Talk:The God Particle (book)

In the Beginning (The Higgs?)
I am proud to annouce the start of a talk page for The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? Ti-30X (talk) 13:04, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism by Higgs on the name "God Particle": "Lederman has a lot to answer for" - source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/14/the-higgs-boson-why-scientists-hate-that-you-call-it-the-god-particle/

Some points worth writing about in the article
In Chapter 3 Lederman gives the reader insight into the contributions to science and the world from the irreverent Galileo, the dynamic party animal Tycho Brahe, the "keep to himself" Kepler, and the genius Isaac Newton. "Newton's impact on philosophy and religion was as profound as his influence on physics. All [from] that key equation F = ma". page 90 Ti-30X (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Somehow Newton realized that all objects were made of atoms page 92 Ti-30X (talk) 13:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

More Intro and begin chapters with references The book is written for anyone interested in learning about paritcle physics. And no math is required. The history of the contributions made by the main players in physics from ancient Greece to present day 1992 is interspersed with Dr. Lederman's personal experience in the field of particle physics. It is a good behind the scenes look at being on the "firing line" of particle physics. The reader gets to participate in looking at the theories and the long hours in the paricle accelerators. actually I did this last night Ti-30X (talk) 23:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

A Brief Look at the Chapters

'''Chapter 1 The Invisible Soccer Ball. ''' This is an apt name for this chapter. Dr. Lederman uses a metaphor of a soccer game with an invisible ball to depict the process by which the existence of particles are deduced. This metaphor is useful to get a sense of the experience of a particle physicist as he or she '''conducts his or her experiments in the particle accelerator. {4} [5] [6] Chapter 2 The First Particle Physicist''' Actually I did this last nightTi-30X (talk) 23:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

The info on the chapters is from me, of course based on the book. I forgot to log in one time. Ti-30X (talk) 02:26, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I recently beefed up the introduction, added information about Tycho Brahe, and edited the part on Galileo. I expect to write more on Galileo and Brahe based on what is in this book.Ti-30X(talk) 22:43, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Ti-30X (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC) Wolfgang Pauli - 1930 invented the neutrno (antineutrino) to make the beta decay compatible with conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and spin. Enrico Fermi picked up the ball because Pauli did not really pursue this or publish. Enrico Fermi - "In 1931 Enrico Fermi renamed Pauli's "neutron" to neutrino, and in 1934 Fermi published a very successful model of beta decay in which neutrinos were produced." 1956 Clyde Cowan, Frederick Reines detected the neutrino, 25 years after it was postulated. Ti-30X (talk) 03:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC) User:Ti-30X|Ti-30X]] (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Accessible Articles
According to wikipedia guidlines "Articles in Wikipedia should be accessible to the widest possible audience. For most articles, this means accessible to a general audience. Every reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that material is presented in the most widely accessible manner possible. If an article is written in a highly technical manner, but the material permits a more accessible explanation, then editors are strongly encouraged to rewrite it." This is at Make technical articles accessible. In light of this guideline I have made this article simple with simple and understandable explanations. Ti-30X (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?
You don't have to use, etc., templates for references, but please do keep them uniform and do avoid repetitions. I fixed those in The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? this time, but I hope you understand that it is tedious work, which could easily be avoided during the original input, and that I shall not do this so often and shall consider reverting the edits. Please check my message above on how to avoid reference repetition or ask details. Materialscientist (talk) 04:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Pauli and the neutrino
You state that "And, in 1930, Wolfgang Pauli wanted to distance himself from his prediction of the neutrino in the weak interaction.". What documentation is there for this? Pauli proposed the existence of the neutrino is famous letter written on Dec 4, 1930 (full German text English abridgement), so how can he have distanced himself from the prediction in 1930! --PloniAlmoni (talk) 11:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for asking. (This is actually exciting !) One of the sources is the book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?  somewhere around pages 274 and 275. I had come across this story before, and this book reinforced it. In his time, Pauli was known as the consciensce of physics, or one of them, as kind of a nickname. He had a reputation for being critical of other's theories. In other words, he could be very vocal about this, or in still other words, blunt. He is famously quoted as saying, "It's not even wrong" when presented with any theory that he thought had no merit.


