1. Leon Lederman and Dick Teresi, The God Particle (1993):
Lederman and Teresi used the metaphor of an invisible soccer ball to explain the search of particle physics for the ultimate explanation – the “God particle.” They asked readers to imagine super-intelligent visitors from another planet, able to see everything except black and white — soccer balls are invisible to them.
They watch a soccer game and cannot understand it. People run back and forth and in circles, kicking the air every so often and falling down. Once in a while the person at one end or the other of the field dives, the crowd cheers, and a point goes up on the board.
Totally inexplicable, completely meaningless — until one of them comes up with a theory: assume a ball. By positing a ball, suddenly the game makes sense, and it can be appreciated by the human mind. The book ends with a scene from an imagined movie. A scientist is standing on the beach at night, shouting at the universe: “Of what use are you but for my consciousness and my constructions, which have revealed you?” At that point:
A fuzzy swirling light appears in the sky, and a beam of radiance illuminates our man-on-the-beach. To the solemn and climactic chords of the Bach B Minor Mass, or perhaps the piccolo solo of Stravinsky’s “Rites,” the light in the sky slowly configures itself into Her Face, smiling, but with an expression of infinite sweet sadness.
2. James Lileks (2003):
I’ve often said, half facetiously, that the relationship between man and dog is the same as man to God. Dogs don’t understand our books or physics … or flat-screen monitors or 99.8% of our world. They do not know what it is that they do not know. They don’t even know how to pose the question, frame the argument, find their way into to realm of the human mind. The connection to the human being is sufficient. …
I find no more empirical proof of God than my dog finds proof of satellite TV. But at night when we’re on the sofa he sees the inscrutable stories flickering on the box in the corner. I note his disinterest: one of those things, whaddagonna do. But the fact that he doesn’t get the story doesn’t mean there’s not a story being told.
3. Alexis Madrigal, July 5, 2012: “Why the Higgs Boson Discovery Is Disappointing, According to the Smartest Man in the World — In confirming what we already thought, the Higgs Boson discovery portends a close to a glorious chapter of particle physics":
In an elegiac blog post, Wolfram notes that the discovery of the Higgs brings a lifetime (his lifetime) of physics research to a close … this is a moment to recognize that the dominant field for the world's biggest brains in the 20th century — particle physics — may not immediately unlock any more of the universe's important secrets.
We have always assumed a Higgs boson; now we know it exists. But like the dog watching TV, we don't understand the story being told — we know the rules of soccer, but not exactly Who invented the game, or why, or what happens next — and it may be that God is looking down, Her Face smiling with an expression of infinite sweet sadness, knowing that long ago we were told how Someone said "Let there be light," and gave us some rules.