfully refreshing manner.

The "God particle" -- the Higgs boson -- exists, and that is good news. Without it, the universe would fly apart and we would have much more to worry about than a jobless recovery, immigrants sneaking across the border or the fate of "Obamacare."

On the Fourth of July, after 50 years of theorizing, hard research and sending protons careening into each other at something near the speed of light, physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research announced that they have almost certainly detected a boson. For the uninitiated -- which is about 99% of us -- a boson is one of two elementary particles that quantum theory says make up the universe. The other particles are fermions, also known as matter, such as protons and electrons. ...

The news about the "God particle" is one of those challenging bits of information that can make everything else feel terrifyingly insignificant. It is a reminder that each of us is merely a tiny, carbon-based organism existing for a brief moment on a small planet that, by the scale of the universe, is no more singular than a grain of sand on a beach. We are dust in the wind, utterly inconsequential in the dark expanse of time and space.

At least that's one way to look at it. Another way to see it is that, in all that vastness, only we are aware of the awesome complexity. Only we strive to know and understand. All the rest is mere physical phenomena. What we do in our brief lives on this small planet may be the only thing that matters.

Thus, it behooves us to use our sliver of time well. We can waste it watching "Dancing With The Stars" or we can reach for the stars. We can squander it being petty, cruel, selfish or destructive, or we can be creative, compassionate, kind and just. The Higgs boson may glue this universe together, but we are the ones who give it meaning.

Yes.

Wise man, that David Horsey.