 * So, aware of all this, when he postulated the neutrino, he knew that he was opening himself up to the same type of critism. As you may or may not know, when he proposed the nuetrino, he knew that he was proposing something that could not be detected or measured at the time. To him, to make such a proposal was close to being irresponisble. In other words, if he knew of someone else postulating a particle that could not be detected or measured, (back in 1930) he would consider that person to be irresponsible. The only reason he stuck his neck out was because he was a ferverent believer in the conservation of energy. Or, another way I have heard it said, he postulated the neutrino to save the Law of Conservation of Energy, and in fact this is so stated in the letter you have there. This was Big.


 * Beta decay results came up short in energy and momentum. In other words, the values that he started with were not the same after the decay. Conservation of Energy and Conservation of Momentum are both fundamental tenets of physics, and it was back then, as well. To overturn these Conservation laws, is to overturn a couple of the laws of nature. For a clearer picture, here is quote from the Wikipedia article Conservation of Energy, which is accurate-


 * "The law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant. A consequence of this law is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The only thing that can happen with energy in an isolated system is that it can change form, for instance kinetic energy can become thermal energy."


 * Well, he was left with two choices. Either the Conservation laws were being overturned or there was a new particle carrying off momentum and energy.


 * So, he wanted to distance himself from this proposal because of his conventional outlook, and because he had been so critical of others. In addition, at the time the mind set of the physics community was more conventional then later physicists in the 1950's and 1960's. Physicists of the 1930's were not discovering particles at the rate their colleagues would a generation later. So this enviroment, his personality, and his reputation for being a conscience of physics (critical of others), combined to where he was reiticent about this particle. Also, professional reputatiion is a factor here, at least for him. In retrospect it is easy to see that even if he had been wrong about something, he would still be a major contributor to physics.


 * For Pauli, writing letters to colleagues was commonplace, more so than publishing papers.


 * Anyway, I hope this answered your question, and thanks for asking.Ti-30X (talk) 23:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed reply. However, you haven't answered the question I raised, viz. is there any documentation that Pauli wanted to distance himself from his prediction of the neutrino, or this merely speculation on the part of Lederman and/or Teresi. The book "Radioactivity: Introduction and History" by Michael F. L'Annunziata (excerpts available via google books) contains a copy of the congratulatory telegram Reines and Cowan sent to Pauli in 1956 following the first direct detection of neutrinos (via neutrino capture - there was indirect evidence of neutrinos (by studying the nuclear recoil) by Allen in 1942). Pauli responded (the telegram is displayed in the above mentioned book): "Thanks for message. Everything comes to him who knows how to wait". Of course, it is not inconceivable that Pauli was conveniently forgetting his earlier cold feet, if indeed he had them. However, you need to document this. --PloniAlmoni (talk) 07:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This is absolutely not speculation, on the part of Lederman (who is the voice of the book), nor Teresi. Ti-30X (talk) 18:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok I have a few things to show you:
 * First, I copied this from the book (The God Particle: If the Universe*)- -


 * Bottom of page 274


 * "This is not to say that the proliferation of hadrons was an unalloyed pleasure. It did make for full employment, spreading the wealth so that discovers of new particles now made up a nonexclusive club."


 * Then most of Page 275


 * "Want to find a brand new hadron? Just wait for the next accelerator run. At a conference on the history of physics at Fermilab in 1986, Paul Dirac recounted how difficult it was for him to accept the consequences of his equation – the existence of a new particle, the positron, which Carl Anderson discovered a few years later. In 1927 it was counter to the ethos of physics to think so radically. When Victor Weisskopf remarked from the audience that in 1922 Einstein had speculated about the existence of a positive electron, Dirac waved his hand dismissively: “He was lucky”.   In 1930 Wolfgang Pauli had agonized before predicting the existence of the neutrino. He finally embraced the particle with great reluctandce and only to favor a lesser evil, since nothing less was at stake than the principle of conservation of energy. Either the neutrino had to exist, or the conservation of energy had to go. This conservatism toward the introduction of new particle didn’t last. As “Professor” Bob Dylan commented, the times they were a-changin’ Pioneer of the change in philosophy was theorist Hideki Yukawa, who began the process of freely postulating new particles to explain new phenomena.


