The theoretical physics genius Stephen Hawking has set the cat among the pigeons once again. He has warned that the “God particle”, or Higgs boson, discovered in 2012, might destroy the universe if it becomes unstable. Science, of course, has already plenty to worry. What his fellow scientists fear most is not that Hawking could be right but that the world cannot afford to test his dire prediction, His followers have been alarmed by Hawking’s warnings before, for instance, on artificial intelligence, invading aliens and man-made viruses wiping out the human race. The greatest fear would, however, have to do with funding as Cassandra-like warnings may put off governments from further testing with the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. The LHC has already cost $13.5 billion to prove the existence of the “God particle.”
The sobering thought is the universe may not end anytime soon as a particle accelerator about twice the size of Earth would have to be built if it were to touch the 100 billion giga-electron-volts (GEV) threshold being talked about before the Higgs field can be expected to destabilise. The positive is that there is new physics yet to be discovered, as a Cern theoretical physicist put it. Stretching research to further our knowledge of the creation of the universe has been man’s greatest endeavour. This should not stop, although great minds are casting some doubts over man’s ability to control experiments with science in its quest for the ultimate truth.
