Stephen Hawking warns Higgs Boson 'God' Particle could Destroy Universe; Says 'We Wouldn't See it Coming' [PHOTO]

According to Times of India, Stephen Hawking has recently warned that the God particle, also known as the Higgs boson, has the potential to destroy the universe. The Daily Mail reports that the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 by scientists at CERN, and was found by accelerating two beams of protons in opposite directions and then smashing them together. It is thought to be part of the mechanism that gives matter its mass, but scientists do not fully understand it yet.

The 72-year old Cambridge educated cosmologist stated that Higgs boson could become very unstable and high energy levels, which could lead to "catastrophic vacuum decay" and cause space and time to collapse. Furthermore, we would not have any warning of the danger.

Express reports that the preface to Hawking's new book, "Starmus," states, "the Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become megastable at energies above 100bn giga-electron-volts (GeV)," emphasizing the particle's threat. The book also contains lectures by astronomers and physicists such as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

However, Hawking did sarcastically note that the likelihood of such a disaster is unlikely to happen in the near future. He said, "A particle accelerator that reaches 100bn GeV would be larger than Earth, and is unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate," emphasizing that a much larger and more expensive particle accelerator would be necessary in order to produce high levels of danger.

The Large Hadron Collider where the Higgs boson was discovered is of no danger to us, either. Professor John Ellis, a physicist at CERN, asserted, "One thing should be made clear. The discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) did not cause this problem, and collisions at the LHC could not trigger the instability, because their energies are far too low."

However, Hawking's statement should stay with us - the possible danger of the Higgs becoming destabilized is too great to be ignored.

Tags
stephen hawking
Higgs boson
God Particle
Destroy
Large Hadron Collider
Join the Discussion

Latest Photo Gallery

Real Time Analytics