Right Particle-Wrong God-Nobel Winner’s Existence Erased In School Bks Due To His Religious Beliefs

[kpete]

Right Particle, Wrong God: Pakistani Nobel Winner’s Existence Erased In School Books Due To His Religious Beliefs

Published 1, July 9, 2012 Academics , Bizarre , International , Politics , Religion , Society 14 Comments
You would think that the claimed discovery of the Higgs boson — or God’s Particle — would lead to a new round of celebration in Pakistan over its own Nobel laureate, Adbus Salam. After all, Salam helped develop the theoretical framework that led to the apparent discovery of the subatomic particle. However, before laying the ground work for discovering the God Particle, Salam picked the wrong God in the view of many Pakistanis. Salam, who died in 1996, has been stricken from school textbooks and public acknowledgments because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect that is viewed by Muslims as heretical.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/08/higgs-boson-pakistan-scientist

[GodlessBiker]

1. Insanity.

[lastlib]

2. I guess he shoulda called it "the Allah Particle.".....

Ridiculous what people do in the name of a deity.

[longship]

3. Electroweak theory.

He shared the 1979 Nobel with Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow. I don't know if his Nobel paper included the Higgs. (I suspect not.) However, Weinberg was an early advocate of the Higgs mechanism.

Thanks for the post.


BTW, I still wish people would stop labeling the Higgs with God Particle. It is certainly repugnant to anybody who has any knowledge requisite to understanding exactly what the fuck the thing is.

Unfortunately, these journalists like the tag because it brings a controversial religion vs. science confluence into the discussion -- anything to obfuscate the importance of a story whose importance the journalist cannot comprehend.

Physicists hate this.

[girl gone mad]

7. I studied under Dr. Weinberg.

His Nobel winning paper unified the electromagnetic and the weak nuclear forces (=Electroweak). He predicted the electrically neutral vector boson Z0 and the weak nuclear force reactions arising from its exchange, known as neutral current reactions.

Electroweak theory also accounted for the heavy positively and negatively charged bosons W+ and W-, which are required for the mediation of all observed weak interactions, known as charged current reactions. These intermediate vector bosons were discovered by CERN in 1983.

The force-carrying particles (Z0, W+ and W-) of Weinberg's unified theory are massive spin-1 bosons, and therefore a spin-0 (also electrically-neutral and color-neutral) boson is required to complete the theory. This spin-0 boson is the Higgs boson. So, yes, it was in there.

[longship]

9. I read part of that paper; it was abridged.

But, it was years ago. I didn't remember whether the Higgs was there.

Studied under Weinberg? I am impressed.


I have a lowly BS in physics, with which I did very well, thanks to very good grades. Why I didn't go further is a question to which I have kicked myself in the arse for decades.

[Odin2005]

10. You studied under Weinberg? YOU LUCKY BASTARD!

I envy you!

[girl gone mad]

12. It was actually another Nobel Prize winner who pushed me to study Physics..

My family friend, the amazing teacher Polykarp Kusch! I miss him.

[SoutherDem]

4. I thought this was going to be about Texas, Alabama or some other Rep state.

[man4allcats]

5. If the Higgs Boson/god particle (actually, it would be more correct to say "the Higgs Field")

really did impart mass where none previously existed, is it then likely that the universe

[center]

[/center]

will contract via gravity to such a point that a black hole thus formed will become so massive that a new Big Bang will start the process all over again, or is it more likely that history does not repeat itself and all of this will simply end in an ever expanding cold death? All bets are off, but I'm inclined to think it will end in cold death - eons and eons from now when we've all once again been reduced to subatomic particles. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...

[man4allcats]

6. P.S. - If I really understood any of this,

I'd be a physicist posting in a professional journal, and I'm not. I'm just a thoughtful person trying to understand. Let me know what you think.

[riderinthestorm]

8. Just really sad. The guy's a genius and because of religious crazy shit, his country will disown him

Disgusting and sad.

Well, their loss. If there's a heaven, Adbus Salam is there and hopefully giving the finger to his fellow countrymen.

K&R for more exposure of religious craziness....

[Odin2005]

11. That is sad and pathetic.

Salam was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th Century, co-creator of the Electro-Weak Theory that demonstrated that Electromagnetism and the Weak Nuclear Force are different aspects of the same force.