New Results Confirm: The Particle Believed To Be The Higgs Boson Really Is The Higgs Boson

Thursday, March 14, 2013 - 11:00 in Physics & Chemistry

Big Smash: Atlas's eight giant superconducting magnets, together powerful enough to crush a bus CERNIts significance, though, awaits further investigation. The Higgs Boson really, really is the Higgs Boson. At first, testing at the Large Hadron Collider revealed a particle that was likely the Higgs Boson, the theorized particle that gives the universe its mass. Then, more tests confirmed we were even more sure about it--there was a one-in-550 million chance it wasn't the Higgs. Now, after even more tests, it's been confirmed: beyond a shadow of a doubt, the particle uncovered is the Higgs. So it's not surprising, given the odds we already had, that this has been announced. But it's still amazing! Although there's another slight caveat: this boson could be a particle described by the Standard Model, or another brand of Higgs boson described by other theories, although it's apparently leaning toward the SM variety. To find...

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