Glass
by Jeff
Image text: I read in this one article that the breaking of electroweak symmetry is the reason we have SOULS. This guy with a degree said so!
First, apologies on this one being late, I’m a bit under the weather, but the internet must go on!
In this comic, Cutie and Cueball are attempting to have Cutie sing at the right note to break the glass. But, instead of breaking, the water in the glass turned to blood. (as an aside, wouldn’t it be easier to break an empty glass? Perhaps I’m over thinking this.)
When Cutie says her thing about physics, the two characters get a reply from what appears to be God since the voice is coming from the top of the comic. God tells the characters in the comic to stop looking for the Higgs Boson. Scientists are looking for the Higgs Boson at CERN which once discovered would help explain the origin of mass in the universe. Indeed, the Higgs Boson is called the “God particle”. Obviously, God would not want man to discover the Higgs Boson because then no one would believe in God. But, if God is real as this comic indicates, then there would be no Higgs Boson since God would have created the universe. Ok, now my brain hurts again.
In the image text, the breaking of electroweak symmetry is (an apologies to physicists out there if I butcher this – please correct me in the comments) what turns massless particles into particles with mass. Essentially creating something out of nothing…
Am I right? Wrong? What do you think? Let's hear it in the comments.
October 29th, 2010
First off, I hope you feel better soon!
Secondly, water to wine is a traditional miracle thingy. The blood makes it more of a threat, I think….
Thirdly, if the Higgs Boson exists, and God exists, then God is the Higgs Boson is God.
And lastly… great site!
October 30th, 2010
Water to wine is Jesus’ first miracle in the John gospel. Water to blood is the first plague to hit the Egyptians in Exodus. I could go on about how there is a thematic connection between the two miracles (and contrast how one was a blessing and the other a curse). But I have a feeling this xkcd just wants us to feel confused and weirded out about what’s happening, until the Physics god enlightens the viewer with a punchline.
October 30th, 2010
I think you’re thinking too hard. The conflict between science and religion has never been resolved, as far as my knowledge stretches, and thus turned into a joke here.
I might be off-based but there could be incidents implying that religion factions are hindering, or expecting to, scientists’ progress in finding the God’s Particle — again, turned into a comedy, for whether it is God or people believing in God there would be no reason to fear something you’re supposed to believe/know not to exist.
October 30th, 2010
Also, the fact that Cueball mistook “water to water” for “water to blood” — figuratively speaking: a miracle for an apocalypes — most likely implies that Higg Bosons could do more harm than good for humankind?
October 30th, 2010
water to wine*
Apologies for needless triple-posting.
November 3rd, 2010
You know, MAYBE this is just an overly-elaborate set-up for a lame water-to-whine pun.
October 30th, 2010
I wouldn’t say its god at all, I think its just the personification of physics speaking there
October 30th, 2010
Yeah, I agree with EmpirePoenix.
The reason (I think) a personified physics would be upset is because the Higgs Boson is the last particle remaining to be discovered in the Standard Model, and it is indeed a very fundamental particle.
And you don’t have it quite right with the breaking of electroweak symmetry. The electroweak force is the one force responsible for the electric force, the magnetic force, and the weak force. The carriers of the electromagnetic force (photons) are massless. The W and Z bosons, the carriers of the weak force, are not massless. For there to be symmetry between the electromagnetic and the weak force, we would expect their carriers to have the same (”symmetric”) mass (zero.) Thus we have the breaking of electroweak symmetry. The hope is that the Higgs Boson hides the symmetry of Standard Model. If we find it, we hope that the once massless photons will have mass – without screwing everything else up in the Standard Model in the process.
Here’s a nice link:
http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/FermiNews98-01-23.pdf
October 30th, 2010
Water to Wine?
Water to Blood?
It’s water to wine, then wine to blood!
It is the essential part of the catholic mass that bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/603196/transubstantiation
http://www.mycatholictradition.com/catholic-mass.html
November 3rd, 2010
I can’t be the only one who’s creeped out by transubstantiation. Actually, Christianity has a sort of underlying theme of gruesomeness, mostly directed towards the supposed savior of humanity. In addition to passing bit of god through the digestive tract on a weekly basis (possibly the origins of the phrase “holy shit”), the main symbol of the entire religion consists of the poor guy nailed to a piece of tree on the last legs of life. In stark contrast, the Buddhist symbol is a fat guy sitting there and chuckling.
