Fireballs of doom: Scientists say Higgs boson makes the universe unstable

Science does a good job of telling me what my temperature is, streaming Netflix to my TV, enabling GPS to help me navigate my yacht, and cure polio. Science does a less stellar job when it comes to explaining the universe. Please note the pun.

When it comes to some things regarding the deeper mysteries of science, any scientist that does not have a Christian perspective will miss the boat. They will come oh, so close. However, as Maxwell Smart used to say, “Missed it by THAT much.”



One example of being close to being right is the recent news of the Higgs Boson. You may recall the hullabaloo when the Large Hadron Collider seemed to have produced evidence that the Higgs Boson particle existed. This is the particle that gives mass to the universe. It is the particle that completes the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the particle that is so fundamental to the universe’s cosmic infrastructure that it’s called The God Particle.

Here is a great explanation from How Stuff Works to explain the Standard Model of particle physics, and the Higgs boson’s place within it.

The model comes to us by way of particle physics, a field filled with physicists dedicated to reducing our complicated universe to its most basic building blocks. It's a challenge we've been tackling for centuries, and we've made a lot of progress. First we discovered atoms, then protons, neutrons and electrons, and finally quarks and leptons (more on those later). But the universe doesn't only contain matter; it also contains forces that act upon that matter. The standard model has given us more insight into the types of matter and forces than perhaps any other theory we have.

Here's the gist of the standard model, which was developed in the early 1970s: Our entire universe is made of 12 different matter particles and four forces [source: European Organization for Nuclear Research]. Among those 12 particles, you'll encounter six quarks and six leptons. Quarks make up protons and neutrons, while members of the lepton family include the electron and the electron neutrino, its neutrally charged counterpart. Scientists think that leptons and quarks are indivisible; that you can't break them apart into smaller particles. Along with all those particles, the standard model also acknowledges four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak.

Scientists think each of the four fundamental forces has its own specific bosons. Electromagnetic fields, for instance, depend on the photon to transit electromagnetic force to matter. Physicists think the Higgs boson might have a similar function -- but transferring mass itself.

Can't matter just inherently have mass without the Higgs boson confusing things? Not according to the standard model. But physicists have found a solution. What if all particles have no inherent mass, but instead gain mass by passing through a field? This field, known as a Higgs field, could affect different particles in different ways. Photons could slide through unaffected, while W and Z bosons would get bogged down with mass. In fact, assuming the Higgs boson exists, everything that has mass gets it by interacting with the all-powerful Higgs field, which occupies the entire universe. Like the other fields covered by the standard model, the Higgs one would need a carrier particle to affect other particles, and that particle is known as the Higgs boson.

The article isn't that long and clearly explains why scientists think the Higgs boson is so important in explaining how the universe works.

With their recent discovery of the Higgs boson, came another startling discovery. The universe could end.

Higgs Boson calculations add up to new Armageddon scenario

Calculations that came with the likely discovery of the Higgs Boson last July also show that the particle's mass qualities could spell out the end of the universe said Fermilab theoretical physicist Joseph Lykken yesterday, according to NBC's Cosmic Log. Theory on the particle indicates that mass can be transmitted to other fundamental particles in the universe, which is how the possibility of the end of the world comes into play. This idea of mass transference suggests that the universe is not completely stable -- it's actually in a "metastable" state.

Aha! So if the Higgs boson transfers mass to other entities as they pass through the field, the very act of transference makes the universe inherently unstable. Hmmm.

This article from LiveScience says-

For example, the mass of the new particle is about 126 billion electron volts, or about 126 times the mass of the proton. If that particle really is the Higgs, its mass turns out to be just about what's needed to make the universe fundamentally unstable, in a way that would cause it to end catastrophically in the far future. That's because the Higgs field is thought to be everywhere, so it affects the vacuum of empty space-time in the universe.

"The mass of the Higgs is related to how stable the vacuum is," explained Christopher Hill, a physicist at Ohio State University. "It's right along the critical line. That could either be a cosmic coincidence, or it could be that there's some physics that's causing that. That's something new, which we didn't know before."

Strikingly, if the Higgs mass were just a few percent different, the universe wouldn't be doomed, the scientists said.

A 'cosmic coincidence,' lol. I would really be laughing out loud if it wasn't so tragic. The scientists are so CLOSE to the truth. They search and search but never get there. 2 Timothy 3:7 says of the Godless in the last days, that they are

"always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth"

The tragedy is, the universe will collapse. The scientists say that it will end like this:

"The Higgs Boson doom scenario won't be a drawn out event and will occur at light speed. But when it does happen, well, it's going to be a spectacular show. "Fireballs of doom will form spontaneously and destroy the Universe,"

Hmmm, a faster than the speed of light instant implosion by fire? Let's see what the bible says--

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!" (2 Peter 3:10-12).

Here is a preacher's exposition on the verse:

"And the universe will pass away. What does that mean? Go out of existence. Isaiah spoke of this in Isaiah 34. And it will go out of existence, this is so interesting, with a roar. Now that’s a hard word to translate. I suppose roar is an option but it is one of those words that we call an onomatopoeia, you know. You remember your English class and figures of speech and an onomatopoetic word is a word that sounds like its meaning. In English we would say, whizzing. There is a word that sounds like what it means...whizzzzz. This word is rhoizedon...rhoizzzedon, rhoizzedon. It has to do with the whizzing, whistling crackling sound of something whizzz, disappearing. That’s the way it’s going to go.

At the same time the elements will be dissolved or destroyed with intense heat." (Source)

Fireballs of doom, indeed.

This planet is a temporary one. It is disposable, only around for as long as God has His plan of redemption in play. When His work of redeeming souls is done, the planet and the entire universe will melt. However, not to worry, Peter says in 2 Peter 3:12 that there will be a new heavens.

Back to "so close". Scientists are so close to understanding that it is God who holds the universe together. (Colossians 1:7). They are so close to understanding just how unstable the universe is. It is all held by Jesus and the moment He lets go, with a roar the universe will melt. (2 Peter 3:10). They are so close to knowing that it is Jesus Himself who is the field of power through which all things pass. (Colossians 1:15).

They are so close that we have a tendency to say, as Maxwell Smart did, "Missed it by that much!" But that is wrong thinking. They are not so close to the truth. It is far.

There are two roads, Jesus said. (Matthew 7:13-14). Neither road is close to one another. One is toward life and one is toward death. We see a picture of that enacted in the story from Luke 16:26 where the rich man was in torment in hell. He looked at Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom and asked for Lazarus to come put a drop of water on his tongue to salve his tormenting thirst. Abraham replied that there is a great gulf fixed between the two places.


"Besides all this, between you and us there is a great gulf set, so that they which would go from hence to you, cannot: neither can they come from thence to us. " (Luke 16:26).


Another verse intimates that the distance between heaven and hell is vast. In Matthew 8:12 we're told that the unsaved will be cast into outer darkness.

If you are on the narrow road you will inherit a Light of glory that permeates the city and heaven itself.(Revelation 21:23; Revelation 22:5). If you fail to repent you will inherit an eternal darkness at the outer edges from where Jesus is. Psalm 103:2 says that He will remove our transgressions from us and make them be as far as the east is from the west.

So close is an eternity afar. It is painful as a Christian to read of great scientific advances such as the potential unification of the Standard Model of physics. (if they ever figure out where gravity comes from, but that's another story). To see that the universe will be destroyed, but not to see how the bible already records that it will happen, and in exactly the way that the scientists already see and understand...it is painful. They are so close but devastatingly far from the truth.

We Christians in turn, though, can and do praise Him for His power and His plan of redemption!

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." (Revelation 4:11).