Today In Long Reads: Dramatizing The Hunt For The Higgs Boson

For physicists, it was "an appointment with destiny."

By Rebecca Boyle Posted 03.05.2013 at 12:31 pm 4 Comments

Higgs Candidate Event A proton-proton collision event in the CMS experiment produces two high-energy photons (the red towers). This is what physicists would expect to see from the decay of a Higgs boson, but it is also consistent with background Standard Model physics processes. CERN

Physicists still get frustrated when people say the Higgs boson has been found--true, it’s very probably been found, but the only thing that’s been verified yet is that a boson has been discovered. Its mass is right around where the Higgs ought to be, and it sure seems like a Higgs boson, but no one is calling it final, at least not yet. Nevertheless, the tales of intrigue and jealousy and genius surrounding the hunt for the particle are coming to light in new books and periodicals. The latest comes today from the dean of physics journalism, Dennis Overbye of the New York Times.

The particle itself could be something from science fiction: It’s a manifestation of an invisible, all-encompassing force field that permeates everything. The Higgs boson (named for theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed it with a team of researchers in 1964) is thought to endow particles with mass, “the way politicians draw succor from cheers and handshakes at the rope line,” as Overbye puts it. And the story of its discovery is straight out of the movies, with romance, deceit, huge sums of money and high-stakes competition.

When its likely discovery was announced last summer, there were very public cheers, celebration and back-slapping from the rival teams working at the Atlas and CMS detectors in the Large Hadron Collider. But the search was far more serious, as this latest account demonstrates.

Go here to read “Chasing the Higgs Boson,” Overbye’s account of the teams who started closing in on the “Great White Whale of modern science.”

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4 Comments

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JTS99000

03/05/13 at 3:35 pm

Can someone just come out and say its real already -_-.

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Greenmatrix

03/05/13 at 6:22 pm

No JTS. Leave the claims without evidence to theists. Science has proven itself time and again. They shouldn't start jumping to conclusions just when they are getting close to new breakthroughs and understandings.

Don't get me wrong science is a tool not our moral guide. We humans choose how to live and build a strong, safe, caring community. We build laws, schools, fire departments, police departments, hospitals etc because we want to feel safe and protected and provide a good future for our children. WE choose to do this while science might not always agree and even say that egoism leads to more success.

We can even clone people but together we have decided not to. That is the beauty of an intelligent species. It's our choice. Science is a tool. Yet it's the best tool our there for understanding the physical world.

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vt007

03/06/13 at 8:20 am

@Greenmatrix

very nice what you said, me liky ^^

but i think JTS99000 meant "could someone already say something more defenitive than "we think, and hope""
nothing wrong to want to know the right answer, im all for it.

you have to admit that we are a very curious society too ^^

---
No facts, No response...

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bgrnathan

03/14/13 at 5:04 pm

DOES 'GOD PARTICLE' EXPLAIN UNIVERSE'S ORIGIN? Just google the title to access this popular Internet article of mine.

The Higgs boson does not create mass from nothing. What it does is convert energy into mass. Again, the universe had a beginning. It is not eternal because it does not have the ability to have sustained itself eternally. All scientists believe that the universe (time, mass, and space had a beginning from nothing).

Atheistic scientists believe that the beginning of the universe came from nothing by natural processes yet to be discovered. This contradicts fundamental laws of science. Read fully my Internet article.

Visit my newest Internet site: THE SCIENCE SUPPORTING CREATION

Babu G. Ranganathan*
(B.A. Bible/Biology)

Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS

*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I've been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who in The East" for my writings on religion and science.

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