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    HowStuffWorks - Higgs Boson Information

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    Chandan Tripathi
    The document discusses the Higgs boson particle and its importance in the Standard Model of particle physics. It explains that the Standard Model proposes that all fundamental particles gain their mass from interacting with the Higgs field via the Higgs boson. On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle that behaved similarly to what is expected of the Higgs boson, helping confirm the existence of the Higgs field and mechanism for generating mass as described by the Standard Model. Further analysis of experimental data is still needed to fully verify that the discovered particle is the Higgs boson.

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    HowStuffWorks - Higgs Boson Information

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    Chandan Tripathi
    55 views2 pages
    The document discusses the Higgs boson particle and its importance in the Standard Model of particle physics. It explains that the Standard Model proposes that all fundamental particles gain their mass from interacting with the Higgs field via the Higgs boson. On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle that behaved similarly to what is expected of the Higgs boson, helping confirm the existence of the Higgs field and mechanism for generating mass as described by the Standard Model. Further analysis of experimental data is still needed to fully verify that the discovered particle is the Higgs boson.

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    The document discusses the Higgs boson particle and its importance in the Standard Model of particle physics. It explains that the Standard Model proposes that all fundamental particles gain their mass from interacting with the Higgs field via the Higgs boson. On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle that behaved similarly to what is expected of the Higgs boson, helping confirm the existence of the Higgs field and mechanism for generating mass as described by the Standard Model. Further analysis of experimental data is still needed to fully verify that the discovered particle is the Higgs boson.

    Copyright:

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    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    55 views2 pages

    HowStuffWorks - Higgs Boson Information

    Uploaded by

    Chandan Tripathi
    The document discusses the Higgs boson particle and its importance in the Standard Model of particle physics. It explains that the Standard Model proposes that all fundamental particles gain their mass from interacting with the Higgs field via the Higgs boson. On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle that behaved similarly to what is expected of the Higgs boson, helping confirm the existence of the Higgs field and mechanism for generating mass as described by the Standard Model. Further analysis of experimental data is still needed to fully verify that the discovered particle is the Higgs boson.

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    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    10/11/13

    HowStuffWorks "Higgs Boson Information"

    What exactly is the Higgs boson?


    by Jonathan Atteberry
    Brow se the article What exactly is the Higgs boson?

    What exactly is the Higgs boson?


    Particle physics usually has a hard time competing with politics and celebrity gossip for headlines, but the Higgs boson has garnered some serious attention. That's exactly what happened on July 4, 2012, though, when scientists at CERN announced that they'd found a particle that behaved the way they expect the Higgs boson to behave. Maybe the famed boson's grand and controversial nickname, the "God Particle," has kept media outlets buzzing. Then again, the intriguing possibility that the Higgs boson is responsible for all the mass in the universe rather captures the imagination, too. Or perhaps we're simply excited to learn more about our world, and we know that if the Higgs boson does exist, we'll unravel the mystery a little more. In order to truly understand what the Higgs boson is, however, we need to examine one of the most
    Hello, Higgs? Are you there? The w hole w orld w ould like to know . Johannes Simon/Getty Images

    prominent theories describing the way the cosmos works: the standard model. The model comes to us by way of particle physics, a field filled with physicists dedicated to reducing our complicated universe to its most basic building blocks. It's a challenge we've been tackling for centuries, and we've made a lot of progress. First we discovered atoms, then protons, neutrons and electrons, and finally quarks and leptons (more on those later). But the universe doesn't only contain matter; it also

    contains forces that act upon that matter. The standard model has given us more insight into the types of matter and forces than perhaps any other theory we have. Here's the gist of the standard model, which was developed in the early 1970s: Our entire universe is made of 12 different matter particles and four forces [source: European Organization for Nuclear Research]. Among those 12 particles, you'll encounter six quarks and six leptons. Quarks make up protons and neutrons, while members of the lepton family include the electron and the electron neutrino, its neutrally charged counterpart. Scientists think that leptons and quarks are indivisible; that you can't break them apart into smaller particles. Along with all those particles, the standard model also acknowledges four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak. As theories go, the standard model has been very effective, aside from its failure to fit in gravity. Armed with it, physicists have predicted the existence of certain particles years before they were verified empirically. Unfortunately, the model still has another missing piece -- the Higgs boson. What is it, and why is it necessary for the universe the standard model describes to work? Let's find out.

