SCIENCE WATCH: THE HIGGS BOSON (GOD PARTICLE)
The Higgs boson, often dubbed the "God particle," is a cornerstone of modern particle physics.
What is the Higgs Boson?
The Higgs boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the quantum excitation, or particle, of the Higgs field, a fundamental energy field believed to permeate the entire universe.
The Higgs Field:
The Higgs field is unique because it has a non-zero value everywhere in space, even in a vacuum. It interacts with other elementary particles (like electrons and quarks), and this interaction is what gives those particles their mass. The stronger a particle interacts with the Higgs field, the heavier it is. Particles like the photon, which do not interact with the field, remain massless and travel at the speed of light.
The "God Particle" Nickname:
This popular but controversial moniker came from the title of Nobel Laureate Leon M. Lederman's 1993 book, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? (His original suggested title was reportedly "The Goddamn Particle" due to the difficulty of its detection, but the publisher changed it). Many physicists, including Peter Higgs, have criticized the name, preferring the scientific term.
The Discovery
The existence of the Higgs boson and the mechanism by which it imparts mass (the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, named after theorists Robert Brout, François Englert, and Peter Higgs) was first theorized in 1964.
The Search:
Because the Higgs boson is extremely massive and unstable, decaying almost immediately, it cannot be found in nature and must be created in high-energy collisions.
Confirmation:
On July 4, 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland announced they had independently observed a new particle with a mass consistent with the predicted Higgs boson. This monumental discovery confirmed the existence of the Higgs field and completed the Standard Model's predicted roster of particles.
Recognition:
The discovery led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to theorists Peter Higgs and François Englert.
The Significance for Science
The discovery of the Higgs boson confirmed the mechanism responsible for giving mass to fundamental particles, a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding the universe.
Standard Model: It completed the Standard Model, the best description we have of the fundamental particles and forces (excluding gravity).
Beyond:
Scientists are now precisely measuring the Higgs boson's properties. Any slight deviation from the Standard Model's predictions could provide clues to New Physics, potentially revealing new particles, hidden forces, or even shedding light on mysteries like dark matter and dark energy.
How the Higgs boson was discovered - Witness History, BBC World Service
https://youtu.be/1XpCnCVfuYk?si=vAQWVysEl7Ilq_5V
This video explains the moments leading up to and including the announcement of the Higgs boson discovery at CERN.
Grateful thanks to Google Gemini for its great help and support in creating this blogpost.
No comments:
Post a Comment