RE: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe

[Chris de Morsella]

What do the physicists on this list think about Hawkins recent claim that the Higgs Boson can become metastable at energies above  10^11 GeV and potentially cause the end of the universe by creating an unstoppable vacuum expanding out at the speed of light?

Is there something – theoretically possible -- to this latest conjecture of his, or has Stephen been watching too many Dr. Who reruns?

 

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- As first discovered by the Sunday Times of the United Kingdom, in the preface of an upcoming book, Starmus, Stephen Hawking claims the Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe. He claims if enough energy is directed at the particle, it could cause space and time to completely collapse. He also claims that we "wouldn't see it coming."

The Higgs Boson particle is said to be the particle that gives matter its mass. "The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100bn gigaelectronvolts (GeV)," Hawking writes. He claims that under such conditions, it is theoretically possible the particle would cause an unstoppable vacuum to form that would expand at the speed of light.

The likelihood of such an event occurring is apparently very low. According to Hawking, "A particle accelerator that reaches 100bn GeV would be larger than Earth, and is unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate." The end of days scenario is then very theoretical, but he still believe it is possible

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2014/09/07/Higgs-Boson-particle-could-destroy-universe-according-to-Stephen-Hawking/9651410124628/#ixzz3CgptXOvK

[LizR]

If I'm allowed to answer (not being a physicist) ...

I had the impression that this was already considered to be a possibility - that the current state of the universe might be a false vaccuum (or something like that) which could eventually drop into a lower energy state and destroy the current universe, a bit like dropping a chunk of ice-9 in the ocean.

It occurs to me that surely the amount of energy directed at a given region of space (which I assume contains lots of Higgs bosons, or at least the Higgs field) must exceed the specified limit inside things like supernovae and quasars, so presumably if this was likely it would have happened by now???

[Terren Suydam]

My first thought was that this has already happened in an uncountable number of universes but we didn't survive those.

Terren

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[Kim Jones]

Yes, yes, yes, and while we're at it I have heard it discreetly rumoured that Dark Energy, the "force" or property of space that is causing the universe to acceleratde its expansion might similarly become a runaway process causing an "atomic rip" where matter literally tears itself apart on the back of this galloping inverted-gravitational nightmare. 

What if they both decided to happen at the same time? You could have a runaway vacuum expanding into a dintegrating matter field at the speed of loght.

But of course, there will always be someone there to observe it, now won't there.

Kim

[Chris de Morsella]

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2014 9:08 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe

 

If I'm allowed to answer (not being a physicist) ...

 

I had the impression that this was already considered to be a possibility - that the current state of the universe might be a false vaccuum (or something like that) which could eventually drop into a lower energy state and destroy the current universe, a bit like dropping a chunk of ice-9 in the ocean.

 

Yes, perhaps the universe finds itself in a metastable valley… some local minima in which the laws (or perhaps the values of key constants) of the universe are amenable to life as we know it… and this is something that is discussed. I remember reading about an experiment where they were seeking to test some ancient uranium source from a mine in Africa that had (I forget the details exactly) but think that it had something to do with having been an ancient source that was concentrated enough for fission to have occurred and they very carefully measured the decay products and isotope remaining in the ore (our time) and by so doing were able to deduce that some key property (maybe it was the nuclear strong force) was exceedingly close to the current values for this force at a point in time billions of years ago. Proving that – even if we are in a valley of metastability that it has lasted a long time.

As Kim pointed out dark energy may eventually rip even the nucleus of atoms apart… as it overwhelms every other force in the universe.

 

It occurs to me that surely the amount of energy directed at a given region of space (which I assume contains lots of Higgs bosons, or at least the Higgs field) must exceed the specified limit inside things like supernovae and quasars, so presumably if this was likely it would have happened by now???

 

As Terren pointed out… perhaps it has happened in an uncountable number of other universes.

Personally I see no reason why anything should remain fixed and immutable, including the fundamental laws of the universe. I was more curious if this represented new findings on this interesting subject of the metastable nature of the very fabric of reality.

