God particle?

[Daecon]

Reading through something (I'm fairly certain it was New Scientist magazine) I saw a reference to something called the Higgs Boson, there was an implication that it was nicknemed the "God Particle"...

 

What's that all about?

 

What exactly is the Higgs Boson? I've never heard of it before.

[timo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_Boson

^^ now, that wasn´t too hard, was it?

 

The Higgs field is part of the so-called "standard model of elementary particle physics" (SM). This field is nessecary to allow massive (mass-like term in the lagrangian) exchange particles like the Z boson without violating "gauge invariance" which is a fundamental assumption of the SM. As those massive exchange particles have been observed either the Higgs field must exist or the SM, which stood every experimental test very well so far, is flawed.

The Higgs has not been found experimentally, yet. But a lot of people believe that the chances of finding it at the "Large Hadron Collider"(LHC) experiment are extremely good. Afaik, finding the Higgs was even the main reason to build LHC.

[ed84c]

In simple terms, for simple people like me, it gives stuff 'n' that mass.

[eon_rider]

You can listen in real-player to a discussion about the HIGGS BOSON on BBC 4

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20041118.shtml

 

The scientists discuss particles and the HIGGS BOSON.

It's quite interesting.

 

Enjoy.

 

Eon.

 

PS.. Don't click the listen live on the right side:

You have to click the listen again hyperlink directly above the picture of the presenter on the LEFT.

 

If anyone's interested that is.

 

I think the below scientists are being interviewed

 

Jim Al-Khalili,

Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Surrey

 

David Wark, Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

 

Professor Roger Cashmore, former Research Director at CERN and now Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford

 

best again.