Professional Documents
Culture Documents
If you have a dream, don t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can s
ucceed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.
"On behalf of all Muslim Americans, I say this: We want to help. We just first a
sk to be seen and treated as equal citizens of this nation."
The writer is wrong in some assertions: first, USA has a muslim president, disg
uissed as Catholic. Second, no equal rights to women: they need to cover up, men
dont need. Women need permision from husband to go out ( Saudi Arabia ). Cheati
ng women should be stoned, Cheating men is ok ( they can have many wives ). Rega
rding Israel, how sad he is making such comparison: show numbers, Israel doesnt
kill babies nor children. If he takes in account the war in Gaza, where Hamas wa
s launching rockets from schools or forcing people to be on top of buildings, kn
owing that this building was used to launch rockets and will be retaliated by Is
rael...And last but not least: such a religion that is based in teachings of a p
edophile,rapist,thief,burglar,assasin pseudo-prophet is something nobody wants.
Dont blame others for Islamophobia, is Islam world duty to show they evolved and
not kept in 7th century teachings.
you better get a life, an educated life...so far, didnt bring anything positive
to discussion. Get rid of drugs, they are affecting your brain
The universe is the same way. After the cosmos was created, the fields that make
up the universe should have arranged themselves into the lowest possible energy
state.
There is a proviso. It is possible that there could be little valleys in the energ
y slope. As the universe cooled, it might have been caught in one of those littl
e valleys. Ideally, the universe would like to fall into the deeper valley below
, but it could be trapped.
This is an example of a metastable state. As long as the little valley is deep e
nough, it s hard to get out of. Indeed, using classical physics, it is impossible
to get out of it.
However, we don t live in a classical world. In our universe, we must take into ac
count the nature of quantum mechanics. There are many ways to describe the quant
um realm, but one of the properties most relevant here is rare things happen. In e
ssence, if the universe was trapped in a little valley of metastability, it coul
d eventually tunnel out of the valley and fall down into the deeper valley below
.
So what are the consequences of the universe slipping from one valley to another
? Well, the rules of the universe are governed by the valley in which it finds i
tself. In the metastable valley that defines our familiar universe, we have the
rules of physics and chemistry that allow matter to assemble into atoms and, eve
ntually, us.
If the universe slipped into a different valley, the rules that govern matter an
d energy would be different. This means, among other things, particles such as q
uarks and leptons might be impossible. The known forces that govern the interact
ion of those particles might not apply. In short, there is no reason to think we d
exist at all.
Would we have any warning if this transition occurred? Actually, we d have no warn
ing at all. If, somewhere in the cosmos, the universe made a transition from a m
etastable valley to a deeper one, the laws of physics would change and sweep awa
y at the speed of light. As the shockwave passed over the solar system, we d simpl
y disappear as the laws that govern the matter that makes us up ceased to apply.
One second we d be here; the next we d be gone.
Coming back to the original question, what does the Higgs boson tell us about th
is? It turns out that we can use the Standard Model to tell us whether we are in
a stable, unstable or metastable universe.
We know we don t live in an unstable one, because we re here, but the other two opti
ons are open. So, what is the answer? It depends on two parameters: the mass of
the top quark and the mass of the Higgs boson.
If we follow our understanding of the Standard Model, combined with our best mea
surements, it appears that we live in a metastable universe that could one day d
isappear without warning. You can be forgiven if you take that pronouncement as
a reason to indulge in some sort of rare treat tonight.
But before you splurge too much, take heed of a few words of caution. Using the
same Standard Model we used to figure out whether the cosmos is metastable, we c
an predict how long it is likely to take for quantum mechanics to let the univer
se slip from the metastable valley to the stable one: It will take trillions of
years.
Mankind has only existed for about 100,000 years, and the sun will grow to a red
giant and incinerate the Earth in about 5 billion years. Since we re talking abou
t the universe existing as a metastable state for trillions of years, maybe over
indulging tonight might be a bad idea.
It is important to
e universe is in a
een that way since
s no effect at all
Returning to the original, overly hyped media stories, you can see that there wa
s a kernel of truth and a barrel full of hysteria. There is no danger, and it s co
mpletely OK to resume watching with great interest the news reports of the disco
very and careful measurement of the Higgs boson. And, yes, you have to go to wor
k tomorrow.