Is the Higgs Boson just a few weeks away?

[AMDave]

One of the biggest debuts in the science world could happen in a matter of weeks: The Higgs boson may finally, really have been discovered.

Ever since tantalizing hints of the Higgs turned up in December at the Large Hadron Collider, scientists there have been busily analyzing the results of their energetic particle collisions to further refine their search.
more ...

[AMDave]

We'll find out in Melbourne in July at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP):

At that meeting, the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP), CERN scientists are expected to give an update on how close they are to discovering whether the Higgs Boson, an elusive particle thought to have been key to turning debris from the Big Bang into stars, planets and finally life, really exists.

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/0...8HKJVQ20120620 REUTERS, Robert Evans

[NeoGen]

Finally we will see if the "God particle" really exists and/or if they have found it?

[AMDave]

The Telegraph reports:
Hopes that Cern scientists have found the Higgs Boson were strengthened yesterday when rival American researchers announced their strongest evidence yet of its existence.
more ...

[AMDave]

Sydney Morning Herald: James Manning reports

A video mistakenly posted online appears to confirm that scientists have discovered the elusive Higgs boson particle.
According to a video that was briefly made public on the website of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the search for an answer to one of science's greatest mysteries may be over.
"We've observed a new particle ... we have quite strong evidence that there's something there," Joe Incandela, spokesman for the CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, says in the video.
"This is the most massive such particle that exists, if we confirm all of this - which I think we will."

After being available to the public for a brief period of time by mistake, the video now exists in a password-protected part of the website.
"It may in the end be one of the biggest discoveries, or observations, of any new phenomenon that we've had in our field in the last 30 or 40 years," Incandela says in the video.
"When we say we've observed a particle, it means we've just got enough data to say that it's definitely there and it's very unlikely to go away ... we then need more data to start to ascertain its characteristics, what are its properties."
The researchers are expected to announce the successful results tonight at a joint seminar in Geneva and Melbourne, where the International Conference on High Energy Physics is being held.

Commonly described as the last ingredient to the standard model of particle physics, scientists have been hunting the Higgs boson for almost 50 years.
It is often know as the "God particle" as it is thought to give all other particles in the universe their mass, and will help scientists understand how the universe was formed.
Research into the the mysterious particle has taken place at the $9.78 billion Large Hadron Collider, a giant atom smasher that was built underground on the Swiss-French border.
A spokeswoman for CERN confirmed that the video was not meant to have gone up online, and is one of several that was pre-produced to cover different possible results of the research.
"Even we in the press office do not know what they are going to announce," said Corinne Pralavorio.

source ...
An embedded video from Deborah Smith explains the theory in layman's terms.

[AMDave]

Sydney Morning Herald: Bridie Smith July 5, 2012

SCIENTISTS have taken a giant leap in their understanding of how the universe was formed, with a joint announcement in Geneva and Melbourne last night that a new particle has been discovered.

The discovery has significant implications, as physicists say it is consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, or ''God particle''.

In what will prove a milestone in the history of modern science, the revelation ends almost five decades of searching for the subatomic particle.

The search included constructing - for almost $10 billion - the Large Hadron Collider 100 metres below the Swiss-French border to conduct experiments in conditions similar to those just seconds after the big bang.

The preliminary results, delivered to applause and whoops of excitement in the two cities, come from two separate experiments undertaken this year at the Large Hadron Collider. They delivered satisfyingly similar results, making the new particle the heaviest boson discovered with a mass of about 125 GeV.

''This goes well beyond the origin of life, this is the origin of the universe,'' said Geoffrey Taylor, who leads Australia's research contribution to the organisation behind the Large Hadron Collider, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The announcement was made on the eve of the International Conference on High Energy Physics beginning in Melbourne today.

Scientists packed the Melbourne Convention Centre last night for the announcement, with more than 800 physicists making the trip for the conference.
Professor Geoffrey Taylor.

Until last night, the Higgs boson existed only in theory as the missing ingredient of the standard model of particle physics - a rule book of how elementary particles and forces interact in the universe.

''What the results have shown tonight is that this is statistically highly significant. It has all the hallmarks of the standard model Higgs,'' Professor Taylor said.

The existence of a Higgs-like boson effectively verifies the all-encompassing 30-year-old theory on why particles have mass and how the universe works at the simplest level.

''We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,'' said CERN director-general Rolf Heuer, who will arrive in Melbourne for the conference tomorrow.

''The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed

studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties.''

Asked if he would go as far as to say the new particle was a Higgs boson, Dr Heuer said: ''As a layman, I think we have it. But as a scientist I have to ask 'what do we have'?

''We have something. We have discovered a boson. And now we have to determine what kind of boson it is.''

Among the many hundreds at CERN's Geneva base for the announcement was the man whose name the elusive particle takes, British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.

Now in his 80s, Professor Higgs congratulated the international team of researchers for their ''tremendous achievement''.

''For me it is just an incredible thing that it happened in my lifetime,'' he said.

The preliminary results unveiled last night are from experiments run independently at two of the giant atom-smasher's four detectors - ATLAS and CMS.

Both have been working on the hunt for Higgs, which has proved difficult to track down as it can't be seen. The unstable particle lives for only a tiny fraction of a second before decaying into other particles.

Yesterday's confirmation follows tantalising results released in December, which allowed physicists to narrow down the region in which they were searching for the Higgs boson.

Since then the sensitivity at the Large Hadron Collider has increased, while scientists have also refined their analysis techniques.

The volume of data available this year was also vastly greater.

According to CERN, there was more data delivered from experiments at the Large Hadron Collider between April and June this year than during the whole 2011 run.

Having identified the new Higgs-like particle, physicists now have the task of establishing its properties and characteristics and then measuring the results up against the predicted properties of Higgs boson.

It could yet be that the discovery is even more extraordinary - the new particle could turn out to be an even more exotic version that would be a profound discovery and create a revolution in physics.

Either way, last night's results have set science on a new path.

''This is really a very unusual object, an unusual field,'' Professor Taylor said.

''It raises us up to a more solid platform where we can start thinking about bigger questions.''

Source ...

[Dirk Broer]

[Dirk Broer]

Find your own particles at this site!

[AMDave]

Oh yes! I love this concept.
Now we know how particles are created!
The site says: ... These items are all handmade to order by one person. ... Julie ... Particle Zookeeper ... "one girl, one sewing machine, one room"

[Dirk Broer]

But where else can you order Dark Matter, Tachyons, Gravitons?
Great for Science class