Amusing Web: Scientists see evidence of the 'God particle' - the last piece in a theory explaining the universe

Monday, July 25, 2011

Scientists see evidence of the 'God particle' - the last piece in a theory explaining the universe

Last updated at 8:06 AM on 25th July 2011

Scientists believe they are one step closer to cornering the elusive Higgs boson, or 'God particle' - a tiny but fundamental element in the construction of life as we know it.

Research being carried out deep under the mountains on the French-Swiss border has provided the first hard evidence that the theorised particle actually exists.

At a press conference on Friday, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider particle physics lab near Geneva announced findings of their latest research.

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Large Hadron Collider: Two teams of scientists at the circular accelerator say they have found preliminary evidence of the Higgs boson, or 'God particle'

Smashed together: A CMS simulation shows the result of smashing two protons together. Yellow lines show the paths of particles produced by the collision

Two separate teams, working with different detectors at the collider, reported 'bumps' in their data - usually an indicator of a new discovery.

Experts were quick to point out, however, that the bumps could also be caused by computer glitches and flaws in data models.

Fabiola Gianotti, spokeswoman for a 3,000-strong team using detection equipment called Atlas, said: 'We cannot say anything today, but clearly it's intriguing.'

Her view was shared by Guido Tonelli, spokesman the other team using CMS detectors, who independently discovered bumps in their data as well.

More study needed: Scientists from both Atlas and CMS detectors have a bewildering array of data to sift through to find more proof of the Higgs boson

He said more research was needed to isolate the difference between 'statistical fluctuations or possible hints of a signal'.

If the bumps are from nature and not man-made error, scientists will have found proof of the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle that forms a theory of how we understand the universe.

The Higgs boson, or God particle, was first theorised in 1964 to resolve inconsistencies in theoretical physics.

It is the only part of the Standard Model of particle physics that has not been observed by scientists in experiments.

The problem with seeing the Higgs boson is that scientists have to slam two tiny particles together at almost the speed of light for it to be created - and even then it will only last for a fraction of a percentage of a second.

But it leaves behind traces - a 'smoking gun' that scientists can detect.

The Higgs boson gets its name from Peter Higgs, a physicist at Edinburgh University, who postulated that fundamental particles gained mass from an invisible field that pervaded the cosmos.

Nobel prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman nicknamed the boson the 'God particle' in 1993 - which makes it popular in the media but has angered many scientists, including Higgs.

Higgs boson explained