higgs

It's looking more likely that a particle CERN physicists discovered last year is the Higgs boson, researchers said today.

They cautioned it's not yet certain the particle is in fact the so-called "God particle" that can help explain how masses in the universe were formed. But this morning the leaders of the experiments running through the giant Large Hadron Collider said the analysis of more data -- two and a half times more, to be precise -- shows that the "new particle is looking more and more like a Higgs boson."

Anyone who thinks the end is nigh with a giant asteroid colliding into Earth may have a new apocalypse scenario to worry about.

It all boils down to the Higgs Boson particle, aka the "God particle."

Calculations that came with the likely discovery of the Higgs Boson last July also show that the particle's mass qualities could spell out the end of the universe said Fermilab theoretical physicist Joseph Lykken yesterday, according to NBC's Cosmic Log.

However, doomsdayers don't need to fret too much, the scientist also said that the likelihood of such a demise … Read more

Much like the epic quests of yore, the hunt for the Higgs boson particle has inspired stirring music, Stephen Hawking wagers, and now a timepiece for your wrist.

The Higgs Boson Watch is the God Particle taken the form of a personal accessory. The face of the watch depicts the Higgs decaying into other bosons during a collision. The hands move in a hypnotic spiral. If you stare at it long enough, you may gain an understanding of the very fabric of our universe.… Read more

I think I have found a solution for Zynga.

The company needs to get together with the United Nations peacekeeping forces around the world and create a board game in which people get killed, but not really.

How is it that I have had this quite brilliant notion?

Well, I have been stimulated by the news that Rovio, they who have enriched so many lives with Angry Birds, have got together with CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research, landlord for the Large Hadron Collider) to create new and amusing experiences to exercise young minds.

These will be under a … Read more

Scientists who announced two months ago observations of the elusive Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle," have had their research published in the peer-reviewed Physics Letters B, along with an astounding list of thousands of authors.

More than 5,000 researchers around the world are said to have contributed to the landmark studies by the CMS and ATLAS teams working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). They said on July 4 the new boson they had observed was consistent with the Higgs, believed to be responsible for imparting all elementary particles in the universe with mass.

Two articles by the teams are each about 30 pages long. The combined author list takes up 19 pages of single-spaced text and appears to have roughly 6,000 names. Wouldn't that be fun to cite as a footnote in full? … Read more

You may not be able to see the Higgs boson but now you can hear it.

Thanks to the labors of a team of researchers who attached musical notes to data that scientists believe correspond to the Higgs, the "sonification" of data points from the Atlas project at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland now lets listeners hear a melody with a distinctly Latin beat. … Read more

week in review Scientists believe they have found the "God particle," also known as the Higgs boson.

The leaders of the experiments running through the giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) said that their two teams had independently observed a particle consistent with the Higgs, which has until now been theoretical rather than a sure thing. The Higgs boson is thought to be responsible for mass in the otherwise-already-proven standard model of physics.

The scientists say they have more than "five-sigma" certainty that the particle they saw was the Higgs boson, which means they are 99.99999 … Read more

There is much excitement over the discovery of the Higgs boson particle.

Physicists everywhere are, as I understand it, overjoyed that all of their theories have been proved to be correct. Which certainly puts them far ahead of any economists.

However, for one man this discovery has come with a cost.

For Stephen Hawking admitted to the BBC that he'd just lost $100 over Higgs boson's arrival.

Hawking is clearly impressed with this breakthrough.

"It should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel Prize," he told the BBC.

There is, though, a certain melancholy for Hawking, too.

"… Read more

This is a guest commentary. See Mark Wise's bio below.

The Higgs boson is an integral part of our understanding of nature. It is a particle that is an excitation of what is called the Higgs field. The Higgs field permeates all of space and when some of the fundamental particles travel through it they acquire mass. The amount of mass they acquire depends on how strongly they interact with the Higgs field. Some like the electron acquire a small mass while others acquire a much larger mass.

One peculiar aspect of this is that this Higgs field that … Read more