Have you ever asked yourself, “why do particles have mass? Why are some of them, like the bottom quark, so heavy? Why are the leptons generally so small and why does the photon have no mass at all?” In mid-2012, physicists came very close to answering these questions – well, in truth, they’d already been answered in a theoretical sense – when it was announced that the Higgs particle had been discovered by scientists analyzing the accumulation of data from the largest particle accelerator on Earth.

The LHC – Large Hadron Collider – is an almost 30-kilometer circular particle accelerator made up of superconducting magnets that propel particles together at near light-speed. When these particles crash, they produce huge amounts of energy insofar as the subatomic realm is concerned and produce all manner of heavy, exotic particles. To date, many of these particles have been found and catalogue, and then merged with theoretical physics to enhance our understanding of the descriptive Standard Model of particle physics.

As a result of its ability to endow other particles with this property called mass, the Higgs boson is somewhat frivolously – but harmlessly – referred to as the God particle. The property of mass is actually just the evidence of interaction shared between particles and the Higgs field, whose smallest element is known as the Higgs particle.

The Significance of the Higgs Boson to the Big Bang

The current theory of the involving the Higgs as it relates to the Big Bang, is that the particle itself acted as some sort of precursor, or fuse, that jump-started all of creation. The Higgs particle lit the Big Bang. At the very beginning of space-time (as can be calculated, that is) the universe assumed a form of perfect symmetry. The Higgs field was a probabilistic impurity that existed within the singularity and acted to break this symmetry, causing the quintessential explosion that unleashed space and time.

The Higgs boson is also responsible for endowing particles with mass, because there are several orders of this fundamental boson. The smallest quantized member of the Higgs family is the one that was discovered by CERN physicists in July 2012; it’s the one that provides mass as the result of interaction to other particles. Another Higgs boson was responsible (theoretically) for actually starting the universe off in the first place. Without it, the universe would have remained a perfect symmetry, with no foreseeable perturbations to liberate the stored up mass-energy.

As one of the most expensive scientific projects to date – surpassing even the Hubble telescope, the construction of the Higgs particle cost some $10 billion (actually, this is the price of the Large Hadron Collider, which has been used – and will continue to be used) for far more science projects and investigations into the nature of our reality, the discovery of the Higgs has set us on the path to finding exactly what most of our universe is made of – dark matter and dark energy.

The discovery of the Higgs particle is a most exciting time in physics, as scientists collaborating from all over the world rush to decipher the implications. For more detailed information, visit the comprehensive and interactive Higgs boson primer created by physicist Chris Thomas.

The discovery of the Higgs particle is a most exciting time in physics, as scientists collaborating from all over the world rush to decipher the implications. For more detailed information, visit this comprehensive and interactive Higgs boson primer: http://taranwanderer.hubpages.com/hub/The-Higgs-Boson-Uncovering-the-Physics-of-the-Higgs-Particle

Author Bio: The discovery of the Higgs particle is a most exciting time in physics, as scientists collaborating from all over the world rush to decipher the implications. For more detailed information, visit the comprehensive and interactive Higgs boson primer created by physicist Chris Thomas.

Category: Education
Keywords: higgs particle, god particle, higgs boson, lhc, particle physics, large hadron collider