Has the existence of ghosts been disproved by the LHC?

Despite many scientific studies pointing to hallucinations and other phenomena as the culprits behind “supernatural” experiences, a vast majority of people still believe in ghosts. In the US alone, 42% of people believe in ghosts, and that value is even higher in the UK at 52%.

While someone has yet to come forward with solid evidence that ghosts exist, one theoretical physicist believes we already have proof that they don’t – and it’s all thanks to the Large Hadron Collider.

That physicist is the University of Manchester’s Brian Cox. In the BBC science series “The Infinite Monkey Cage,” he stated that if ghosts do exist, then the Large Hadron Collider would have already detected the medium or substance that sustains an individual’s information after death.

“If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist, then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern, and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made,” Cox explained.

“We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That’s almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies.”

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who appeared on the episode next to Cox, replied, “If I understand what you just declared, you just asserted that CERN, the European Centre for Nuclear Research, disproved the existence of ghosts.”

“Yes,” said Cox.

Ghosts vs. the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The Standard Model of Physics is not perfect, of course. It’s an incomplete theory with numerous holes – an issue that scientists, for many decades, have been working hard to resolve.

Still, Cox believes the existence of ghosts lies outside the Standard Model’s “known unknowns.”

Basically, the concept of ghosts contradicts the second law of thermodynamics – a scientific law that has been meticulously tested and serves as one of our universe’s most fundamental laws.

According to the second law of thermodynamics, an isolated system’s total entropy increases over time.

What is entropy? It is a measure of the disorder or randomness within an isolated or closed system. What the second law of thermodynamics is therefore saying is that as a system loses usable energy, it experiences an increase in chaos. And unless the system receives additional energy, the advancement toward chaos is irreversible.

Any system will therefore always see energy being lost to heat. The energy put into a system can never be recovered, and this is true for appliances such as a TV or refrigerator as it is for the cosmos.

Ghosts vs. the Large Hadron Collider

So how is all this related to the existence of ghosts?

According to our general understanding of what a ghost is, it’s not something we can touch. This must mean they’re not made of matter, which in turn suggests they’re made of energy.

Remember that in every system, energy is always lost. As an energy being that consumes energy by performing a multitude of fantastic feats – such as appearing and disappearing, floating, telekinetically manipulating objects, lowering the temperature, making creepy sounds, and occasionally crawling out of your TV – then it wouldn’t be possible for the ghost to remain in existence for any considerable duration.

And how does the Large Hadron Collider fit into this?

True, the giant particle accelerator hasn’t discovered every phenomenon in the universe. But what science does see extremely well is the way our cells’ information is driven by energy.

Assuming ghosts are sustained by energy that isn’t a completely new medium or substance – and that this energy is something that persists after death – then the force responsible for controlling the particles that comprise our cells would have already been identified by the Large Hadron Collider.

“I would say if there’s some kind of substance that’s driving our bodies, making my arms move and legs move, then it must interact with the particles out of which our bodies are made,” explained Cox.

“And seeing as we’ve made high precision measurements of the ways that particles interact, then my assertion is that there can be no such thing as an energy source that’s driving our bodies.”

DeGrasse Tyson agreed, stating that there isn’t an experience that can’t be explained by an extensive understanding of mathematics, physics, and astrophysics.

The human need to believe

Still, he understands the human desire to keep believing I ghosts.

“In that moment, there’s a mystery, and it’s kinda fun,” he said. “And that allows me to understand, and even embrace, the urge that people have to want there to be this deep mystery, such as ghosts of ancestors. I have a soft spot for what that psychological state is, because I’ve felt that intermittently, except I kept exploring and getting the answer.”

You can download the aforementioned episode of “The Infinite Monkey Cage” at the BBC website. — TJD, GMA News