Stephen Hawking Says 'God Particle' Could Wipe Out the Universe

Stephen Hawking bet Gordon Kane $100 that physicists would not discover the Higgs boson. After losing that bet when physicists detected the particle in 2012, Hawking lamented the discovery, saying it made physics less interesting. Now, in the preface to a new collection of essays and lectures called "Starmus," the famous theoretical physicist is warning that the particle could one day be responsible for the destruction of the known universe.

Hawking is not the only scientist who thinks so. The theory of a Higgs boson doomsday, where a quantum fluctuation creates a vacuum "bubble" that expands through space and wipes out the universe, has existed for a while. However, scientists don't think it could happen anytime soon.

"Most likely it will take 10 to the 100 years [a 1 followed by 100 zeroes] for this to happen, so probably you shouldn't sell your house and you should continue to pay your taxes," Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, said during his lecture at the SETI Institute on Sept. 2. "On the other hand it may already happened, and the bubble might be on its way here now. And you won't know because it's going at the speed of light so there's not going to be any warning." [Doomsday: 9 Real Ways Earth Could End]

The Higgs boson, sometimes referred to as the 'god particle,' much to the chagrin of scientists who prefer the official name, is a tiny particle that researchers long suspected existed. Its discovery lends strong support to the Standard Model of particle physics, or the known rules of particle physics that scientists believe govern the basic building blocks of matter. The Higgs boson particle is so important to the Standard Model because it signals the existence of the Higgs field, an invisible energy field present throughout the universe that imbues other particles with mass. Since its discovery two years ago, the particle has been making waves in the physics community.

http://news.yahoo.com/stephen-hawki...d-wipe-universe-193636349.html?pt=tAD1SCT8P7/

 

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if the higgs has always existed, but just discovered, what's the difference? doesn't that mean the higgs could always have had the potential to collapse? but hasn't happened yet.
sometimes i think hawkings likes to spread unnecessary fear.
alot of what he says pertains to a result of fear.
not only that but what if the " catastrophic vacuum delay " did occur , what would anyone do, let alone could do ?

also,
hawkings has claimed before the higgs will NEVER be found.
now he's saying it's destruction

in general,
i hardly pay attention to majority of what hawkings states or claims now days.

not only that but for the last few days, i'm also coming across an abundance of flawed interpretations of his actual words.
figures.

 

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When A Brief History of Time was first published, Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal of Britain and a good friend of Hawkings said 'Every time Steven uses the word 'God', he sells another thousand copies'.

 

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Relax. This has been known for as long as the vacuum has had an expectation value. What we would hope is the expectation value is at minimum at the end of inflation. The possibility it's not at a minimum in regions of the universe leads to the prediction we could get a step change which would result in the event discussed. Relax we'd never know what hit us.

 

After reading the comments by Peskin I realize this is a different way for the expectation value of the vacuum to make a step change . Oops that is a bit scary.

 

In his video 'Origins 2013', Gian Giudice, a CERN physicist, already told us about this, so Hawking is more than just a little slow on the uptake on this subject, as krash661 already mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff5TJM0UCb4

Remember that only time and energy exist. The vacuum is for the moment (and ONLY for the moment) an inexhaustible supply of energy and electroweak charge, but this could change at any time. Not to worry. There's no multiverse, and energy is conserved, at least, until suddenly it isn't. There's no insurance policy against anything like this, 'God Particle' or no, so please enjoy the free lunch while we are all waiting patiently for it to come to an abrupt end. Don't panic, because that would be a minuscule waste of energy.

 

The Higgs Boson talk by Prof. Lykken:

[video=youtube;FyHp90wAiXI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHp90wAiXI&list=UUzQdkHKOTVT_chwgDcau4sg[/video]


Prof. Lykken again on the newly created YouTube channel Aspen Physics. He has a casual demeanor, but this talk contains a wealth of info:

[video=youtube;a93gXABkhcU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a93gXABkhcU&list=UUBHH9grpYhjFI1IvTR6RJLw[/video]

 

@Higgs Boson fluctuation

The only initial concern I had was based upon if the make up of our universe is actually based upon our own divination. (e.g. we observe the universe and then recreate it that way) If this was the case then "ordering" certain sub-atomics would removes entropy. The reduction in entropy can have catastrophic effects if it spreads out from our observational volume. For instance it could reduce the energy output of the sun and eventually all other stars. (Notably there was a reduction in energy output in the solar cycle, however I wasn't going to suggest any of this as conclusive until 4.37 years after the initial solar effect by observing Alpha Centuri to see if there is a fluctuation.)

