What is The Higgs Boson? And Why Does It Matter?

This is something I recently wrote that kinda goes along with the previous post in this blog so I figured I'd include it here.  =)

What is The Higgs Boson? And Why Does It Matter?

Physics is Too Complicated

Having taken plenty of physics classes, read some books, and watching shows on the Science channel, I know quite a bit more than the average person about physics. And I'm pretty interested in it because I think that knowing how the world and the universe works is pretty darn cool!

And over the past couple of years, I've developed a thought that just won't go away. That thought is that Physicists are making things too complicated. It's not their fault though, they are doing the best they can to make sense out of things we don't fully understand yet. I'm talking specifically about the small stuff... the really small stuff.

Most people think that the smallest things in existence which everything else is made out of are atoms. And how atoms work is pretty well understood and accepted as true around the world. But then these brainiacs called theoretical physicists started trying to break down the atom even more. They determined that atoms are made up of even smaller things called neutrons, protons, and electrons. But that wasn't even good enough for them.

I'll spare you all of the details (mostly because I don't know all of them), but basically they now think there are even smaller fundamental particles called quarks, bosons, gluons, and some other ones - twelve of them in all. And one of them the so-called Higgs boson is only a guess, they haven't been able to detect it's existence yet but they think it has to anyway.

And not only that, but there are also a bunch of different forces too - strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. And each of these act differently.

These are all parts of the Standard Model.

Then there are people talking about string theory, M-theory, and dark matter which is something that supposedly is what most of the universe is made of, but we can't see, touch, or otherwise prove it directly. Uh huh...

Is it just me or does all of this seem a little too complicated? You know what I think? I like Einstein's theory that everything is made up of energy. And I think there is some type of fundamental unit of energy that isn't a particle, and isn't a wave, it's something different but can' look like either one or neither of them based on the circumstances. Those circumstances are based on a set of rules that we just don't completely understand yet.

So there is one type of thing - energy. And with the rules (who knows how many - but probably not more than a dozen) that control how energy acts it could explain everything. It could explain why gravity is so weak for small things but strong for big things, compared to say the electromagnetic force. It could explain why some matter is visible and some is dark. It could explain why sometimes things act like particles and sometimes they act like waves.

I have no idea what these fundamental units of energy are or what the rules would be that govern them, but I bet that's how everything really works.

Mind/Body Connection

I have always wondered about how the mind/body connection works. I am a religious person and I believe that humans have souls, which are the parts of us that control our mind which in turn controls our body. I know how the mind controls the body (through electrochemical reactions from the brain to nerves in the body basically), but I don't know how the mind controls the brain. I think our mind and our brain are two different things. To me our mind is in the domain of the soul. It is am intangible thing, but still very real. The brain on the other hand is obviously a tangible thing. If you think of a human that is alive as a computer, the brain and body would be the hardware (hard drive, processor, memory, etc.) and the mind would be the software (programming). So if it were possible to take your mind and put it into another body with a diferent physical brain, you would still be the same person. Or would you?

There are three ways the mind/body connection could work. Either the mind controls the body, the body controls the mind, or both influence each other. I have a feeling that they both control each other. I think that the mind influences the body somehow, and the body influences the mind somehow as well. I think this because when you drink wine for instance, the chemicals (alcohol) in the wine change the chemistry in the body and the brain which in turn affects how you act and how you think so therefore the body must be able to influence the mind. Also, if you close your eyes and think about a time when you were really happy, you visualize that time and experience it in your mind as if you were really there again, you get happy, and your brain and body reflect that change in your mood (specific chemicals are released in your brain like dopamine, and seratonin) which was brought on by the thoughts in your mind.

But how does something that's intangible (your mind) influence something that is tangible (your brain)? Is it something kind of like light. Because light which is intangible hits the choloroplasts in plant cells (which are tangible), which causes them to produce food for the plant (with the help of water and carbon dioxide of course). And there are different types of light depending on the wavelength and frequency of the waves contained in the light, and plants can only make food when irradiated by a certain spectrum of light. So could the mind be something like that? Could the mind put out something like a particular "wavelength" for happiness, a different one for sadness, a different one to trigger the release of adrenaline in your brain, a different one to trigger a particular memory, etc.? So then if you have something like alcohol in your brain, does it cause your brain to put out these "wavelengths" that your mind picks up and that's how the brain effects the mind?

Or is it something totally different...maybe something I just can't comprehend yet? I don't know...what do you think?

What's after outer space?

Here's something I've thought about many times and never come up with a good answer for...

What's after outer space? If you think about it, you'll probably come to the conclusion that "nothing" is after space. Suppose you start at Earth and you could keep moving further and further away from Earth as fast as you wanted to. First you would see the moon, then other planets, then once you get of our solar system you'd see other solar systems, and then other galaxies, and then the whole universe with all of the galaxies in it,....and then what? Nothing? But isn't space "nothing?" I mean I know there are subatomic particles and random atoms of nitrogen and other elements scattered throughout space so it's not completely empty. So that means there is still something in space, even in outer space there's something even if it's just one atom every 100 billion miles or so. But what is it after you get past where the last atom of anything is? What is it when there is truly nothing anymore (except you of course if you were there hypothetically). Is that space too? If so, what if you keep going further and further anyway....is there an end somewhere, where it turns into something else?

I've read stuff by Stephen Hawking and other physicists that theorize that matter and time are related so really the four dimensions we all know (x,y,z, and time) are all connected together and influence each other. So if that's true, there must be an end to space right? Because if you believe in the big bang theory like I do (the basics of it, which doesn't make it necessary to deny creationism is true), then there was a beginning to space and time. And since there is a beginning and the universe has been expanding since that point (or maybe is contracting again now depending on what you might believe about the different theories that are out there), then there must be an outer edge somewhere. So what if you reached that outer edge? Would you be outside of time then too? And if you were, then there would be no dimensions either because they are all connected. So you really couldn't be there at all since you are a three dimensional thing. So there really is "nothing" after space, because there can't be right? So then what would happen if you were at the edge of space and you threw a ball past the edge? Would it just dissapear? If so, then that would break Einstein's  law of conservation of mass and energy? Or I guess maybe it wouldn't just cease to exist, but it could be transformed into some kind of energy. So then even if that happened, there would then be something in the "nothing," so that would be an extension of space right? So then if that were true, then there would be the three spatial dimensions and the dimension of time in that extension of space too, so would the ball reappear or stay energy? Or would that not happen at all and instead when you tried to throw the ball out past the edge of space, would the edge of the ball just push the edge of space out with it so it would never dissappear or transform into energy in the first place? And if that were the case, what if you could throw the ball faster than the speed of light? Would the edge of space be able to keep up with the front edge of the ball? Or maybe that's totally impossible anyway because if you threw the ball faster than the speed of light then it would turn into a black hole or something crazy like that. 

Yeah,....I don't know. But I still wonder what is after space...if anything...and what would happen if you got there and threw a ball past the edge.

What do you think?

Introduction

I'm a person who likes to think about things a lot, and I imagine there are a lot of people out there who are like me in this way. So I decided to start a blog to share the random things I think about that other people who are like me might like to read and think about too. I won't be updating this blog every day but I will probably once a week or so. Also, I'd like to make this more of a forum type of blog, so please comment on what I write if you think it's interesting, if you agree with me (or not), if what I write makes you think of something else that I didn't talk about, etc.

Talk with you soon! =)