The Higgs boson search continues … into ANOTHER dimension
Now that all the fanfare over the sighting of a Higgs-like boson in the Large Hadron Collider has died down, CERN scientists have a few burning questions about the spotted particle.
The gigantic proton accelerator will be shut down this year, but physicist Paris Sphicas told The Register the boffins should be able to gather enough data about the particle’s properties to tackle two of their conundrums before the big switch off.
For those still baffled by last month’s discovery, the proposed Higgs boson helps explain how everything around us actually exists: its own existence suggests that the Higgs field is real and that particles moving through this omnipresent field gain mass. The boson is therefore vital in propping up the Standard Model, which is modern science’s least incomplete explanation of how the universe works.
However, although the Higgs field in theory gives everything else mass, it doesn’t appear to be giving mass to the boson itself, a mystery that can only be answered with further study of this Higgs-like particle.
In order to confirm the spotted Higgs-like boson is the sought-after elusive elementary particle, it has to have certain properties, such as what particles it decays into and how often it decays into specific particles.
Was the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) a test for a Teleportation project?