From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2014 9:08 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe If I'm allowed to answer (not being a physicist) ... I had the impression that this was already considered to be a possibility - that the current state of the universe might be a false vaccuum (or something like that) which could eventually drop into a lower energy state and destroy the current universe, a bit like dropping a chunk of ice-9 in the ocean. Yes, perhaps the universe finds itself in a metastable valley… some local minima in which the laws (or perhaps the values of key constants) of the universe are amenable to life as we know it… and this is something that is discussed. I remember reading about an experiment where they were seeking to test some ancient uranium source from a mine in Africa that had (I forget the details exactly) but think that it had something to do with having been an ancient source that was concentrated enough for fission to have occurred and they very carefully measured the decay products and isotope remaining in the ore (our time) and by so doing were able to deduce that some key property (maybe it was the nuclear strong force) was exceedingly close to the current values for this force at a point in time billions of years ago. Proving that – even if we are in a valley of metastability that it has lasted a long time. As Kim pointed out dark energy may eventually rip even the nucleus of atoms apart… as it overwhelms every other force in the universe. It occurs to me that surely the amount of energy directed at a given region of space (which I assume contains lots of Higgs bosons, or at least the Higgs field) must exceed the specified limit inside things like supernovae and quasars, so presumably if this was likely it would have happened by now??? As Terren pointed out… perhaps it has happened in an uncountable number of other universes. Personally I see no reason why anything should remain fixed and immutable, including the fundamental laws of the universe. I was more curious if this represented new findings on this interesting subject of the metastable nature of the very fabric of reality. -Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
RE: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe
'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List Mon, 08 Sep 2014 10:18:42 -0700
- RE: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. t... 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
- Re: Higgs Boson particle, a.k... LizR
- Re: Higgs Boson particle,... Terren Suydam
- Re: Higgs Boson parti... 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
- Re: Higgs Boson particle,... Kim Jones
- RE: Higgs Boson particle,... 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
- Re: Higgs Boson particle,... meekerdb
- Re: Higgs Boson parti... LizR
- Re: Higgs Boson p... LizR
- Re: Higgs Boson parti... John Clark
- Re: Higgs Boson p... Stephen Paul King
- Re: Higgs Boson particle, a.k... Stephen Paul King
- Re: Higgs Boson particle,... LizR
- Re: Higgs Boson parti... Stephen Paul King
- Re: Higgs Boson parti... Stephen Paul King
- Re: Higgs Boson p... LizR