Update: Higgs Boson and What it Means for Technology

(Washington Post) Scientists in Europe announced Tuesday morning that they have found evidence that the elusive “God particle,” the Higgs boson, actually exists.

The scientists have stopped short of claiming discovery, but in a press conference livestreamed from the European research institute CERN, they said that they’re getting close to finding it.

And what, exactly is it? According to Scientific American’s Kelly Oakes, the Higgs boson is the smallest part of the Higgs field, which physicists believe gives all matter the property of mass. Translated and oversimplified, that means that nothing would have weight without the Higgs field. For academics, finding the particle would complete a puzzle about the universe that’s been bugging them for decades.

What does Tuesday’s announcement mean for technology? Honestly, very little, said University of Maryland physics department chairman Drew Baden. It is “merely a look-see as to where the experiments are in looking for new particles, not seen since the first trillionth of a second after the big bang,” he said. (Read more)

Higgs Boson: Scientists Close in on 'God Particle'

Note: The purpose of this study is to prove that "God is in everything," which is part of New Age spirituality. It's an interesting development, considering we're weeks from their target year of 2012.

(The Guardian) Scientists are expected to announce they may have caught their first glimpse of the Higgs boson, a curious subatomic particle long thought to underpin the microscopic workings of nature.

Hundreds of physicists will crowd into a seminar room at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, on Tuesday, to hear the latest in the hunt for the particle, while thousands more are expected to watch online.

The Higgs boson, or so-called God particle, has become the most coveted prize in particle physics since it was postulated in the mid-1960s. Its discovery would rank among the most important scientific advances of the past 100 years and confirm how elementary particles get mass.

Scientists have been hunting the Higgs for more than 30 years with machines so large they are miles across and consume the power of a reasonable-sized town. While the results are unlikely to be conclusive – the hints of the particle could fade when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collects more data next year – they are understood to be the strongest evidence so far that the Higgs particle is there to be found. (Read article)

BBC Video

Does 'God Particle' Exist? Scientists to Decide by 2012 Year's End

(Christian Post - July 26, 2011) Physicists directing research through the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) have announced that the existence of the sub-atomic "God particle" will be decided by the end of 2012.

For many years, scientists have speculated the existence of the particle, also called the Higgs boson particle, but have not been able to provide any proof to corroborate the fact.

However, at the International Europhysics Conference on High-Energy Physics in Grenoble, France, this past weekend, researchers presented some curious data bleeps that could hint the existence of such a particle.

So far, the physicists stated that after conducting particle-smashing tests in the LHC, reaching speeds up to 99.99 percent of the speed of light, they were only able to determine the location the particle was not found, adding that with more tests and more data they would be able to determine whether the particle exists within 18 months.

If the particle was found to exist, then it would explain how all matter, including creatures, in the universe have come to have mass. Additionally, it would complete the puzzle for the Standard Model of physics that was first established in 1970, a theory that explains the Big Bang as well. (Read more)

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