Scientists have discovered a new subatomic particle with profound implications for understanding our universe. On Wednesday, they announced they've found a particle believed to be the long-awaited Higgs boson. Nicknamed the "God Particle," it represents the final piece in a theory that explains the basic nature of our universe.
Nothing has been easy in the search for the Higgs particle. It takes a huge amount of energy to create one, something on the scale of the energies that existed in the early moments of the Big Bang. Recreating that level of energy requires smashing particles together in the world's most powerful accelerators. Scientists knew that even if they created a Higgs boson, it would break apart immediately. The only way to identify it would be to sift through that subatomic debris, looking for signs of the decaying Higgs.
But experiments over the past year at CERN's particle accelerator in Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider, seem to have surmounted all those hurdles. Early Wednesday, Joe Incandela, spokesperson for CERN's Compact Muon Spectrometer (CMS) team stood before a packed auditorium in Switzerland to report the big news — in a way that only geeky physicists could really appreciate.
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This graphic depicts a proton-proton collision from the search for the Higgs boson particle.
CERN/AFP/Getty Images
This graphic depicts a proton-proton collision from the search for the Higgs boson particle.
"In the region of 125 GEV, they combine and give us a combined significance of 5 standard deviations," he said, proving that even momentous discoveries sound dry if you get down far enough into the weeds.
Fabiola Gianotti spoke on behalf of a second huge collaborative experiment, the ATLAS group, that also reported results. The audience didn't even wait for her to speak after she flashed a slide showing that team's statistics.
"I'm not done yet," she told the group. "There's more to come, be patient!"
Through nearly two hours of technical details, the crowd of scientists got what it had come for. In the end, Rolf Heuer, director of the CERN particle accelerator, finally put it in plain language.
It's a key to the structure of the universe.
- Joe Incandela, CERN