Higgs-Boson – does it matter?

There has been much excitement and also a fair amount of ambivalence around the ‘discovery’ of the so-called God particle this week. A lot of hype but a lot of blank faces too.Yesterday I found myself thinking, “does it really matter or has a lot of money been spent on something that is of interest to physicists but is of no use to the rest of us?”As a tech PR agency, with clients working in the nanosphere of electronics, it is a question that we have to ask on a regular basis. Understanding the in-depth, technical details of emerging tech and finding ways to communicate this to an audience that might not immediately see ‘what’s in it for me’ is a challenge.The reality with Higgs-Boson, of course, is that it’s a huge leap forward that could form the basis of technological development in the future.Recently I read ‘Quantum’ by Manjit Kumar, on Einstein, Bohr and the great debate that raged on over many decades on Quantum theory and the nature of reality. I have to confess that I didn’t understand some of the deeper science (I was always the more ‘arty’ type at school) but I was swept along by the enthusiasm of scientists around the world and their unending quest and passion to try and find answers to questions that that were so nebulous even they didn’t fully understand them.Taking complex ideas and deep tech developments and communicating the innovation and excitement around them is exactly what this book does and is something we strive to emulate for our clients, no matter what area of technology they might be involved in.The discovery of the electron particle by JJ Thomson in 1897 changed the world and led to developments that form the electronics industry as we know it today.  So let’s embrace Higgs-Boson and see where it takes us.(Photo of Hadron Collider by Mark Hillary)