Researchers first to observe Higgs boson analogue in superconductors
Thursday, February 19, 2015 - 10:00
in Physics & Chemistry
The Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson - the "God particle" believed responsible for all the mass in the universe - took place in 2012 at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, an underground facility where accelerated sub-atomic particles zip around the circumference of a 27-kilometer (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel. But what goes around comes around: more than 50 years ago, the first hint of Higgs was inspired by the study of superconductors - a special class of metals that, when cooled to very low temperatures, allow electrons to move without resistance.