 * In the 1950’s and early ‘60’s theorists were busy classifying the hundreds of hadrons, seeking patterns and meaning in this new layer, of matter, hounding their experimental colleagues for more data. These hundreds of hadrons were exciting, but they were a headache. Where is the simplicity we had been seeking…? There was an unmanageable zoo of these entities, and we were beginning to fear that their legions were infinite."


 * Ok here is a link for the book at Google Books. If you write "Pauli" in the search box you wil see the second entry says page 273. Click on that and scroll to page 274, page 275, and 276 if you want. Then enter "Pauli" in the search box, and notice that he is discussed, mentioned, and / or quoted on 18 different pages throughout the book. There is definitely some insight into his personality and character on these other pages, besides the ones that I sourced - pages 275 and 276.


 * Next, if you enter "Index" into the search box then scroll back two pages, from the second link (marked index), you will see the first page of two and half pages, where Lederman has noted his sources, entitled "A note on history and sources." Ti-30X (talk) 19:54, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Although you (and the book) provide many insights into Pauli's personality, I still have not seen a shred of evidence that documents the sentence "And, in 1930, Wolfgang Pauli wanted to distance himself from his prediction of the neutrino in the weak interaction". I think that a sentence something like "Pauli was uncomfortably forced to propose the neutrino hypothesis" would more accurately reflect the available historical record.--PloniAlmoni (talk) 06:33, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I appreciate you having this discussion with me about Pauli, and I appreciate you taking the time to read this article. So - consider it done. I am changing it to what you wrote. Ti-30X (talk) 04:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I only changed the word "was" to "felt" because it seemed to fit better. Ti-30X (talk) 04:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC) :)

Editing of God Particle
This article is a collaboration. Back in April of 2009, I contacted other editors in the physics community on their talk page, and told them what my goal was for this "project" (this article). As editors are a valuable commodity, they responded that they were busy with other stuff but would be looking into this article. In addition, this "WikiProject Physics" article has recieved a rating of  "B" and "mid" importance, from the physics community. I did not rate this article. Somenone else, more knowledgeable than me did. Furthermore, when I started this article, it was little more than a stub.

The rationale for the severe editing, which took place by one single editor, was that this article is awful. That goes under WP:Like it and WP:Don't like it. Why not just give some constructive feedback instead, and from any editor who thinks sections can can be improved. I am obviously open to this because this has already happened - See: Pauli and the neutrino section on this talk page. You will see that this was a collobarative effort between two editors to ferret out the facts.

Also, no other editor has stepped forward to offer criticisms. But that may not be the point.

There are editors who are heavily biased against articles, which are written, based on books which popularize physics. Even more specifically there is a belief that these popular science books progress further and further away from facts, because the authors copy concepts from each other, and then add their own spin. I can find no basis in fact for this kind of belief and in fact this is insulting to the integrity of physcists such as Leon Lederman. He is a nobel prize winner in particle physics. I mean, he has spent decades and decades in particle physics and his little finger knows more physics than the Quantum Mechanis article and the Introductory article combined. So, the point is, as the belief goes: Wikipedia editors will do this also, perpetuating the cycle.

This is a specious argument. We live in a culture where a book such as "The Secret", makes questionable claims about the ability to attract riches, or lose weight, simply by thinking about it. Yet, it has made the New York Times best seller list. The author and the book was featured on the Ophra Winfrey show. This is a book which has no grounding in any of the sciences. However, this is a tremendously popular book. For example, the brain cannot, in fact, produce a magnetic field that can cross an ordinary room, how can it attract a car? But, attracting a car, or obtaining riches in this way, is what people of our culture believe to be true. There are hundreds of books like "The Secret", which are very popular, going back to the early part of the 20th century. Trying to control the content of an article, or any number of articles at Wikipedia, will not change this. The culture itself has to change, or shift, and see the value of science over specious beliefs.

Books by physcists like Leon Lederman help to do that. Books by physcists help people to see the inspiration, as well as the value, of scientific theory and fact, over unfounded beliefs. And scientific theory is mind blowing IMHO.

