The Ten Commandments

In which we remind people of the Ten Commandments of the God Particle.

Now with added footnotes.

  • I I am the Higgs. Thou shalt have no other Higgs before me.1
  • II Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the HIGGS thy God Particle am a jealous God Particle, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. 2
  • III Thou shalt not take the name of the Higgs thy God Particle in vain3
  • IV Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.4
  • V Honour thy fermion and thy boson5
  • VI Thou shalt not annihilate.6
  • VII Thou shalt not two-time.7
  • VIII Thou shalt not steal.8
  • IX Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.9
  • X Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's mass nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.10
  • So mote it be.

1 Orthodox, or Standard Model, theosophers interpret this commandment literally; Reformists who believe in Grand Unification have a complex explanation for how this really means the Higgs is One in Three and the Singlet is really a Trinary; modern theosophers tend to consider this a subtle mistranslation referring to Unitarity, especially those who espouse the Landscape Interepretation of modern theophysics.

2 Modern theosophers tend to quietly ignore this, the most complex of the commandments, though the Schwingerites still insist it precludes the use of Feynman diagrams.
Modern theophysicists tend to think this is a revelation of the number of flavour generations; while ultra-orthodox theosophers have argued that this prohibits neutrino detectors and such like and argue that theosophy should return to pure theoretical contemplation.

3 I am doomed.

4 Modern theosophers forget that until just a generation ago physics experiements were shut down at beer o'clock on fridays for the weekend. This is another of the commandments that is no longer observed except by the ultra-orthodox who refuse to even scribble on a lined notepad on their day off.

5 One word: Anyons?
O tempora, o mores.

6 The orthodox still use this commandment to continue to argue against the ILC; but most theosophers argue that this is meant to forbid private annihilation by civilians on a retail basis, unless of course necessary to prevent one's own annihilation or that of others. Correspondingly most theosophers accept annihilation en masse, by professional theosophers only, of course, under the jurisdiction of a legitimate civil authority, if in a good cause, as rationalised by Lawrence in his classic tract on concept of the "Good Annihilation" and blessed by CERN.

7 This apparently superfluous prohibition on closed timelike curves has long puzzled theosophers. Some suggest it speaks to the tachyonic nature of the naked Higgs, others consider it a mere tautology.

8 Theft is of course absolutely prohibited, if it is of real massets. Modern theosophy has long appreciated the distinction between this and virtual theft, which is necessary to keep things normalized. Reformers feel that finanical theosophers have taken the concept to an excess.

9 Modern theosophy considers this a cryptic allusion to the so-called accidental symmetries and associated quantum number. Reformers of the GUT persuasion keep pushing the false decay heresy, which enjoyed brief popularity during the hedonistic era.

10 Many non-theosophers consider this commandment redundant, but advanced students of theosophy understand that this commandment is what underpins the hierarchy on which we depend and is the most inviolate of them all.

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This is just awesome.

Hmm... yup, I just looked up "having way too much time on his hands." This was it. [BTW, bravo!]