"Discovery of the Higgs Boson God Particle– What Does it Mean?"
What Does it Mean?"
by Ryan Dube
"By now, you have likely heard the recent CERN announcement about the discovery of the Higgs boson – the so-called “God Particle.” Unfortunately, few people really understand what the particle is or what the discovery means, and few particle physicists out there are able to explain it in a way that is easy for the lay person to understand. It is essentially like Galileo attempting to convince humanity– and more specifically the Church– that the Earth was not in fact the center of the Universe. As fantastical as it sounds, the discovery of the Higgs boson is no less Earth-shattering. The presence of the particle transforms something that was formerly invisible, into a visible and measureable entity. It can help science to explain how and why “things”– matter, objects, people and life itself– could come to exist in a Universe filled with nothing but subatomic particles.
The model was first proposed by a particle Physicist by the name of Peter Higgs and other physicists, who stipulated that there was an invisible field through which elementary particles gain mass as they pass through it. In other words, this theoretical field served as a sort of primordial “soup”– some physicists describe it as a cosmic molasses– that transforms an invisible, elementary particle into something that has actual mass. It describes the creation of matter at the point of the “big bang”, and from this discovery, particle physicists now have their imaginations inflamed with where this discovery can lead– to an possibility of other dimensions, an understanding of gravity, and so much more.
The Higgs Field and the Higgs Boson: The next question you may be asking is– that model describes an invisible “field”, so what’s the “god particle” all about. Well, Peter Higgs proposed in 1964 that by exciting that invisible field with the right level of energy, that invisible field would produce an actual particle– thereby proving the existence of the field itself. The particle is one of the simplest particles, and therefore the most difficult to detect. It has no spin, no electrical charge, and no color. It decays and disappears in a trillionth of a second after it becomes detectable. Higgs could not predict the particle’s mass, therefore it was extremely difficult to detect even though generations of particle physicists tried, and numerous particle accelerators failed to produce it.
Scientists at the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Lab and Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois shut down in 2011 after spending years attempting to produce and detect the Higgs Boson. Two years ago, CERN– a multinational research center headquartered in Geneva- built the massive Large Hadron Collider. It was a $10.5 billion project that resulted in a particle accelerator that is 17-miles (27-kilometers) in circumference. The accelerator collides billions of subatomic particles that are all traveling at near the speed of light. The collisions produce effects, and from the data gathered, scientists determine whether there were any new particles produced, such as the Higgs boson.
10,000 scientists around the world work on data produced by the accelerator, but no one – even Higgs himself – ever expected that the Higgs boson would be discovered two years later. Higgs never believed his theoretical partical would be discovered in his lifetime. At age 83, he spoke at the press conference in Edinburgh, and told reporters: “At the beginning I had no idea a discovery would be made in my lifetime. It’s very nice to be right sometimes.”
What the Discovery May Mean: If you ask different particle physicists what the discovery may mean for our understanding of the Universe, you’ll get many different answers. The truth is, what the discovery produces is verification of the Higgs Boson theory, and that verification opens up many new doors of exploration in particle physics, and in furthering our understanding of what makes up the reality around us. Some concepts mentioned throughout the media include the exploration for other dimensions, research behind the concept of “spooky action at a distance” where particles can affect each other across space, or it could even lead to a greater understanding of matter and antimatter.
The one thing that most scientists agree on at this point is that the discovery is solid – a “Five Sigma” finding, the gold standard in particle physics – and that this one single discovery could now spawn multiple amazing, Earth-shattering discoveries about reality in the very near future. It is an exciting time for the human race – and with the discovery of the Higgs boson, it is only just the beginning.”
- http://www.topsecretwriters.com/
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“Everything You Wanted To Know About Higgs Boson
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"The Higgs Boson, Part I"
by Minute Physics
"The Higgs Boson. What more need be said? Two more Higgs videos coming soon. Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics- all in a minute!"
Also, explore a map of the big bang! http://www.bigbangregistry.com
"Theory of Everything" video: http://bit.ly/yEj0xG
"What is Matter" video: http://bit.ly/ywH3tn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Uh5mTxRQcg&feature=player_embedded
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You did want to know all about this, didn't you? lol - CP
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