Annals of hype: Did this discovery in 2012 mark “the discovery of the final laws of nature . . . a discontinuity in human intellectual history, the sharpest that has occurred since the beginning o...

Here’s Ed Regis in 1993, reviewing a book from that year by physicist Steven Weinberg:

Currently, the most favoured explanation for the electroweak asymmetry involves the postulation of a new elementary particle, the so-called Higgs boson . . . One of the reasons why Weinberg and other elementary particle theorists so much want to see the [Superconducting Supercollider] built is that its energies will be high enough to produce the Higgs particle, supposing it exists. . . . Weinberg is a master at communicating the excitement of the quest for it . . . ‘The discovery of the final laws of nature will mark a discontinuity in human intellectual history, the sharpest that has occurred since the beginning of modern science in the 17th century.’

A few years ago they did find compelling evidence for the Higgs boson and it was news, but nobody said it was the end of the line, the final law of nature, or a discontinuity in human intellectual history.

Weinberg’s no longer around so we can’t ask him, but . . . back in 1993 was he really thinking that establishing the existence of the Higgs boson would represent “the discovery of the final laws of nature”? Like, now we know what all the particles are and we’re done? Full credit to Regis for not falling for the hype.