Putting money on it: Hawking (shown here in younger days) believes that the most interesting scientific outcome will be if the Higgs boson is not discovered.
Credit: NASA
LONDON: British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet US$100 that the Large Hadron Collider, launching today, will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science.
In the most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the LHC will accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light before smashing them together.
More exciting outcome
Later today the first protons will be injected into a 27-kilometre ring-shaped tunnel, straddling the Swiss-French border at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
"The LHC will increase the energy at which we can study particle interactions by a factor of four. According to present thinking, this should be enough to discover the Higgs particle," Hawking told BBC radio on Tuesday.
"I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs. That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won't find the Higgs," added Hawking, who has authored books include A Brief History of Time.
Background treacle
Some scientists were more optimistic, however.
Hubert Reeves, a French astrophysicist, told the Swiss daily Le Matin that the invention could bring "unexpected results" that would change the world of particle physics forever. "This machine will probably bring unexpected results that could turn particle physics on its head," he said.
Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass. In 1964, a British physicist, Peter Higgs, came up with the idea that there must exist a background field that would act rather like treacle. Particles passing through it would acquire mass by being dragged through a mediator, which theoreticians dubbed the Higgs boson.
The standard quip about the Higgs boson is that it is the "God Particle" in that it is everywhere, but remains frustratingly elusive.
Supersymmetric partners
In terms of what other discoveries might come out of the experiments, Hawking said that the experiment could discover 'superpartners', particles that would be "supersymmetric partners" to particles already known about.
"Their existence would be a key confirmation of string theory, and they could make up the mysterious dark matter that holds galaxies together," he told the BBC. "Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe."
Hawking, the 66-year-old Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, was diagnosed with the muscle-wasting motor neuron disease at the age of 22. He is in a wheelchair and speaks with the aid of a computer and voice synthesiser.
Hawking bet a good one.
The Standard Model is likely far too simple. And the best bet would be that that will be made all too apparent rather quickly once the first few tests are conducted. This is the history of scientific discovery in microcosm.
Observational scientists generally feel no restraint regardless the theories.
Don Robertson, Limestone, Maine
Hawking
there goes your $100
there goes you $100
Gotta say that the jury is still out on this one.
Although the L.H.C. has proven to be operational, it still has to do some serious science.
For what it's worth, I myself have no "faith" in the "God particle" as I doubt the existence of matter (but that's another blurb).
Nemo
If he is only betting $100, he cant be that sure