It may not be a lubricant, but it is a glue - in fact, the glue that apparently holds the entire Universe together and now it has been seen. Or has it?
The scientific world held its breath on 4th July 2012 as the leaders of two teams - Dr Fabiola Gianotti and Professor Joe Incandela - announced the findings of their independent research. The result? They could only be 99.999% certain of confirming the discovery of the elusive Higgs boson.
Is this the Higgs boson? Image: Livescience.com |
The sub-atomic particle, revealed as a possibility by six academics but formalised by Prof. Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University in 1966 from which the boson derives its name, is believed to be the particle which attracts all other particles and gives them mass, thus holding the universe together. Although it has been nicknamed "The God Particle", Higgs himself is very much against the use of this name.
In order to 'see' a Higgs boson, atoms have to be smashed together at huge velocity and, even then, it would only appear for an infinitesimally small period of time before decaying into other types of sub-atomic matter.
After building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Cern, Switzerland, scientists began the task of smashing atoms and analysing the results from 2009 onwards. The two teams - CMS and the Atlas - project worked independently to ensure the results were as conclusive as possible when eventually brought together.
Scientists use a Sigma scale to measure the voracity of their findings with one-sigma hardly worth consideration and five-sigma being conclusive proof. Although CMS declared five-sigma confidence, when all the data from both projects was combined the conclusions were 4.9-sigma, which meant the scientists wouldn't absolutely declare they had found the particle.
However, the findings were close enough for the LHC's Director-General, Rolf Heuer to state: "As a layman I would now say I think we have it - would you agree? We have a discovery - we have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson." The announcement was made to a packed lecture theatre in Cern, with Peter Higgs and three of the other theoreticians who made the original calculations in attendance and agreeing with Heuer's question.
There is still plenty of work to be done to establish which type of Higgs particle has actually been discovered and this is likely to take many years. However the discovery could have significant implications for the understanding of how the Universe is put together.