English Explanatory Dictionary

God particle

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The Higgs boson.

Word forms

God particle God particles

Etymology

Coined by American mathematician and physicist Leon M. Lederman in 1993 in his book The God Particle, the title having been changed at the suggestion of his editor. According to Lederman (page 22), he wanted to call the Higgs boson the Goddamn Particle, "given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing", but his publisher wouldn't let him. So they agreed to call it "The God Particle" as "there is a connection, of sorts" to the Bible and the story of the Tower of Babel in the sense that it appears as if the Higgs boson "has been put there to test and confuse us".

Related words

Oh-My-God particle
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on G Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary