Wonders of science

Prof Bikash Sinha, Homi Bhaba Professor, VECC, Department of Atomic Energy, government of India, talks about the experiments at CERN and the discovery of the Higgs Boson like particle, while delivering a talk "Chasing the Missing link at CERN-Higgs Boson" at the auditorium of the Heritage Institute of Technology.


Could you tell us a bit about the motivation behind the experiment at CERN?
See, right from the ancient age man has always felt this intense desire to go for the pursuit of the fundamental. This has been observed in the ancient texts like the Vedas. Man realized that to find the fundamental he needs to develop methods to probe into the greater mysteries of Nature. This yearning to go to the roots still continues within man. Peter Higgs, a theoretical physicist during the 1960s, once theoretically suggested the possible existence of a fundamental particle which is responsible for giving mass to others. This sparked off the experiments at CERN. Such intense is this desire that the scientists built the Large Hadron Collider, which I believe is the most technologically advanced piece ever created by man till date. The LHC is a miracle machine.

What has been India's contribution in the experiments at CERN?
First and foremost it was a joint effort by all. Almost 3381 scientists and around 173 institutes from over the world participated in the CMS experiment. Tremendous effort was given by the scientists from the SINP, Kolkata, who were members of the core team at the CMS experiment. The Muon Spectrometer was developed by the efforts of these scientists from India. India played a significant role in the ALICE experiments with the contribution of the MANAS chip which was initially being developed by SINP, Kolkata. However, these contributions from one particular country should not dilute the fact that it was at the end of the day a combined attempt.

What do you have to say about calling the Higgs Boson - the God particle?
Calling the Higgs Boson the God particle is a complete misconception. Nothing can be further away from the truth because it has nothing to do with God! You cannot say that you have discovered God! Millions of dollars were spent and hundreds of people were giving so much effort for this experiment since Peter Higgs's suggestion in 1964 that the name - God "damn" particle emerged simply out of a colloquial American slang. This however was hyped by people who do not care for anything else expect God damn money and popularized a fact which is far away from the truth, which resulted in all this confusion.

What would you like to say to the budding scientists of India?
In spite of being a theoretician myself I would like more and more youngsters from India to participate in frontier and practical research oriented aspects of Physics. We have discovered a Higgs Boson like particle. Thus the experiment at CERN will go on for another 15-20 years roughly. I would really like to encourage them to go there and do some practical work.