-Chris

 

 

[meekerdb]

I don't think you can get energies like 10^11Gev even in supernova. The only place I can
think of that might produce that kind of energy is approaching the singularity of a black
hole. Of course we very much doubt there is singularity (infinities are in equations, not
reality), but maybe that's how Nature avoids a singularity.

Brent

[Chris de Morsella]

By the way not worrying much because very high energy cosmic rays (that have been recorded with energies even, on rare occasions, exceeding the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit -- the theoretical limit to how powerful a distant source cosmic ray can be) are hitting things (including our own planet) all the time and the metastable local minima has not been tipped over the boundary into a new -- possibly very different nature of reality.

Some of these cosmic rays -- so called extreme energy cosmic rays (from distant sources) -- have significant energy levels that exceed this limit (5×1019 eV)

Wiki article on this:

Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

				Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit - Wikipedia, the free enc... The Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit (GZK limit) is a theoretical upper limit on the energy of cosmic rays (high energy charged particles from space) coming from "dis...
				View on en.wikipedia.org	Preview by Yahoo

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From: Terren Suydam <terren...@gmail.com>
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sunday, September 7, 2014 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: Higgs Boson particle, a.k.a. the "God particle," could end the universe

[LizR]

Yes I also wondered if this occurred in black holes, but of course we can't find out .... well not safely, or communicably! If these energies don't occur in SN etc then I certainly don't see us producing them in the near future. I only guessed SN because Hawking said we'd need an accelerator "larger than Earth"  which doesn't sound THAT unfeasible for something that might occur naturally (like those giant space lasers). Of course he didn't say how much larger! Maybe he meant "larger than the solar system" or the galaxy, which of course makes a natural equivalent seem a lot less likely.

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[LizR]

Actually it looks like Chris has come up with a natural source exceeding the limit, which was, of course, all I was suggesting. If anything does this, then the idea becomes highly unlikely, because it should have already happened.

(Nice to be right, even if the details were wrong :-)

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi,

   Has any one figured out how Hawking for that number and will you explain it to us? Do energies of that scale even occur in the formation of black holes?

[LizR]

For the second question, as Brent pointed out physical quantities go to infinity (or more realistically to the Planck scale) in black hole formation. In other words they probably go as high as the universe will allow - but since they're (normally?) inside an event horizon, we won't be able to observe the results, even in principle.

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[Stephen Paul King]

Right, but that would make Hawking's claim even more ridiculous! An exception to it would not be ever seen.... 

   Has he lost it? I do think so... Its a sad day. :_(

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[Stephen Paul King]

Could it be that he is playing a joke on us? "...is unlikely to be funded..." Really!? What could be used to pay for such? Not enough mass in the Solar system by my count.

On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 2:45 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[meekerdb]

If the Higgs field decays the effect would be to make the quarks massless and protons and neutrons would disintegrate.  But inside a black hole it would have no effect on the rest of the universe.

Brent

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi Brent,

   Yes, but then we have to deal with the very real possibility that we exist within a Black hole! How do we align the Baryon decay with "we live in a black hole"? The latter is much most plausible, IMHO.

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[John Clark]

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 1:52 PM, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

> I don't think you can get energies like 10^11Gev even in supernova.

I don't know about a supernova but we know for a fact that you can get energies like that somewhere. The record energy for a cosmic ray particle (probably a proton) was detected in 1991 with a energy of 3*10^11 Gev, that's 40 million times as much energy as what he LHC in Switzerland can produce. We can only speculate on how it was made but we do have some idea where and when. According to something called the CZK limit cosmic rays with energy greater than 5*10^10 Gev can't be coming from a place further away than 160 million light years because if they were then interactions with the cosmic microwave background radiation would slow them down and rob them of energy.  Cosmically speaking 160 million light years is pretty close and 160 million years is pretty recent.

> The only place I can think of that might produce that kind of energy is approaching the singularity of a black hole. 

Or maybe the decay product of some very exotic particle unknown to science  was made in the first nanosecond after the Big Bang and has only decayed recently into a super fast ultra energetic proton. Or maybe it came from something even stranger.

 John K Clark

 

[Stephen Paul King]

Or maybe Hawking is "messing with us". He is well known for his pranks....

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[LizR]

That was obviously intended as a joke, but it doesn't mean the article itself is.