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Looking for a Christian or not physicist to talk to
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:37 pm
by Shiner
I'm new to this topic and would like to pick the brains of someone who understands the math....
Re: Looking for a Christian or not physicist to talk to
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:04 pm
by RickD
Shiner,
The way it usually works here, is you ask a question or create a thread about a topic you want to discuss. Do you have a specific "God and Science" question that you want to ask?
Re: Looking for a Christian or not physicist to talk to
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 7:07 pm
by Shiner
Thanks Rick I was wonder about the Higgs field, has science figured out how the Higgs field knows to determines how much mass each particle should have and does this field cover the entire Universe? Thanks for taking the time to help a new guy out
Re: Looking for a Christian or not physicist to talk to
Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:09 pm
by RickD
Shiner wrote:Thanks Rick I was wonder about the Higgs field, has science figured out how the Higgs field knows to determines how much mass each particle should have and does this field cover the entire Universe? Thanks for taking the time to help a new guy out
Shiner, maybe Hana can help you with this. Hana, screen name "1over137" is our resident genius/physicist.
Re: Looking for a Christian or not physicist to talk to
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 4:17 am
by 1over137
Higgs field is present everywhere.
The value of the mass of certain particle depends on how strongly the particle interacts with the Higgs field. The more it interacts, the heavier it becomes, whereas particles that never interact are left with no mass at all. Also, mass is a manifestation of potential energy transferred to the particle during interactions ("coupling") with the Higgs field, which had contained that mass in the form of energy. (Recall that energy is connected to mass via E=mc^2)
How strongly each fermion (quark, electron, muon, tau lepton) interacts with the Higgs field is (in the present theory of particles called Standard Model) an input parameter. The interaction term is called Yukawa coupling.
Interaction of the weak gauge bosons, the W and Z, with the Higgs field is not arbitrary. There is a fundamental principle in particle physics called 'local gauge invariance' that influences the interaction term with the Higgs field. Interestingly, the ratio of the W and Z masses, mW/mZ is fixed and equals to cosine of an angle called weak mixing angle.
Great article for general audience here:
http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-a ... s-faq-2-0/
P.S.: Well, I am physicist, but Christian also.