Higgs field as less than nothing
example · science-physics ·
retold in 4 talks
Žižek uses the Higgs field paradox, that a completely void field at zero level costs more energy than a field with the Higgs particle, so the Higgs is literally something that costs less than nothing, as a formal homology for the Lacanian object a.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“you have a something which costs less than nothing. To have a certain field at its zero level completely void costs more energy than to have it with something”
“to maintain a system at its zero level of absolute peace, you already have to put energy into it to work.”
“Literally, the presupposition of Higgs field is that something costs less than nothing.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
David Bohm2Bono1Oriana Fallaci1Josefina1Lee Strasberg1Ed Harris1Mohammed Bouyeri1Emanuel Swedenborg1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Žižek uses the Higgs field paradox, that a completely void field at zero level costs more energy than a field with the Higgs particle, so the Higgs is literally something that costs less than nothing, as a formal homology for the Lacanian object a., illustrating less than nothing,objet petit a
Using the physics concept that maintaining a system at 'zero' (absolute peace) requires energy, Žižek argues that society requires a tremendous amount of invisible violence to reproduce itself., illustrating objective violence
The paradox that the 'false vacuum' (pure symmetry/nothing) costs energy to sustain, while the 'true vacuum' (broken symmetry/something) costs zero energy, meaning 'something is cheaper than nothing.', illustrating something costs less than nothing,false vacuum vs. true vacuum