bobcat
Posts: 678 +69
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
The scientific world is buzzing with one of the biggest physics discoveries in years. Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva announced today that they've pinned down the long-searched-for sub-atomic particle called the Higgs boson or God Particle.
GEOFFREY TAYLOR, PHYSICIST, UNI. OF MELBOURNE: The experimentalists and the theorists in the theatre that I've just come out of are very excited, which is uncharacteristic of physicists. But - so I have to step back a little bit to give you some background. The standard model, a so-called standard model of particles that make up our universe and their interactions has been with us for 20, 30, 40 years now and has been almost unbreakable. We experimentalists have been running to try and find a crack in the armor of the standard model for all this time. It's been a very successful theory, but there are missing ingredients. And tonight, the Higgs boson has - is the final ingredient which has been found now.
It’s a massive step for us because it's a very unusual particle. It's not just another run-of-the-mill particle from the zoo of particles that have been discovered over the years. It's - it really - it's a new field which - so it really compares with understanding the electromagnetic field, which is absolutely fundamental to our modern lives.
It was called the "God damn particle" 'cause it was so hard to find, and - but with the title the God damn particle the publishers weren't going to publish Leon Lehman's books so it was toned down to the God particle and the name has stuck ever since. But it does have some very important properties, probably not as strong as a God though.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3539090.htm
The scientific world is buzzing with one of the biggest physics discoveries in years. Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva announced today that they've pinned down the long-searched-for sub-atomic particle called the Higgs boson or God Particle.
GEOFFREY TAYLOR, PHYSICIST, UNI. OF MELBOURNE: The experimentalists and the theorists in the theatre that I've just come out of are very excited, which is uncharacteristic of physicists. But - so I have to step back a little bit to give you some background. The standard model, a so-called standard model of particles that make up our universe and their interactions has been with us for 20, 30, 40 years now and has been almost unbreakable. We experimentalists have been running to try and find a crack in the armor of the standard model for all this time. It's been a very successful theory, but there are missing ingredients. And tonight, the Higgs boson has - is the final ingredient which has been found now.
It’s a massive step for us because it's a very unusual particle. It's not just another run-of-the-mill particle from the zoo of particles that have been discovered over the years. It's - it really - it's a new field which - so it really compares with understanding the electromagnetic field, which is absolutely fundamental to our modern lives.
It was called the "God damn particle" 'cause it was so hard to find, and - but with the title the God damn particle the publishers weren't going to publish Leon Lehman's books so it was toned down to the God particle and the name has stuck ever since. But it does have some very important properties, probably not as strong as a God though.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3539090.htm
