The God Particle

#497 – Biggest Mysteries in Physics: Antimatter, Dark Energy & ToE – Don Lincoln

Lex Fridman Podcast, 29 May 2026. The book comes up at 1 hr 18 min in.

Don Lincoln explains the origin of the 'God Particle' nickname for the Higgs boson, tracing it to a book by Leon Lederman (spelled 'Letterman' in transcript). Lincoln notes that Lederman himself preferred 'goddamn particle' due to the difficulty of finding it, and that the actual title was chosen by the publisher to sell more copies — not for religious reasons.

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