As forewarned, CERN has presser tomorrow on Higgs
Prashant Kumar
siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com
Thu Jul 5 23:43:36 CDT 2012
It bestows existence indirectly; without mass all you have is a soup of
particles with no large scale interaction. Gravity is responsible for
forming everything we see insofar as it is the only force which does not
repel, i.e. there are no positive and negative gravitational "poles".
Paul, re the essence-existence thing, quantum mechanics throws up some
interesting questions as to the philosophical nature of existence and
identity. Since all subatomic particles are identical, you have a problem
reconciling quantum mechanical notions of identity with Leibniz's Identity
of Indiscernables. Some people go so far as to introduce haecceities into
the discussion; historically speaking this is interesting since this
results in a debate spookily analogous to that of the medieval scholastics.
Prashant
On 6 July 2012 02:24, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 7/5/2012 11:35 AM, David Morris wrote:
>
>> OK, I stand corrected. Existence w/o mass. I expect such existence
>> would never become more organized than at the sub-atomic level. But
>> I'm no physicist.
>>
>
> Me neither, but somehow I'm reminded of the Medieval controversy over the
> distinction between essence and existence, if any.
>
>
> P
>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> It bestows mass; they haven’t [yet] gotten around to a field/particle
>>> that
>>> “bestows existence.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From David Morris
>>> Higgs is the new either, a medium that bestows existence.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
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