According to the standard model, neutron decay is caused by massive particles that pop out of empty space, but where did their mass come from? It had to come from somewhere so the answer was, of course, another field! The standard model’s Higgs field is then what gives mass to the virtual particles it invented to explain the weak force. The whole model was at stake, so the search for a Higgs particle became the holy grail of physics. It attracted over 30 billion dollars in funding and finally in 2012, after a fifty-year search, CERN found a resonance in the right range to support its possible existence. Physicists all over the world breathed a sigh of relief and some called it the God particle, perhaps because it answered their prayers. Finding a million, million, million, millionth of a second 125 GeV signal meant the standard model lived on! Yet the Higgs theory:
1. Doesn’t explain ordinary mass. The Higgs particle doesn’t explain any of the mass around us, nor does it add any value to general relativity, our best theory of matter to date, nor does it explain the dark energy and matter that is most of our universe. It only explains how the virtual particles of the standard model get mass, nothing more:
“… the Higgs field allows us to reconcile … how … weak interactions work, that’s a far cry from explaining the origin of mass or why the different masses have the values they do.” (Wilczek,2008), p202.
The Higgs particle isn’t about mass in general, just the mass invented by the standard model.
2. Is magical thinking. Before science, it was commonly believed that earth, air, fire, and water were fundamental elements, so air couldn’t create water. Science then showed that hydrogen and oxygen gases create water, so it did. That mass must come from what is massive is also a magical thought but if matter came from light, what made it isn’t massive at all. Magical thinking is also circular, as if the Higgs particle creates mass, what gave it mass? If another Higgs, what made its mass, and so on? A Higgs particle that begets itself would indeed be a God particle!
3. Contradicts quantum theory. In a carefully crafted press release, CERN claimed that zero-spin would confirm the Higgs, then found it so, but quantum theory doesn’t let spin-zero particles have mass (Comay, 2009). All quantum particles with mass have half spin, and only matter-antimatter mixes like mesons have no spin, so the resonance CERN found probably came from a top meson.
The Higgs doesn’t explain ordinary mass, is based on magical thinking, and contradicts quantum theory, so it is no surprise that the so-called God particle hasn’t led to any other discovery or benefit. That some now call it the origin of all mass is a tribute to marketing not science. The irony is that this belief in matter leads to the strange conclusion that its mass is mostly from gluons that have no mass:
“The Higgs mechanism is often said to account for the origins of mass in the visible universe. This statement, however, is incorrect. The mass of quarks accounts for only 2 percent of the mass of the proton and the neutron, respectively. The other 98 percent, we think, arises largely from the actions of gluons. But how gluons help to generate proton and neutron mass is not evident, because they themselves are massless.” (Ent, Ulrich, & Venugopalan, 2015).
Most of the mass of an atom is in its nucleus of protons and neutrons, but most of their mass doesn’t come from the quarks that make them. Only 2% of their mass comes from their quark constituents, so virtual gluons are said to create the other 98%. The standard model universe of matter bricks is, it seems, mostly not made of them at all!
The Higgs is the virtual agent invented to explain the virtual agent invented to explain the observed effect of neutron decay. As will be seen, a model where one invisible cause explains another soon becomes a theoretical house of cards.