Search for the "God Particle" Continues

Hoping for Higgs: Scientists worldwide have been anticipating the Large Hadron Collider more keenly than a child waiting for Christmas after Santa announces he has a twin brother, and this year they're both giving presents.  You may have heard of this - you may even know they're after the Higgs boson - but for those of us without multiple PhDs, what does this thing actually do?

Light moves so fast it took millennia for people to realise it moved at all.  (No, we haven't started doing philosophy here at the Galaxy, we're going somewhere with this).  Over time we learned that light actually moved, and after an awful lot of competing theories we found out about the photon - the quanta of electromagnetism, the smallest possible unit, the elementary particle that shuttled back and forth conveying the effects of the electromagnetic field.  Understanding the photon revolutionized science, launching quantum theory into its current position and resolved many of the age's impenetrable puzzles while - in true scientific fashion - generating far more.  Controlling the photon gave us the laser, one of the most powerful tools in the human arsenal whose fantastic potential is still being realised today.

The Higgs boson is the same for mass.  What makes mass massive?  Again, we're not breaking out zen riddles here, or rap lyrics, but a question so fundamental that we didn't think to ask it until our science developed.  The leading theory is that there is a Higgs field which makes particles harder to move, just as the electromagnetic fields create forces that appeared mysterious until we understand them.  It permeates all of space, affecting all particles, and for this reason has been referred to as everything from God, to The Force, to "A wizard did it".

If it's everywhere and everything, it should be easy to see, right? Not so much - the only way you can observe its everyday effects is, well, by seeing what we already see and saying "Higgs is doing that". This argument is as convincing for Higgs as it is for God, which is to say "not very".  When asked to put up or shut up scientists said "We'll need six billion dollars for seventy kilometers of underground ultra-high velocity proton collider."  And because humanity is awesome when it comes to curiosity, people said "Okay, but that's your big present for this year and you'll have to let the other scientists play with it."

While the Higgs field is thought to be everywhere, the boson is a lot more bashful - it takes an extremely high energy collision to draw it out of hiding, and even then it won't hang around long enough to be seen.  Even when protons are collided at a ridiculously high percentage of the speed of light to beckon it forth, it explodes almost immediately and its presence can only be inferred by the elementary pieces it leaves behind.  This jigsaw-evidence is part of the reason the LHC is needed - there are have been possible observations at another collider, the significantly cooler-named Tevatron operating at the limits of its power, but these results have not convinced the wider community.  The more repeatable runs possible in the newer facility should settle the issue once and for all.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Explanation of the LHC hopes

Comments

[Arivoli,Pondicherry (India)]

God particle
The article on God particle is quiet interesting.
Let me share some of the views of one of greatest Theoretical Physicists of Tamilnadu(India) Sri.Vethathiri (1911-2006)on evolution of Universe. His theory is that the primordial space was filled with dark energy which is all penetrative, permeable with inherent potential of kinematic quivering and gravity. As a result of kinematic quivering vibrations, the dark energy was crushed and god particles were formed. These God particles are formative dust particles and spinning at enormous speeds. From these god particles the subatomic particles like Electron, proton, neutron were FORMED. From thereon the elements and celestial bodies evolved. He has written several books on Unified Force and evolution of Universe and living beings. His views are at par with Stephen Hawking’s Pea sized universe. Probably some interesting stuff could be juiced out from his works to explore GUT (Grand Unification Theory) and CMB (Cosmological Microwave Background Theory).
Thank you.

[Evan]

Arivoli, that was very interesting, thank you for sharing your knowledge. I am only in 10 grade and am not in a physics class, but I find reading about and self-teaching myself about physics and the different genres, if you will.

I most recently read about the Higgs in the March National Geographic and that is what got me into the Higgs and into some further reading.