Also, using verifiable references is a control for Wikipedia articles:

Just because an editor here, or there, is irresponsible with the facts, does not mean that the majority of other editors are irresponsible. There are editors, like myself, who try very hard to make their contributions to Wikipeida factual, based on verifiable references. The facts come from the sources, not the editor. And these are editors who are amatuer physicists, like myself.

In additon, the verifiable references are according to Wikipedia standards, not according some expert's sentiments or tastes. Furthermore, verifiable references are also not subject to WP: Like it or WP: Don't like it.

Not every physics article has to be at the graduate level to be acceptable:

Not every scientific or physics article has to be at some prescribed level, either. One of the intentions of Wikipedia, is that article should be accessible to the general reader. In fact, I stated this was the intent of this article, in one of the sections above, way back in 18 May 2009. See the section on this talk page: Accessible Articles. So, I stated my intent at the very start. There is no surprise here.

I am not going to do any wiki lawyering here. However, I am going to point out that, in May, a guideline at WP:Make technical articles accessible simply stated Articles in Wikipedia should be accessible to the widest possible audience. For most articles, this means accessible to a general audience. Every reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that material is presented in the most widely accessible manner possible. If an article is written in a highly technical manner, but the material permits a more accessible explanation, then editors are strongly encouraged to rewrite it.

In light of the fact that this project was sactioned by some in the physics community, whom I determined to be well versed in Physics at the time,  I am probably going to restore this article to its previous form, as edited by me, and others before me. My editing is as valid as any other editor, no matter his or her level of education. Anyone is welcome to collaborate with me on this article.

The orginal intent of this project was to introduce readers to particle physics, based on Leon Lederman's book. If there is a problem with this, then there are other avenues besides severly removing material from an article. Even though it may be irrelevant, I put hours, and hours, and hours into this project from 16 April 2009 until sometime in June 2009. Looking at the history, I worked on this article, on average several times per week. Around, June 19th I probably stopped focusing on this article, and would return only to add a link or something like that.

I do not believe there is anyone who enjoys putting that much time into a project, only to see it callously and indifferently demolished in a few minutes. Especially, when I collaborated in the first place. Ti-30X (talk) 02:39, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I am the person referred to above who introduced some criticism regarding a phrase in the subsection entitled 'Pauli and the neutrino' (see Pauli and the neutrino). A glance at the talk page will show that the author was willing to accept all my suggested changes. I agree with the argument he/she makes above, viz. instead of erasing the entire article, attempts should be made to correct inaccuracies, point by point. I sympathize with this valiant attempt to present and explain complex topics using non-technical language, even at the price of sometimes oversimplifying complex topics. After all, the article is a summary of a popular book, not a scholarly article on the topics themselves. --PloniAlmoni (talk) 06:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I was the one who severely edited the article. I shouldn't snipe at people in edit comments (or at all). However I thought (and still think) almost any experienced Wikipedia editor would agree that most of the article content was unacceptable.
 * It read too much like an advertising supplement for the book. Statements like "It is a good, behind the scenes, look at the challenges encountered by the main players...", "This is an apt name for this chapter", "Dr. Lederman makes the point that..." don't belong in Wikipedia.
 * The bulk of the article consisted of a mini-history of science and mini-biographies of various famous scientists, all adapted from the book. The problem is that practically every popular physics book out there has a history of science and/or biographies of famous scientists and/or introductions to relativity and quantum mechanics. If we adapted each of those into encyclopedia entries we would end up with hundreds of articles on the same topic, each based on a single source. Instead we have one article on each topic. If these background sections in TGP have useful information not found elsewhere then this can be added to the relevant articles and TGP cited as the source, but that seemed unlikely to me since there are plenty of full books dedicated to each topic. I added links to the Wikipedia articles on the famous physicists in place of the former redundant biographies.
 * Most of the text I deleted I deleted for one of these reasons. That ended up meaning that I deleted most of the new article content. -- BenRG (talk) 13:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * BenRG, thank you for responding and thank you for your response. I have been frequently amazed at your responses over at Wikipedia Help Desk (just pick the topic). First, I have been amazed at your experience and knowledge. And, then, I am impressed by your manner, and style, and your willingness to share what you know to help others. I think that you are a valuable resource for Wikipedia. Also, I noticed that you contribute to articles in one way or another. Ti-30X (talk) 19:30, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Article really needs a rewrite
The article really is too long and reads like an advertisement. Do we REALLY need to know what each chapter says? I realise some people might be enthusiastic about the book, but its a fan article, not an encyclopedia article and it needs to be turned into an encyclopedia. Examples: "In addition, the "The God Particle" is written for anyone interested in learning about particle physics.". Since when do paragraphs start with 'in addition', and who is this claim made by? The line should read "The book claims to be suitable for a broad audience[citation reference]" or something like that. The whole article is filled with stuff like this. I suggest scrapping the whole article, and instead of trying to mimick what the book says, write it *about the book*. 121.45.243.122 (talk) 15:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree with everything said here. The worst part is that even though the article is so flat out bad, its project scale rating is a B? Ridiculous. I too recommend a near-complete rewrite — I'm just not familiar enough with the book to do it. Sinistrum (talk) 08:09, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Chapter 5 contradicts itself.
"The electron is generally pictured as a sphere, perhaps with an electric charge. However, in particle physics the electron has no radius. It has a charge, it has spin, and it has mass, but it is without dimension."