Incidentally if such an effect was to exist, it's not so much a "Doomsday" effect, more like a Firmware upgrade that would span across the universe. (Since the change in our physics would effect everything if everything is based upon that)

 

Has Hawking got a new book out or something?

 

Yep, he's hyping his new book. Gotta pay the bills, ya know.

 

At what stage will the Universe be in 10 to the 100 years?

At the moment the age of the universe is calculated at 13.798±0.037 × 10 to the 9 years.

 

Hi Captain. The argument I think is for [any] unstable case of the false vacuum fluctuation.


I should be Hawkings assistant, I could hype and scare the world by saying the Higgs we have found isn't even standard... or that the catch 22?

We don't know, because Hawking is publishing without gaining ALL the facts required to discuss such a topic.

 

Thought as much. Hawking is a propagandist who peddles bad science. See Matt Strassler's article for some balance. But note that he isn't all that different. He's forever hyping the Higgs, but he doesn't make it clear that the Higgs mechanism contradicts E=mc² and is "the toilet of the standard model". Or that it's responsible for only 1% of the mass of matter. Or that "the Higgs boson" gets its mass from the kinetic energy of the LHC protons. Or that its lifetime is so short that its existence is inferred. Or that it's essentially a bump on a graph that could be anything, and there is such a thing as event selection, and there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. See A Zeptospace Odyssey by CERN physicist Gian Giudice, and Alexander Unzicker's Discovery of What? along with his book The Higgs Fake. In a nutshell, we nowadays have a very-flexible model, particles whose existence is inferred from particles whose existence is inferred, collaborations who are above peer review, and a need to announce discoveries to justify big-science expenditure. The situation is not healthy.

 

He's forgotten how to be a scientist. From quoting his ''discovery of a theory of everything,'' which was just string theory... which most of the populous of scientists dislike for the for the reason it cannot be proven.

Again, he's hit out with an unprovable theory, he also contradicts himself a lot... on one hand he says it's likely to happen in our near future, but then goes on to say it may have already happened.

It's probably not even a standard Higgs Boson, if it is even a Higgs Boson. Some theories consist of five Higgs fields, does this now mean we have a greater percentage to die in the near future? How many Higgs fields does it take to switch the universal light bulb off?

 

How quaint

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...Two "would be's if they could be's", who Hawking would probably wipe the floor with as far as cosmology goes, and I dare say in most other respects also.
A couple of nobodies who will never ever rise to the height Hawking has.
Congrats fellas!

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I even mentioned a great many scientists are no longer taking him seriously... do you blame them?

He's making remarkable statements and most of them involve the use of the word ''god.'' Why don't you ever have anything original to say?

Hawking rarely has anything intelligible to add to physics, because he keeps resorting to theories that can't be proven. Ironic, considering he called Fred's steady state theory one of the best theories of the time because it made predictable results. Where are Hawking's testable results? He even admits we'd never know...


..how can this be proper science? Answer clearly it isn't. A theory needs to be falsifiable before it is taken seriously, this is how science works.

 

Naturally as applies to most alternative hypothesis pushers and anti mainstream fanatics, both our protagonists are adverse to getting whatever it is they have properly peer reviewed...Par for the course.

 

Peer review attacks now? Is this the publish or perish on the forums?

I think every time Hawking publishes something new, he perishes each time. His theories cannot be dis-proven, do you understand the actual meaning and how this context effects the rest of science.

A hypothesis is different still, to something which cannot be directly proven, even indirectly. He openly admits we'd never know... so how is it a ''theory?''


Also, this unstable Higgs scenario is based on superymmetry, not surprising Hawking has latched onto this considering he's string mad in the membrane, but not only this, he's openly ignnoring the fact we have pretty much ruled out supersymmetry at the LHC.

 

Hawking has been in bother before for making pronouncements. The last time was in February when he said "there are no black holes". This was a deliberately controversial media hook guaranteed to get him some publicity. A few years back people were annoyed with him for peddling M-theory direct to the public, see physicsworld:

Basically Hawking is a "celebrity physicist" who is something of a loose cannon, and yes, his stock-in-trade is hypothetical stuff that cannot be disproven.

 

You know more about being a loose cannon than you do about physics. Given that, we should pay attention to your opinion?

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