If two groups approached you, one saying “If you don’t join us then you will be eternally tortured by our… associates, who by the way we’ve never met but our leader, who we’ve also never met, told us about them. Oh, and our god is a guy nailed to a tree,” and the other saying “If you want, you can join us. It’s really up to you, but we’ve got some good stuff going for us. At least, we think we do. We don’t have proof either, but if you don’t join us we won’t hunt you down and force you to,” which would you choose?
For the record, I’m neither Christian nor Buddhist.
April 30th, 2011
You mistake the Chinese folk hero Budai for the Buddha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai
November 1st, 2010
Saying that the breaking of electroweak symmetry is what turns massless particles into particles with mass is a pretty decent summary imo. In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs boson breaks the electroweak symmetry – the interactions of the Higgs with the W and Z bosons is what gives them their mass. Also, the interactions of the Higgs with the quarks and leptons is what gives them their mass. It’s not that the “once massless photons will have mass” – photons have zero rest mass, with or without the Higgs. I have a degree so you can trust what I say
November 1st, 2010
Anyone has an idea why, in the image text, the breaking of electroweak symmetry is said to be connected to us having souls? Or should I not look for a reason behind it?
November 1st, 2010
The electroweak symmetry breaking could be an allusion to and a rejection of Frank Tipler’s, Physics of Immortality and Physics of Christianity.
November 1st, 2010
On your first aside – Having wine in the glass changes the frequency at which it resonates. I suppose an empty glass would resonate at lower frequencies. Whether that makes it easier to break is dependent on your voice.
November 2nd, 2010
Maybe I’m underthinking this, but the image text “this guy with a degree said so!” seems to be referencing the fact that society in general, and mainstream media in particular, seems to like to pull out an “expert” to support whatever stance they want to push at that time. xkcd has had a couple of episodes where there has been a lamentation on peoples’ ability to think for themselves – preferring to let other people do it for us – and maybe this is a continuation of that theme?
November 3rd, 2010
The day people start seriously thinking for themselves, doing their own research, and trying to ensure they’re always making informed and ethical decisions is THE DAY WE HAVE A UTOPIA.
I’m thinking it’s less the “eu” type, and more the “ou” type, though.
November 8th, 2010
I was under the impression that the water to blood/wine thing was a metaphor the unpredictability of quantam physics. Scientists researching and experimenting on quantam effects often find results that are completely unexpected, and actually break our current understanding of physics.
November 20th, 2010
Discovering the higgs boson will no more make people stop believing in god that the other millions of reasons religion is a load of bull. Even if every single thing ever in the universe was fully explained beyond all reasonable doubts, the unreasonable doubts would still win out. I think you get my point at this point.
The comic indeed appears to be a very simple reference to the way physics throws crazy crap at us every time we think we have it figured out, I don’t think I even have to mention the weird articles people have posted about the higgs boson preventing its own finding.
But really, the higgs boson is not a fundamental force carrier, it is not that exciting. It is just a ridiculously heavy boson, way heavier than protons or neutrons or any other boson, the hope is that observing the extreme weight will make it ridiculously clear where mass comes from. Really, considering M theory it all makes sense though.
November 20th, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table Explains it in a more detailed way.
December 1st, 2010
Every scientific advance I see does not make me believe less in God, but strengthens it. It simply proves that the miracles that usually make people disbelieve religions actually can occur, scientifically. And God simply knows all physics and can manipulate it to His will. Sadly, most religions’ view of God does not allow them to see this possibility.
Surely, all the abilities given us today with our technology, cellphones, planes, etc, would be viewed as miracles centuries ago. Miracles are simply a manifestation of a law of physics which we do not understand.
September 21st, 2011
I like that outlook. You don’t cut yourself off from knowledge and new ideas– you take it in stride as another demonstrations of the wonders of God’s complex and impossible-to-simplify creation.
That’s pretty neat. I like it.
March 6th, 2012
And blood is thicker than water.
March 30th, 2012
I’ll pick up a completely irrelevant point and propose a reason why they filled the glass with water:
If the glass is empty, its resonant frequency will be quite low, and get higher the more water is filled into it. Now if Cutie’s voice is naturally quite high (which roughly determines your comfortable singing pitch/the pitch where you can go loudest), filling the glass with water up to her comfortable pitch would aid bringing the glass to resonance.