Did anyone read the excellent article in The Times 'Eureka' science supplement last week? In case you missed it, here is a quick summary.
As scientists at CERN hope to finally have enough statistical evidence to prove the existence of the God Particle by Summer this year, the thoughts of one group have started to move on to the next quest, for the anti-particle of the God Particle - the so-called ‘Satan Particle’ – otherwise known as the sintrino.
Whilst the God Particle gave us Mass, it’s the sintrino that actually weighs us down. One problem for researchers is the difficulty in actually stopping a sintrino – once started it often seems quite unstoppable.
CERN’s sintrino researchers (or ‘sinners’ for short) hope to devote much of the latter half of the year to the quest for the Satan Particle, and to prove its existence before the end of the year – there could even be major news around about the 21st December this year. Such a short timescale is possible because of everything that was learned along the ‘long hard road’ looking for the God Particle. This time, the ‘sinners’ happily predict that the search should be a lot more fun (although, of course, the devil is in the detail).
Finally, just as there were initial fears that the LHC research might produce some catastrophe, some are also doubting the wisdom of this new research, even warning that if ever a God Particle should collide with a Satan Particle, the resultant reaction would produce such incredible energy it could even be ‘...like a new Big Bang...’, but there is little science to predict such an event - just a belief.
