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Higgs Boson Could Spell Doom: Stephen Hawking
The Higgs Boson or the God Particle which was discovered in 2012, could cause the universe to collapse, noted physicist Stephen Hawking has warned.
According to a preface to a book written by Hawking, the Higgs Boson could become unstable under very high energy conditions, causing collapse space and time, resulting in creation of a black hole that would spell doom for the universe.
"The Higgs Boson potential has the worrisome feature that it might become megastable at energies above 100bn giga-electron-volts (GeV). This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light," Hawking reportedly wrote in the book Starmus which a collection of lectures by noted scientists and astronomers, according to the Daily Mail.
The Higgs Boson's discovery in 2012 at the Large Hardon Collider (LHC) proved British Nobel physicist Peter Higgs theory that the particle gives size and shape to matter. The elusive Higgs Boson was discovered when scientists collided high energy sub-atomic particles and examined the resulting debris.
CNET reported that Hawking's warnings this time around are not the first from him. He earlier raised concerns over alien invasion and threat from artificial intelligence. He also remarked that physics had become less than interesting after the discovery of Higgs Boson. It is said that he lost a $ 100 bet when the particle was found.
Hawking's warnings this time however come with a rider, and from none else but him.
"A particle accelerator that reaches 100bn GeV would be larger than Earth, and is unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate," the Mirror quotes from Hawking's preface.
With Hawking's writing raising concerns, particle physicists working at CERN have categorically stated such instability is not possible at the LHC given that the energies in the collider are far too small to produce instability.
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