Comments for All Things Visible and Invisible: Celebrating the “God Particle” at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 23:31:41 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/all-things-visible-and-invisible-celebrating-the-god-particle.html#comment-12333 when we know how something exists that is the same as why it exists I am not sure I understand what you are getting at here. When we know how something exists (e.g., certain pigments on a canvas reflect light at various wavelengths which hit the back of our eye balls and is translated by electrochemical impulses to our brains as particular colors and patterns), that does not necessarily tell us why it exists (why did DaVinci paint the Mona Lisa as he did?). - c matt Mon, 09 Jul 2012 06:46:22 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/all-things-visible-and-invisible-celebrating-the-god-particle.html#comment-12309 "“Basic scientific research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man’s dominion over creation,”" Yet further down, the article emphasises that though it may tell us "how" we exist, it does not tell us "why" we exist. Do we really exist because of "Man's dominion over creation?" I would like to suggest that in most cases, it is the same thing; when we know how something exists that is the same as why it exists. To suggest there is a special "why" category is just sophistry; and saying the "why",- is because "God-did-it" is no answer. Why did God-do-it? --anticipated answer, "because God loves us"; then why does God love us?--and so on and so forth. - Reginald Le Sueur Sun, 08 Jul 2012 02:57:31 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/all-things-visible-and-invisible-celebrating-the-god-particle.html#comment-12303 Francis, Thanks for pointing out Dr Barr's excellent NRO piece from yesterday, which I just read. He explains well why this "discovery" of the Higgs boson alone would not make the CERN LHC (and its $10 billion cost) a great success. But remember the last lines of his column: "Does the Higgs have anything to do with how the universe began? No. Is it the holy grail of physics? No. But its discovery is, for those of us interested in particle physics, something to celebrate." JRW - Joseph Wood Sat, 07 Jul 2012 11:40:52 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/all-things-visible-and-invisible-celebrating-the-god-particle.html#comment-12302 Over at NRO, Professor Stephen Barr explains why if this is the extent of discovery from the LHC it would be a terrible failure. In particular, the real quest is to understand why the strength of the field is so much less that other observations would predict: "God Vibrations from Physics" - Francis Sat, 07 Jul 2012 08:06:15 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/all-things-visible-and-invisible-celebrating-the-god-particle.html#comment-12300 What happened 400 years ago was the revival of the Pythagorean idea that natural laws can be expressed as differential equations. This meant reducing phenomena to their common measurable qualities, such as extension, time, space, and motion, which can be expressed as number. The result was quite astonishingly successful in providing us with predictive models of the natural world, especially with the development of such mathematical tools as Naperian logarithms, the analytical geometry of Descartes and Fermat. One recalls the story of the self-taught Victorian scientist, Faraday, asking James Clark Maxwell, if he could explain, in simple terms, what an electron was. “Aye,” replied Maxwell (being Scottish), “it’s the name of one of the variables I use in my equations.” Alas, such insight into the nature of physics has become rare. - Michael Paterson-Seymour Sat, 07 Jul 2012 04:12:09 +0100