CERN Confirms Discovery Of New Particle Consistent With Higgs Boson

Sciencenews

4 Jul

The European Organization For Nuclear Research have announced their observation of the heaviest boson particle ever found, which has given a strong case for proving the existence of the elusive Higgs.

This particle has been extremely sought after by scientists since the Higgs mechanism of how objects gain mass was theorised fifty years ago. As the 'standard model' of how things interact (traditional physics teachings) are based around the assumption that Higgs boson (or as physicist Leon Lederman calls it 'The God Particle') exists, this discovery takes on critical importance. It's essential in aiding our understanding of the origin of mass in the universe. However, without this, the laws of physics have to be re-written and re-theorised.

So no pressure on British particle physics then!

CERN scientiests reported the discovery from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) today: a boson particle with a mass of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV, at a significance of 4.9 sigma. It has a standard deviation of 5 (confidence of 99.9%), which puts it firmly consistent with the theoretical statistics of the Higgs boson.

The Higgs Bosons are the things which make up the Higgs field. The Higgs field is what particles with mass interacts with to give them their mass.

People probably scoffed in confusion at quantum mechanics when it was introduced; but now (albeit 80-90 years later), there is significant advancement in quantum computers. No one knows what it may yield with time, but I'm hoping for light-saber!

As this is just a preliminary finding thus far, next steps have been put in place. The group of scientists will now begin to analyse the exact characteristics of this new particle, and cross-check them with the expectations of the Higgs.

Could it be exactly what was theorised, giving the 4% of matter in the world that we see a reason for being? Or is it more of an "exotic" affair, diving into the mystery of the 96% dark matter and energy? Only time will tell. For now, this is a significant find for our understanding of the world.

Let's just hope they don't use comic sans in their next presentation...