What would Teilhard de Chardin write about the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, popularly known as the “God particle”?
In 2012 the CERN laboratory outside Geneva confirmed the discovery of a so-called Higgs boson, the basic particle that makes up the Higgs field, essential to the existence of matter. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 has now been awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for their independently proposed theories that made the search for the Higgs particle possible.
What would Teilhard think? For one substantive exploration of this in some depth, check out “The Higgs Boson and the Divine Milieu” at www.teilhard.com.
One hint for me is the quote from St. Paul Teilhard so favored, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) For Teilhard the Higgs field might seem almost like a scientific verification of the immanence of God in all matter. He might have also delighted in the soubriquet “God-particle” in the light of this explanation from the CERN website of the importance of the Higgs field, which gives mass to matter: “Without mass, the universe would be a very different place. For example, if the electron had no mass, there would be no atoms. Hence there would be no matter as we know it, no molecules, no chemistry, no biology and no people.” http://cms.web.cern.ch/news/about-higgs-boson
Where do you think Teilhard would come down in this?
