We may have glimpsed the Higgs boson, say Cern scientists
Scientists believe they may have caught their first glimpse of the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle that is thought to underpin the subatomic workings of nature.
Physicists Fabiola Gianotti and Guido Tonelli were applauded by hundreds of scientists yesterday as they revealed evidence for the particle amid the debris of hundreds of trillions of proton collisions inside the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.
First postulated in the mid-1960s, the Higgs boson has become the most coveted prize in particle physics. Its discovery would rank among the most important scientific advances of the past 100 years and confirm how elementary particles acquire mass.
While the results are not conclusive – the hints of the particle could fade when the LHC collects more data next year – they are the strongest evidence so far that the Higgs particle is there to be found.
full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/13/higgs-boson-glimpsed-cern-scientists
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