(Eli5) What is a god particle?
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It’s just a nickname that journalist came up with for the higgs particle when it was discovered some 10 years ago.
The particle in question has nothing to do with God, so the name is rather unhelpful.
It’s a nickname for the Higgs Boson, mainly because 1) it is so elusive and 2) its existence is what allows everything to have mass.
It’s a mis-quoted name for the Higgs Boson. The actual quoted name is the “Goddamn Particle”, because scientists had been trying to isolate it for decades, and we’re still unable to do so.
A journalist got the name wrong, and we ended up with a weird nickname for it.
The Higgs Boson is the force-carrier particle for the Higgs Field, which has to do with mass (the weight/size kind, not the religious one), just like the photon is the force-carrier particle for the electromagnetic field (light, among many other things), and the graviton should be the force-carrier particle for the gravitational field.
It’s a nickname for something called a Higgs Particle. It was theorized to exist long before it was *proven* to exist, and a scientist once wrote a book about it which he wanted to title “The Goddamn Particle” because trying to find it was a pain in the ass. The publisher made him change it to “The God Particle” instead.
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