The New Cathedrals: Awaken Awe and Inspire Us

It is significant that Dr. Victor Weisskopf, the former director of CERN, recently likened the monumental efforts of the world scientific community to build the Large Hadron Collider to the earlier efforts of humanity to build the great gothic cathedrals of Europe.

The same spirit that led us to build spires that reached to the heavens is leading us to inquire into the smallest particles of all that exists.

While it’s not likely that we will fall on our knees to acknowledge the apparent discovery at CERN of the Higgs-Boson particle, sometimes referred to as the “god particle,” there is certainly reason to celebrate this amazing achievement. The great cathedrals and the great colliders have this in common.

They hopefully awaken awe in us and inspire us to not only reach for the stars but also to strive to understand, as much as we can, what everything in this awesome universe is all about.

By John Mariner,
Licensed Clinical Social Worker