And you thought losing to Buffalo in overtime was a bummer. Stephen Hawking can always take the ruination of your day to new depths.
Much ballyhoo gripped the science community in 2012 when they supposedly proved the 50-year-old theory of a guy named Higgs, that there is a particle that essentially gives size and shape to everything that exists - but even better, that Earth scientists might have the ability to amuse themselves by messing with said particle.
They named this the "God particle" because, I guess, atheistic scientists like Hawking want you to understand that what you think was done by an eternal Creator was really done by some inanimate force. And oh, by the way, infused with too much energy, it just might destroy the universe.
Be careful, Doc!
At very high energy levels, the Higgs boson could cause space and time suddenly collapse - and 'we wouldn't see it coming', the former Cambridge professor of mathematics says.
The God particle, which gives shape and size to everything that exists, could cause a 'catastrophic vacuum delay' if scientists were to put it under extreme stress.
A disaster like this is very unlikely for the time being as physicists do not have a particle accelerator large enough create such an experiment, but Prof Hawking's comments have excited scientists, the Sunday Times reported.
The theoretical physicist wrote his thoughts on the Higgs boson in the preface to a new book, Starmus, a collection of lectures by scientists and astronomers including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Queen guitarist Brian May.
Prof Hawking wrote: 'The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become megastable at energies above 100bn giga-electron-volts (GeV).
'This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light.
'This could happen at any time and we wouldn't see it coming.'
Well that sucks, although I guess it's some consolation that Hawking's doomsday prediction has "excited scientists." What are they clinging to, anyway?
Honestly, I find this more amusing than anything. The heavens and the earth will pass away when God (not the "God particle") decides they're going to. If this particle is the tool God will use to do it, then one cheer to the science community for discovering it, but two raspberries for failing (as usual) to distinguish elements of the creation from the Creator. I realize some particle can't cramp your style by establishing laws to which you are held accountable, but then that same particle can't send its son to pay your debt and offer you grace when you screw up like the real God does.
I have no doubt we'll receive plenty of warning, although I suspect Stephen Hawking - if he's still around - will fail to recognize them. He has a problem with looking to the stars but not knowing how to look beyond them to the eternal force from which they came.
