You are hating the player, Charles. The problem isn't old men who used whimsical English words to denote components of the theory of particle physics, the problem is that you are attempting to use the English Language, without any mathematics at all, to apprehend a model built on university-level math.

This is your ongoing weakness, Charles, your continuing lack of game. You shy away from even the simplest charts or formulae; you do not seem to even realize that mathematics can be an entire language, a language capable of clearly expressing things that English or other spoken languages struggle to even sketch.

The observation* of the Higgs was, in a sense, the culmination of the standard model, a moment of glory that any physicist will tell you was greater than the production of J/psi mesons at SLAC and Brookhaven (and why pick that over, say, the observation of the W and Z bosons in 1983)?

(*) "discovery" is not a word that makes temporal sense when there are decades of experiments between a hypothesis and the observations that confirm it.

@2 for a blog post, I'd say Charles did an adequate job of explaining the problem you point out, which is the absurdity of attempting to reconcile high-level mathematical truths with a word foisted into the English language, first by Joyce, and then by old Gell-Mann.

This isn't a judgement on which person (i.e. you or Charles) is or can be correct. I look at both Charles's post and your comment as fascinating contributions to a dialogue that mutually reinforces the schism between using English to explain subjects of study more accurately expressed by math. Because I don't understand math or physics without someone explaining it using English, I found the post (and your comment, itself an example of pleasing rhetorical dexterity) insightful.

At the absolute least, the post spurred you to think enough to make an interesting contribution to the comment thread that successfully diverted my attention from the obscene late-night heart burn I'm experiencing as a result of eating at my local Hooters. Thanks for reading this far into my comment!

Hey Chuck,
Santa Fe is in the great state of New Mexico, USA.
Not the third world country of Mexico.
Dumb ass.

@Charles Years ago I pointed you to the excellent book The Quark and the Jaguar by Gell-Mann. I assume from this post you've read it? Would have expected a post referencing complex adaptive systems if true - seems like something you'd be into.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/08/23/24492279/what-the-white-mans-fly-tells-us-about-intelligent-design/comments