We all realize how closed-lipped Rossi can be when it comes to sensitive information about the E-Cat and his business endeavors, but when you get him on a non-sensitive topic he can become very communicative — as demonstrated in this exchange with a reader about the Higgs Boson particle.
Jan.Gustavsson
August 25th, 2013 at 7:18 PM
Dear Dr Rossi: are you able to explain to us not expert what is and how works
the “Particle of God”? I made a bet with friends that you are able to make simple what is difficult.JG
Andrea Rossi
August 25th, 2013 at 8:02 PM
Jan.Gustavsson:
He,he,he… nice bet. I have studied all I could of the Higgs Boson, and, as a matter of fact, it is very difficult to explain what it is and how it works without the rigorous language of mathematics; this said, I want to help you win your bet, even if I am sure my “vulgarization” will raise not few eyebrows.
To explain what is the Higgs Boson and how it works we need a model easy to be understood.
Let us start from an attempt of scientific definition, and then down to the model.
The Higgs Boson is a scalar boson that breaking the symmetry makes the particles get mass ( or, better, “feel ” the mass).
Now the model: imagine a biosphere, a closed glass sphere in which you have no gravity and nothing at all inside, but cats and butterflies ( no snakes, all gone to sell apples). In this situation of no-gravity and no hurdles inside the biosphere inside the glass sphere you can see from outside cats and butterflies move and fly without difficulty and with no much difference between their lines of movement: up, down, clockwise, counterclockwise , left, right, and so on: you can say that between them there is a sort of a symmetry, because they move symmetrically in the biosphere, due to the fact that they don’t meet any obstacle, nor pull from anywhere. Now imagine that after this calm ( and inconclusive) symmetrical situation, arrives the game- changer, which is the fact that inside the glass ball of the biosphere we put gravity and also put inside a big bunch of flowers. At this point, the symmetry is broken, because, while the butterflies continue to fly around, even if with less easiness, the cats fall down and move with difficulty among the flowers: in few words, they FEEL their mass.
Now, consider that in the model the butterflies are the bosons, the cats are the fermions and the gravity combined with the flowers are the Higgs Boson.
The Higgs Boson has spin zero ( is a scalar force): as a matter of fact it does not move, like the flowers, while the fermions and the bosons are vectorial forces because they have total orbital angular momentum ( orbital momentum + intrinsic spin), and also have an isospin, which in the lattice model is determined by their position along the z axis of the lattice. Without the Higgs Bosons, the particles would fly linearly without interact and the Universe would be very boring: a lot of waves at the speed of light going on straight for ever. The chaos created by the Higgs Boson has generated everything: atoms, molecules, everything. Probably for this reason it has been called the “Particle of God”. I hope the Higgs Boson also will make you win your bet.
Warm Regards,
A.R.
I always thing that the best teachers are those who can take a complex topic and communicate it in a way that the non-expert can understand.I am in no way qualified to judge about the accuracy of what Rossi states here, but it certainly is poetic and quite entertaining — one of his characteristics (reminds me of the cat and mouse explanation). Jan Gustavsson wrote back to tell Rossi that he won the bet — so maybe he is not far from the mark. It might be just as entertaining to hopefully finally hear Rossi describe the theory behind the E-Cat!
