Is the Higgs Boson Particle Traveling Back in Time to Kill Sarah Conner?

Raikus — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:39:00 GMT

It's there... somewhere. Popular models of known physics say that it has to exist, but no one has found it. Can the elusive "God Particle" ever be discovered or is Higgs Boson the universe's ultimate "reset" button?

For those that don't casually follow particle physics, the Higgs boson particle is a theoretical elementary particle (a particle that is so base it is not made up of any other components) that would help explain the origin of mass in the Universe -- that is, where the "big" in "big bang" came from. Without the idea of the Higgs boson particle there could be no way to explain the original creation of mass and how particles are actually held together. In essence, it's the glue of the universe.

Enter the Large Hadron Collider -- a particle super-collider built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN -- don't ask) built specifically to prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson particle. You've probably heard about it. When it went online (briefly) in September of last year many doom-and-gloomers were fearful that it could destroy the world -- either through the creation of a black hole singularity or through some other unimagined consequence of trying to find the "God particle." After all, this is the particle thought to be attributable for all mass in the Universe. Who knows what smashing protons together at incredibly high speeds to reveal this particle could do.

However the LHC never got much use. Only nine days after going online it had a fault with one of the magnets responsible for bending the protons along the circular path of the collider. That, along with a few other issues, has led to a projected date of December of this year before it can be brought online once again.

A very eccentric theory suggests that the problems experienced by the LHC might not be coincidence. It may actually be the Higgs boson particle at work.

Particle physicists Holger Bech Nielsen (who is one of the founders of String Theory) and Masao Ninomiya both devised a theory in 2008 that the Higgs boson particle could be so abhorrent to nature that it would actually travel against time to halt its own creation. Normally such an outlandish theory would have no credence, but considering the source (two highly respected physicists that are at the top of their field) coupled with the extreme trouble the LHC has been having people have began taking notice of it.

Let's discuss the theory as if it were true. The idea is that, in an alternate timeline, the LHC was built and performed as expected. It succeeded in smashing protons together and exposed (or even created) the Higgs boson particle for the first time in our reality. If we look at the universe as a machine with a series of checks and balances, then Higgs boson -- a particle that travels in the opposite direction of time -- could represent the smallest ever wrench in the largest ever gears. Just the introduction of the particle could create a chain reaction that would destroy the universe. So with the universe's use of checks and balances it makes the Higgs boson particle perform its own reset -- it travels back in time from the point of its creation and changes the probability that it will ever be made.

That would mean that we're currently living in a second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) timeline in which Higgs boson is trying to make sure it's never created.

The idea of a particle traveling counter to the flow of time may hang a lot of people up, but that's only if you think of time as a string or river (as it is popularly shown as). However if we think of time as a dimension it doesn't seem nearly as crazy. If time truly is the fourth dimension then you should be able to move around in it. After all, you can move up/down/left/right/etc. in the second dimension and the third dimension introduces depth and space to your abilities. Only in the first dimension do things have no option but to remain at rest or go forward. So unless the fourth dimension cycles back to the first dimensional way of thinking there should be a way to traverse it like the second and third. Perhaps Higgs boson is the means for that.

The most interesting part of the Nielsen/Ninomiya theory is that Higgs boson is a probability changer. What if the odds as everyone knows them are no longer using the same equation, only no one told the odds makers? If we introduce a particle in the future that can come back in time, how would we know it's there? Yet it still would be there representing another element that we're not taking into account.

Another way to think of it is as a deck of cards. Except in this deck there are tens of thousands of cards. Also in this deck is one "death card" -- or a card that represents a halt in progression. The chances are tens of thousands to one that you draw the death card. So odds are you'll never discover it and will continue progressing towards the future. However if the probability of drawing the death card is somehow raised and you draw it, it would represent a fundamental change in future progress.

That could be the largest danger that the Higgs bosom particle represents -- a game changer that no one knows about. So what would happen if the LHC succeeds in discovering the Higgs boson? Would this timeline simply come to a stop, crumble all together or revert to a past point where the final destruction could be changed.

No one can say for sure but it sure is fun to think about.

The Wastebucket : god particle

Is the Higgs Boson Particle Traveling Back in Time to Kill Sarah Conner?