November 8, 2013--Billions & Billions & Billions

Periodically, something from the world of science jars things into sharp perspective. For example, recent findings about Earth-like planets that could support life--very much including intelligent life--and apocalyptic implications about the just-discovered Higgs boson.

The Kepler spacecraft, launched into orbit in 2009 has as its primary mission calculating how many sun-like stars there are in our galaxy that have Earth-like planets: Eta-Earths.

Extrapolating from what Kepler finds to the entire universe, using the so-called Drake Equation (which is employed to estimate how many Eta-Earths in the Milky Way might contain intelligent civilizations), astronomers have been calculating just how likely it is to find various forms of life there and throughout the rest of the Universe.

Cornell University astronomer Carl Sagan back in 1980, through books such as Cosmos and a popular TV show, "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," brought to non-scientists an enthusiasm for the possibility of life on other planets--SETI (Search for Extra-Terestrial Intelligence).

He famously began each show by talking about "the billions and billions and billions of stars" in our galaxy and claimed that "the total number of stars in the Universe is larger than the grains of sand on all  the beaches of planet Earth."

Though fascinated by Sagan's claims, many were equally amused by the breathless way in which he presented his ideas, including many times on the "Tonight Show" and on "Saturday Night Life" where he appeared as a guest and at other times as a target of parody.

As it turns out Sagan's speculations were on the mark.

According to recently announced findings based on images captured by the Kepler telescope, it appears that there are indeed billions and billions and billions of Eta-Earths in our galaxy and countless billions more in the 100 billion or so other galaxies in the Universe.

In our galaxy alone--the Milky Way--the current estimate is that there are 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets. Again, using the Drake Equation, many millions of them likely include intelligent life.

If this is not enough to make your head spin and fire your imagination, there is also significant news on the sub-atomic front. Specifically about the Higgs boson.

Physicist Peter Higgs a month ago was awarded a Nobel Prize for his theoretical work about a major source of energy that permeates space, confers mass on elementary sub-atomic particles, and gives forces such as gravity their distinctive features--the eponymous Higgs boson.

Until observed and identified earlier this year at the CERN particle accelerator in Europe the Higgs was an important but theoretical construct. But now actual Higgs bosons have been observed just where they were theorized to be.

There is general excitement all around. Higgs' work and that of the physicists at CERN is as important as any set of findings in at least 50 years.

But as with so much that is exciting and promising there is also a potential downside--in the case of the Higgs, a downside of literally cosmic proportions.

According to a report in the New York Times, the new boson could have "a fatal disease."

Some theorists, reviewing the history and future of the Higgs boson (with an emphasis on "future"), say that--

Taken at face value, the result [of these reviews] implies that eventually, (in 10-to-the-hundredth-power years) an unlucky quantum fluctuation will produce a bubble of a different vacuum, which will then expand at the speed of light, destroying everything. 

The idea is that the Higgs field could someday twitch and drop to a lower energy state, like water freezing into ice, thereby obliterating the workings of reality as we know it. Naturally, we would have no warning. Just blink and it's over.

Though 10-to-the-hundredth-power years is a very long time--very, very, very--this blink-and-it's-over business is a little depressing.