I'm not going to get all bogged down in science in this post, as much as it would reflect my entire day today. I have been asked a couple of times throughout the day to "calm down" and explain "simply" what it all means (when I have been getting over-excited etc.), so it would seem that not everyone has a shared level of interest in this subject. With that in mind, I won't be concerned if this leaves a lot of my readership disinterested. I understand that it's probably a bit weird that I'm so into stuff like this.
Anyway, I think I'm going to explain it all as simply as I can (as Einstein said, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."), after which I will mention what it means in terms of its future implications. I feel like I have to do this, as today is such a monumental day for physics and I want to document my reaction, so ten years from now, when this is completely old news, I can look back with nostalgia and say things like "If only I'd known then what I know now....".
So here we go, the Lucie Guide to Finding the God Particle...
The Large Hadron Collider is something which has been a source of much excitement and disappointment for me. When it was first built back in 2008, it was around the time that I'd firmly established myself as an agnostic atheist and had really started to become interested in science. The LHC felt like an exciting step in filling the gaps of scientific knowledge I so desperately sought. But when there were problems with the cooling system, I was a little disheartened, especially as it then took a whole year to get it working again, and it wasn't actually until March 2010 that the first collision occured. I guess it was a bit of an anti-climax for me, but I still never lost hope in it! I'm glad I didn't.
I suppose an explanation of the LHC is necessary as the first level of understanding...
So the LHC is that MASSIVE scientific instrument which spans the border between Switzerland and France 100m underground and was built in an attempt to fill in gaps in our knowledge of particle physics. Our current scientific knowledge of the particles that make up the universe and how they interact is explained in the Standard Model, which is a table that contains all the known particles that make up the building blocks of atoms and everything around us. Scientists use the Standard Model to produce theories about the universe and also to back up their mathematics. The LHC was built to find any missing particles in the Standard Model.
Basically the LHC facilitates the conditions necessary to shoot a bunch of very small particles at each other at a very high speed with supercooled electromagnets. When these particles collide, the energy is converted into many other particles. These particles are then picked up by detectors within the LHC and scientists monitor what particles have been created and how they interact with other particles to try and find any new particles. It provides a "mini-Big Bang".
The main purpose of the LHC was to find the Higgs Boson- the only particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model that is yet to be seen. The final piece of the puzzel, if you will.
The Higgs boson is more affectionately (not by scientists) known as the "God Particle", which was brought about by Leon Ledermangave in his book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. Lederman gave this name to the particle because he felt it is "so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname ..." (he originally wanted to call it the "goddamn particle", but his editor said no).
The Higgs boson is a hypothetical fundamental particle (has no mass, you can't see it) that gives all other particles their mass. To really reduce it down, it is a magnetic field that exerts a force on charged particles, so it works as a kind of glue that holds mass together. Without it, all there would be is just a bunch of photons moving around at the speed of light and every atom in the universe would disassemble and fly apart into oblivion. The property of mass is really important for getting clumpy structures; every object you see, as well as, well, us. The Higgs Boson prevents the acceleration of photons, allowing for the forming of structures.
Until now it was an assumed particle, but today, scientists have unofficially announced that they have discovered the Higgs boson. Dr Fabiola Gianotti announced today: "We observe in our data clear signs of a new particle, at the level of five sigma, in the mass region around 126 GeV.", which is about 133 times heavier than the protons that lie at the heart of every atom. Obviously that is the nerdy science but out the way. Basically, the scientists saw a "bump" in their data which seem to be Higgs trails. A "5-sigma signal" is significant because it sits right at the threshold for what scientists consider a true discovery.
Speaking this morning at the Higgs boson conference from CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), John Womersley said: "They have discovered a particle consistent with the Higgs boson. Discovery is the important word. That is confirmed. It's a momentous day for science."
CERN Director General Rolf Heuer: "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature.”
So what does it all mean?
In conclusion: If this does offically turn out to be the Higgs boson, we have made a MASSive breakthrough in particle physics (see what I did there?!) in confirming the Standard Model. We now know exactly how particles aquire their mass. Without it, nothing would have any mass. This is the start of knowing how all things are created at the quantum level. And finding it completely validates the $10 billion spent on the LHC!
For scientists, it's all about now being able to break away from the Standard Model into "new physics". It's a platform of which to make further scientific advances in particle physics...
"It's hard not to get excited by these results," CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci said in a statement. "We stated last year that in 2012 we would either find a new Higgs-like particle or exclude the existence of the Standard Model Higgs. With all the necessary caution, it looks to me that we are at a branching point: the observation of this new particle indicates the path for the future towards a more detailed understanding of what we're seeing in the data."
Although this is a massive day for physics, I guess it could be seen as a little boring, as we kind of all just assumed it was there anyway and continued about our lives. The exciting part is knowing that we can now move on from the Standard Model on to bigger things. Basically, it was the only thing holding us back before we could move on to the future of physics; and now we've got the platform to do so! ('Us','We'? Not sure where that's come from. Lost my little mind there a bit, I think?!)
For me? I'm more excited about the fact that understanding how the Higgs boson works will bring us to an understanding of what happened within a fraction of a second after The Big Bang- the very beginning of time and space!!
SO EXCITING.
Humour me?
L.
