I admire scientists who are willing to entertain ideas that seem crazy but which just might be true. You find such people treading outside the boundary lines in every field of science - except perhaps, in evolutionary biology, which seems populated by individuals who lack the gene for being able to consider any hypothesis for apparent design that actually implies a Designer - and it's fun to speculate along with them.
Even so, I think this latest theory in physics is a bit much. According to a New York Times story, the problems besetting the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which was built to recreate conditions approximating the Big Bang and which, it is hoped, will produce evidence of a sub-atomic particle called the Higgs Boson, are due to the Higgs actually traveling back in time to sabotage the LHC. The theory has it that the Higgs doesn't want to be discovered (it's not clear how a subatomic particle could actually "want" anything) and has "decided" (ditto) to travel back in time to sabotage the device that would discover it, or something.
You'll have to read about it at the link. Maybe the NYT writer can make it sound more plausible than I can. It's true that the LHC has had problems getting going, and it's true that the people who proffer this hypothesis are serious and accomplished physicists, so we shouldn't dismiss their idea out of hand, but still - intentionality among sub-atomic particles? Does this mean that they have minds?
Thanks to Telic Thoughts for the tip on the article.
RLC
