Friday, 1 March 2013

A Higgs(-like) boson walks into a church

The Joke




A Higgs(-like) boson walks into a church. The priest full all surprise cannot accept that the God-particle Higgs boson is in the church and says

- Higgs(-like) bosons are not allowed in here, please walk out.

Then the boson replies

- But without me, how can you have mass?



Background



As you probably have heard lately many times the Higgs boson was the last missing piece in the standard model of particle physics, the theory that describes the elementary particles known at the time being and their interactions. However, standard model without the Higgs field does not explain how some particle obtain mass whereas others remain massless. That is the role of the the Higgs field to give mass to the massive elementary particles.

An excellent, instructive and very intuitive description of the Higgs field is given by Prof. John Ellis in the following video

However, mass is also the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. (Now that the joke is obvious, please laugh :) )

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