Science Declares Higgs Boson the Most Important Discovery of 2012

Well, a very happy December 30th to you. Coffee's virtually the freshest it could possibly be, as are the muffins, doughnuts and other assorted goodies so help yourself, eh. Y'know...people ask me where I get all the material for my blog. Well let me give you an example. Yesterday, Nong and I went out (-6 and blowing snow but what the heck...this is winter in Canada, eh!) and we drove over to the Oshawa Centre..which is a large shopping mall just about 5 minutes away. In Chapters, a large bookstore, I stopped at the science section of the magazine rack. There was already another fellow there. Here's how the conversation went.

I was looking at the covers and he said, "Lot's of interesting stuff here."
"There sure is"
Pointing at one magazine, "Do you know what the most important scientific discovery of 2012 was?"
"In which field?
"Physics.
"No."
"Higgs-Boson."

At which point, probably noticing my quizzical but interested look, he proceeded to tell me all about the discovery of this sub-particle. Much of it was way, I mean WAY, over my head, though I try to keep up a little with nano-science. We carried on a conversation for about half an hour by which time I was getting the 'what the heck are you talking two about' look from Nong who was at another book section not far away. This fellow was definitely very knowledgeable about science, physics, nano-physics and astrophysics. Needless to say, when I got home I looked up Higgs-Boson to bring my sadly lacking knowledge of the topic up a notch. If you're chomping at the bit for more on H-B, read on, eh...

This particle, which was first hypothesized more than 40 years ago, holds the key to explaining how other elementary particles (those that aren't made up of smaller particles), such as electrons and quarks, get their mass.

Researchers unveiled evidence of the Higgs boson on 4 July, fitting into place the last missing piece of
a puzzle that physicists call the standard model of particle physics. This theory explains how particles interact via electromagnetic forces, weak nuclear forces and strong nuclear forces in order to make up matter in the universe. However, until this year, researchers could not explain how the elementary particles involved got their mass.

"Simply assigning masses to the particles makes the theory go haywire mathematically. So, mass must somehow emerge from interactions of the otherwise mass-less particles themselves. That's where the Higgs comes in," explained Science news correspondent Adrian Cho, who wrote about the discovery for the journal's Breakthrough of the Year feature.

As Cho explains, physicists assume that space is filled by a "Higgs field," which is similar to an electric field. Particles interact with this Higgs field to obtain energy and-thanks to Einstein's famous mass-energy equivalence-mass as well.

"Just as an electric field consists of particles called photons, the Higgs field consists of Higgs bosons woven into the vacuum. Physicists have now blasted them out of the vacuum and into brief existence," he explained.

But, a view to the Higgs boson did not come easy-or cheap. Thousands of researchers working with a 5.5-billion-dollar atom-smasher at a particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, called CERN, used two gargantuan particle detectors, known as ATLAS and CMS, to spot the long-sought boson.

It is unclear where this discovery will lead the field of particle physics in the future but its impact on the physics community this year has been undeniable, which is why Science calls the detection of the Higgs boson the 2012 Breakthrough of the Year.


Got all that? I knew you would. Me, too. Have another doughnut.


See ya, eh!


Bob