Shane Life

I was exposed to TED a couple years ago when Internet semi-celebrity Ze Frank spoke and pointed his many feed followers toward the TED site. TED is essentially the smartest conference in the world. It stands for “Technology Entertainment Design” and people pay $6,000 just to be able to go to the conference AFTER they get the invitation. The waiting list is about 2 years long to go and you have to be amazingly accomplished in order to become a part of the conference.

Speakers include such folks as Bono, Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Clinton, Frank Gehry, Peter Gabriel, Seth Godin and Al Gore. The motto of the conference is “Ideas worth sharing” so I thought I’d share one today.

The above video is “rock star physicist” Brian Cox talking about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Europe. The LHC is a fascinating piece of scientific machinery and to hear someone like Cox describe its purpose is nothing short of remarkable. Cox purports that there is an equation that helps to explain the universe and how it works, but it requires one small little thing – a subatomic particle called the Higgs particle that has not yet been discovered.

I mention this because it is a fascinating piece of science. This Higgs particle is what gives matter its mass. It is a part of everything, yet has not yet been seen by scientists, but is essential to proving all their theories and such. According to Cox, it’s what gives matter its mass. To me, the Higgs particle sounds an awful lot like the presence of a power greater than ourselves.

Part of the goal of the research at the LHC is to try and find sub-atomic particles not yet seen, like the Higgs particle. I don’t claim to be an expert on all this scientific stuff, but I think it’s completely fascinating. Scheduled to be turned on sometime this summer (I think…the date is a bit difficult to find), the LHC will answer some pretty big questions about the universe. Or maybe it will just raise more…

Discuss.