Inside the newly-discovered Higgs boson lurks a flaw that could foretell the end of the universe, according to a new scientific paper. It’s a complicated bit of business, but it all boils down to this: “Eventually (in 10^100 years or so) an unlucky quantum fluctuation will produce a bubble of a different vacuum, which will then expand at the speed of light, destroying everything.”
Which The New York Times, helpfully, boils down to this:
The idea is that the Higgs field could someday twitch and drop to a lower energy state, like water freezing into ice, thereby obliterating the workings of reality as we know it. Naturally, we would have no warning. Just blink and it’s over.
Yikes. And happy Election Day! It’s a long way to 10^100 years, so vote, vote, VOTE!
