While wading through coverage for the announcement about the possible discovery of the Higgs particle, I decided to do a little background research. I hopped over to wikipedia and read this description of the Higgs mechanism:
In particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is the process in which gauge bosons in a gauge theory can acquire non-vanishing masses through absorption of Nambu-Goldstone bosons arising in spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Oh yes. Gauge bosons and Nambu-Goldstone bosons. Of course. Got it. I then started to read about QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics), and a number of other theories that are really quite meaningless to me. As I went through this exercise, an old idea was reinforced:
Nothing is as simple as it looks.
There are many days in my classroom when I struggle, because my students make assertions about Christian theology that are very simple. (NB: There is a difference between “simple” and “incorrect.”) Because I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about and researching that particular issue, I often see a greater level of complexity.
To me, this is the beauty of theology. Though we slap the -ology suffix on it and call it a field of knowledge, we cannot deny the element of mystery. As we delve deeper and deeper into it, we might be met with answers, but we always find more questions.
Indeed nothing is as simple as it seems. That’s why all those what I just can’t agree with such simplistic philosophers like A.J. Ayer and Willard V. Quine. One cannot simply paraphrase ambiguous sentences away in the latter’s case.
In other news, hello Mr. Hebert! College at HBU is great, and Dr. Markos is so awesome –and hyper! Every Thursday after class, willing students go through a chapter of Screwtape Letters.
If you can measure its velocity at a certain time and place, you can predict its position at a later time. There are a number of ways to measure the velocity of subatomic and atomic particles which would depend on their physical properties, such as mass, charge, magnetic moment, but knowing the mass or the charge will not give you its position. Looking somehow at its interaction with another particle (possibly in a bubble chamber or other imaging device) will tell you where it was at a certain time, and presumably if you are looking at tracks you can see where it went. If you can’t follow the tracks, you could perhaps, still infer its velocity from other measurements, so we would be back to a measurement of velocity.
Marjorie\’s last [type]: \"Can You Empty My Rubbish\"
love it! Talkin’ my junk, bro… good thoughts, keep it ripe!