Then,

"In 1990, with modern powerful accelerators, the radius was measured at 0.000000000000000001 inches "or scientifically at 10-18centimeters.""

One or the other is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.167.208.4 (talk) 22:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Ironically, I recently had this same discussion regarding another article. You are correct, the electron is without dimension and any picture of an electron as a sphere is erroneous. If there is such a picture in this article, I will remove it. Also, the electron with a radius is also incorrect. It is supposed to be an upper bound measurement that did not succeed in measuring the radius. Thanks for pointing out these errors. These should have been corrected. Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 08:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

contradiction or not ?
"Lederman said he gave { {contradiction-inline| an otp case: quote:"It wasn't even Lederman's choice. "He wanted to refer to it as that 'goddamn particle' and his editor wouldn't let him," says Higgs"< /ref>} } the Higgs boson the nickname "The God Particle" because the particle is "so central to the state of..."

Some agrue the naming contradiction^^^ is beter to hide, lets try to dig why? 99.90.197.87 (talk) 23:46, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Higgs used word editor. Tersi may be called an editor. From theoretical physicist point of view he can rather only edit but not relay contribute to they science. In fact he was called editor by others
 * Dick Teresi has been the editor in chief of Science Digest, of "Lost Discoveries," and the co-author of "The God Particle."
 * DICK TERESI is the coauthor of The Three-Pound Universe and a former editor of Omni
 * Dick Teresi ("Zero") is the editor of VQ, a magazine about Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He is the co-author, with the physicist Leon Lederman, of The God Particle (1993).

"*The term "God Particle" came from the book "The God Particle / If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?," by Leon Lederman & Dick Teresi (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Jun 26, 2006), which is in the bibliography of my free ebook on comparative mysticism. In his Preface Dr. Lederman wrote: Now as for the title, The God Particle, my coauthor, Dick Teresi, has agreed to accept the blame. I mentioned the phrase as a joke once in a speech, and he remembered it and used it as the working title of the book. "Don't worry," he said, "no publisher ever uses the working title on the final book." The title ended up offending two groups: 1) those who believe in God and 2) those who do not. We were warmly received by those in the middle. Dr. Lederman is a 1988 Nobel laureate in physics and director emeritus of the Fermi Accelerator Laboratory, among other achievements. He now says of the title "we are stuck with it." The media loves it, but scientists definitely do not.*" 99.90.197.87 (talk) 02:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC) ps used before 'otp' mean offend to profit

Who smell another reason for bending the facts?

"The title ended up offending two groups: 1) those who believe in God and 2) those who do not. We were warmly received by those in the middle". Intersection 1 and 2  seem to bee empty set, but intriguing exception exist: "How many devils can sit on a pinhead "  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.90.197.87 (talk) 11:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Does anyone know if the name of this book is a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? (see Answer to the Ultimate Question if unfamiliar with the book.) 85.230.137.182 (talk) 21:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)