    Higgs Boson: The Final Piece of the Puzzle


    As it turns out, scientists think each one of those four fundamental forces has a corresponding carrier particle, or boson, that acts upon matter. That's a hard concept to grasp. We tend to think of forces as mysterious, ethereal things that straddle the line between existence and nothingness, but in reality, they're as real as matter itself. Some physicists have described bosons as weights anchored by mysterious rubber bands to the matter particles that generate them. Using this analogy, we can think of the particles constantly snapping back out of existence in an instant and yet equally capable of getting entangled with other rubber bands attached to other bosons (and imparting force in the process). Scientists think each of the four fundamental ones has its own specific bosons. Electromagnetic fields, for instance, depend on the photon to transit electromagnetic force to matter. Physicists think the Higgs boson might have a similar function -- but transferring mass itself. Can't matter just inherently have mass without the Higgs boson confusing things? Not according to the standard model. But physicists have found a solution. What if all particles have no inherent mass, but instead gain mass by passing through a field? This field, known as a Higgs field, could affect different particles in different ways. Photons could slide through unaffected, while W and Z bosons would get bogged down with mass. In fact, assuming the Higgs boson exists, everything that has mass gets it by interacting with the all-powerful Higgs field, which occupies the entire universe. Like the other fields covered by the standard model, the Higgs one would need a carrier particle to affect other particles, and that particle is known as the Higgs boson. On July 4, 2012, scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) announced their discovery of a particle that behaves the way the Higgs boson should behave. The results, while published with a high degree of certainty, are still somewhat preliminary. Some researchers are calling the particle "Higgslike" until the findings -- and the data -- stand up to more scrutiny. Regardless, this finding
    The fundam ental forces of the universe

    could usher in a period of rapid discovery about our universe.

    Lots More Information


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    How the Large Hadron Collider Works How Atoms Work What is relativity? Does the Higgs boson exist? Has a surfer discovered the theory of everything? More Great Links The Particle Adventure: The Fundamentals of Matter and Force Garret Lisi on his theory of everything - TED Sources

    HowStuffWorks "Higgs Boson Information"

    The Collider Detector at Fermilab. "Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson at CDF." (Jan. 13, 2012) http://wwwcdf.fnal.gov/PES/higgs_pes/higgs_plain_english.html European Organization for Nuclear Research. "Missing Higgs." 2008. http://user.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/Higgs-en.html European Organization for Nuclear Research. "Recipe for a Universe." 2008. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://user.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/Recipe-en.html European Organization for Nuclear Research. "The standard package." 2008. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://user.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/StandardModel-en.html Exploratorium.edu. "Origins: CERN: The Higgs Boson Particle." 2000. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/higgs.html Gardner, Laura. "Physicists say they are near epic Higgs boson discovery." Brandeis University. Dec. 13, 2011. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2011/december/particle.html Grossman, Lisa. "LHC sees hint of lightweight Higgs boson." Dec. 13, 2011. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21279-lhc-sees-hint-oflightweight-higgs-boson.html Krauss, Lawrence. "What is Higgs boson and why does it matter?" Dec. 13, 2011. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21277-what-is-the-higgsboson-and-why-does-it-matter.html?full=true Nave, R. "The Higgs Boson." Georgia State University. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/higgs.html Quigg, Chris. "Particle physics: What exactly is the Higgs boson? Why are physicists so sure that it really exists?" Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://lutece.fnal.gov/Drafts/Higgs.html Rincon, Paul. "'Big Bang' experiment starts well.'" BBC. Sept. 10, 2008. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7604293.stm Rincon, Paul. "LHC: Higgs boson 'may have been glimpsed'." BBC. Dec. 13, 2011. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16158374 Sample, Ian and James Randerson. "What is the Higgs boson?" The Guardian. Dec. 13, 2011. (Jan. 13, 2012) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/dec/13/higgs-boson-lhc-explained

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