The ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) collaboration at CERN has announced the sighting of a Higgs boson-like particle in the energy window of 125.3 ± 0.6 GeV. The observation has been made with a statistical significance of 5 sigma. This means the chances of error in their measurements are 1 in 3.5 million, sufficient to claim a discovery and publish papers detailing the efforts in the hunt.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer, Director General of CERN since 2009, said at the special conference called by CERN in Geneva, “It was a global effort, it is a global effort. It is a global success.” He expressed great optimism and concluded the conference saying this was “only the beginning.”
Another collaboration, called CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), announced the mass of the Higgs-like particle with a 4.9 sigma result. While insufficient to claim a discovery, it does indicate only a one-in-two-million chance of error.
Joe Incandela, CMS spokesman, added, “We’re reaching into the fabric of the universe at a level we’ve never done before.”
The LHC will continue to run its experiments so that results revealed on Wednesday can be revalidated before it shuts down at the end of the year for maintenance. Even so, by 2013, scientists, such as Dr. Rahul Sinha, a participant of the Belle Collaboration in Japan, are confident that a conclusive result will be out.
“The LHC has the highest beam energy in the world now. The experiment was designed to yield quick results. With its high luminosity, it quickly narrowed down the energy-ranges. I’m sure that by the end of the year, we will have a definite word on the Higgs boson’s properties,” he said.
However, even though the Standard Model, the framework of all fundamental particles and the dominating explanatory model in physics today, predicted the particle’s existence, slight deviations have been observed in terms of the particle’s predicted mass. Even more: zeroing in on the mass of the Higgs-like particle doesn’t mean the model is complete. While an answer to the question of mass formation took 50 years to be reached, physicists are yet to understand many phenomena. For instance, why aren’t the four fundamental forces of nature equally strong?
The weak, nuclear, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces were born in the first few moments succeeding the Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago. Of these, the weak force is, for some reason, almost 1 billion, trillion, trillion times stronger than the gravitational force! Called the hierarchy problem, it evades a Standard Model explanation.
In response, many theories were proposed. One theory, called supersymmetry (SUSY), proposed that all fermions, which are particles with half-integer spin, were paired with a corresponding boson, or particles with integer spin. Particle spin is the term quantum mechanics attributes to the particle’s rotation around an axis.
Technicolor was the second framework. It rejects the Higgs mechanism, a process through which the Higgs boson couples stronger with some particles and weaker with others, making them heavier and lighter, respectively.
Instead, it proposes a new form of interaction with initially-massless fermions. The short-lived particles required to certify this framework are accessible at the LHC. Now, with a Higgs-like particle having been spotted with a significant confidence level, the future of Technicolor seems uncertain. However, “significant constraints” have been imposed on the validity of these and such theories, labelled New Physics, according to Prof. M.V.N. Murthy of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), whose current research focuses on high-energy physics.
Keywords: Higgs boson, God particle, CERN, Large Hadron Collider
This discovery should ideally lead to better life for all men, animals and life forms.
However unless human nature changes, scientific discoveries don't bring huge changes.
We have enough technology to wipe out illiteracy, hunger, communicable and
nutritional diseases. But greed of the few, and the evil designs of a few to dominate the
rest, lead to the situation of haves and have nots.
US the richest nation in the world, makes it extremely difficult for a poor immigrant
from Mexico, to integrate in to the society.
Spanish sold away california, and New Mexico to US, and the Mexicans who migrate to
US, work as cheap labour, and have no access to health facilities, education and are
eternally trapped in poverty.
Science did lot of wonders in enhancing the quality of life and prolonging it. It has
however not helped in changing the human nature.
The original man who made stone weapons to kill the animals around, still rules our
psyche, in a slightly refined manner.
Definitely this is a great achievement, but for whom? What is the
benefit of this discovery for common man, should not scientific
community and media try to publish understandable form of this discovery
for common man. After all lot of money of tax payer are used in this.
Yes ,It show the presence of God who control all the universe
let us hop a good future to the world of technology
lets hop to have peace .....
So Dan Brown's Angels & Demons is no more a novel
We have already have had in our Hindu philosophy saying that "kan kan mein bhagawan hota hai" and this is revered by every hindu and respects a stone (non-living thing) and also a living being. So our ancient philosophers have already proved that god paritcle is their in every cell of the universe, which now stands vindicated by the latest disocovery of god particle in the every cell we have on this earth.
What happens now? Will science know the mind of God, as some sections in the media claim? What will be the 'answer' that science is anticipating? We will know what gives mass to matter, what will be the next question after that...? And then, will we encounter more sub-atomic particles down the line? Mystics have spoken of the Great Nothing. Will science encounter it...and accept it?
This is a great discovery. Discovery like these can revolutionize the whole Humanity.
And now it might even be possible that we can control the masses of the object and thus make very heavy objects mass-less. Even make them travel with the speed of light.
And who knows in the future we can see all what we imagined and saw in those Sci-Fi Movies coming true.
I agree with Venkatesh.
This experiment may help in solving the life conundrum but how is this linked to noble cause? How will this experiment will make the world a better place to live? How it will help mankind to live a healty life?
Look at the amount of money/scientists/time being invested in the experiment, do we think that outcome will be equally helpfull.
The practicality can be anything like converting the mass into energy and vice versa. That means a lot for the current scenario. For eg. An object can travel at a speed of light by just converting from its shape to energy and regain it once it reaches to the destination. If that is possible there won’t be any more pollution in the name of transportation and another thing is that transporting the materials to distant planets will be easier so that the planetary explorations will boost the mankind to find peace and divert their attention from unnecessary conflicts in the name of region and.
Well , this is a great scientific feat of the Decade or the century perhaps.Its equivalent to the discovery of DNA sequence or Vaccine for Virus ,some say.But What the common people look is beyond research , how this experiment will help the Man-kind practically.Perhaps Respected author should have cited the Practical-Application of this experiment if any in the near future.
Yes Now it is very clear from this experiment, that every matter has a life and life energy and transfered from one form to another form or to many form leaving the original.
Conclusion : So far said non-living things are also living things. No more questions at all.
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