Two recent experiments (ATLAS - A Toroidal Lhc ApparatuS, and CMS - Compact Muon Solenoid) have independently found indications that the Higgs boson may exist (with a mass of about 125 GeV/c2, or roughly 133 times the mass of a hydrogen atom). Although these indications are at about the 2 sigma level of certainty (5 sigma levels are required to claim a discovery), the experimental results suggest that the existence and properties of the Higgs boson should be pinned down during 2012, if all goes well.
Why is finding the Higgs boson so important to the future of high energy physics? The Standard Model (SM) explains the existence of massive particles by the Higgs mechanism, in which a spontaneously broken symmetry associated with a scalar field (the Higgs field) results in the appearance of mass. The quantum of the Higgs field is the Higgs boson. It is the last particle predicted by the SM that has still to be discovered experimentally.
The post also linked to a site offering five simple(!?!), one page explanations of the Higgs boson.
In 1993, the UK Science Minister, William Waldegrave, challenged physicists to produce an answer that would fit on one page to the question 'What is the Higgs boson, and why do we want to find it?'
The winning entries taken from Physics World Volume 6 Number 9, were by:
Mary & Ian Butterworth and Doris & Vigdor Teplitz
Roger Cashmore
David Miller
Tom Kibble
Simon Hands
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