There were more fireworks than usual on the fourth of July when physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN announced that, in all likelihood, they had found the illusive Higgs boson, which is the holy grail of particle physics because it was predicted by what is called the Standard Model, which explains the makeup of all particles in the universe, and by finding it they were able to verify the theory.
Nicknamed the "God particle", the Higgs boson is important because it gives all matter - protons, neutrons, and electrons - their mass. While it is not possible to say where this discovery may lead, it brings humanity a step closer to understanding the universe and may even open up the way to explore parallel universes, which is another theory, still unproven, that excites physicists and laypeople alike.
While the scientists involved were excited, and the conference at which the announcement was made saw the rare case of physicists in the audience rising as one to provide a standing ovation, the official spokesman was cautious, as is the habit of scientists. "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. "The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe."
What to expect next? Particle physics is about probability, and over the next few months physicists will comb through millions of collisions to firm up the mass and other properties of the Higgs boson. Only once this tedious work is completed that physicists will be able to apply their new knowledge to other questions. Does he Standard Model of subatomic particles need to be modified? What new insights might this discovery shed on the mysterious components that make up much of the non-visible universe -- such as dark matter and energy?
This discovery did not come cheap. It was made by the recently commissioned CERN's particle smasher, the Large Hadron Collider, which consists of two detectors, housed within 17 miles of underground tunnels buried below the Alps on the French-Swiss border. By crashing high-energy protons together they have been able to create conditions that were similar to those existing when the Big Bang, over 13 billion years ago. At a cost of $10 billion, it is the single most expensive piece of laboratory equipment in the history of mankind.
This project is a triumph for pure science. This discovery has no immediate application, cost billions to produce and is likely to excite little more than a headline for a day or two before it is forgotten by the general public. But, for scientists it opens up a whole new world of possibilities that will keep them busy for decades..
Let's give credit to the scientists who have sold this project to politicians, who would have seen precious few votes into funding an exploration into the inner workings of the universe.
Full marks to the PR genius who dubbed the Higgs boson "God particle". After all, spending a measly $10 billion to glimpse god has got to be cheap at the price. As it turns out, there was no PR genius behind the term "God particle", and its origins are much more mundane. It comes from the title of a book by Nobel physicist Leon Lederman whose draft title was "The Goddamn Particle," to describe the frustrations of trying to nail the Higgs. The title was cut back to "The God Particle" by his publisher, who did not want to include a swear word in the title.
Behind this big story is a sidebar, which has allowed the media to humanize the story. In the 1960s, Scottish physicist Peter Higgs who predicted the existence of the new particle, and thankfully he is alive today to witness the discovery of the subatomic particle that bears his name. But there is another name (in lower case) associated with this discovery. It is Satyeendra Nath Bose, and Indian physicist who provided the foundations of quantum statistics, which Higgs used for his theory. The family of particles called bosons are named after him, of which the Higgs is only one.
While Higgs is now in the running for a Nobel Prize, the man whose shoulders he stood on was never considered for such an honor, despite his not inconsiderable contributions to physics. Perhaps in this moment of scientific euphoria, the forgotten scientist of this discovery should be given equal billing.
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