God Particle: Understanding the Universe

 God Particle" Found?
National Geographic, Top 10 Discoveries of 2012.

Illustration by Moonrunner Design Ltd., National Geographic

In July, two separate teams working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reported they were more than 99 percent certain they've discovered the Higgs boson, aka the God particle—or at the least a brand-new particle exactly where they expected the Higgs to be.
The long-sought particle may complete the standard model of physics by explaining why objects in our universe have mass—and in so doing, why galaxies, planets, and even humans have any right to exist.

(See Large Hadron Collider pictures.)

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Published December 3, 2012.

Higgs boson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of physics. All other particles in the Standard Model have been seen in experiments, but the Higgs boson, first predicted to exist in the 1960s, is difficult to create and detect. It may have finally been discovered in July 2012, but it will take further testing to know for sure. 

 

Its discovery (or non-existence) would be monumental^[6][7] because it would finally prove the existence of the Higgs field, the simplest^[8] and longest standing explanation of how the electroweak interaction divides into electromagnetism and the weak force (known as "symmetry breaking"). It would also confirm how fundamental particles acquire mass, and guide other theories and discoveries in particle physics. This unanswered question in fundamental physics is of such importance that it led to a decades-long search for the Higgs boson and finally the construction of one of the most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider^[9] able to create and study Higgs bosons (if they exist) and related questions.

6 reasons why the 'God particle' matters

Janet Davison, CBC News, July 4, 2012.

"It's helping us understand the big universal question, which is what are we made out of," says Philippe Di Stefano, a physics professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

“Without the Higgs particle, other particles, such as electrons and quarks, would be massless and the universe would not be what it is.

“Now, with the amazing results from the [Large Hadron Collider], we are finally finding growing experimental evidence that the Higgs really exists.

“The second part of the story about the Higgs particle is even more exciting as it provides us with a window to new physics — a tool for the exploration of the truly unknown.

“The next stage will be a detailed and careful study of its properties. Successful completion of this second stage will bring us closer to uncovering new physics, explaining dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.”

— Prof. Valentin Khoze, director of Durham University’s Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology in Durham, England 

"Today's discovery teaches us something fundamental about the building blocks of the universe and how the fundamental particles that build the world around us acquire mass.

"The Higgs boson matters because it tells us about 'matter.' This is curiosity-driven research and addresses basic questions about the evolution of the universe.

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