THE HIGGS BOSON (THE GOD PARTICLE)

After years of exploration and billions of dollars, scientists worldwide believe that the Haldron Collider, a huge particle accelerator 100 meters underground, has found the Higgs boson particle. If true, it will forever change how we understand the universe.

This discovery was one of  the primary design goals of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Higgs boson was so illusive that it was nicknamed the God Damn particle. The name was shortened to the “God Particle” to the distress of many scientists, but it is thought that was because it dealt with the making of the universe.

The discovery of the  Higgs boson is so revolutionary that the consequences can hardly be predicted, but consider:

• In 1895, Wilhelm Rontgen  printed the first picture of an x-ray of his wife’s hand.

• Thomas Edison put a carbon filament inside an oxygenless bulb that burned for forty hours in 1879.

• As recently as the 1930 Carl Anderson discovery of  anti-matter, the precursor to a positron emission tomography (PET scans).

• CERN scientists developed the World Wide Web “to make it easier to exchange information among one another.”

At the time, who knew what would become of these breakthroughs?

Today, the Higgs boson brings us closer to understanding gravity. Perhaps we will even be able to control pollution. Science believes it only views about 4% of the mass in the universe, and the Higgs will be the gateway to understanding the other 96%. This is why it is of great importance.

The effect of  this discovery leads us to wonder – How incredible is the human brain that asks unanswerable questions and persists in its quest for answers?

Higgs boson

“This undated image made available by CERN shows a typical candidate event including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red towers) is measured in the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision. The pale blue volume shows the CMS crystal calorimeter barrel. To cheers and standing ovations, scientists at the world’s biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle Wednesday July 4, 2012, calling it “consistent” with the long-sought Higgs boson — popularly known as the “God particle” — that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape. (CERN / AP Photo)”