Scientists find signs of ’God particle’
Geneva: Scientists said on Tuesday they had found signs of the Higgs boson, an elementary particle
believed to have played a vital role in the creation of the universe after the Big Bang.
Scientists at the CERN physics research centre near Geneva said, however, they had found no
conclusive proof of the existence of the particle which, according to prevailing theories of physics,
gives everything in the universe its mass.
"If the Higgs observation is confirmed...this really will be one of the discoveries of the century," said
Themis Bowcock, a professor of particle physics at Britain's Liverpool University.
"Physicists will have uncovered a keystone in the makeup of the Universe...whose influence we see
and feel every day of our lives."
The leaders of two experiments, ALTAS and CMS, revealed their findings to a packed seminar at
CERN, where they have tried to find traces of the elusive boson by smashing particles together in the
Large Hadron Collider at high speed.
"Both experiments have the signals pointing in essentially the same direction," said Oliver
Buchmueller, senior physicist on CMS. "It seems that both Atlas and us have found the signals are at
the same mass level. That is obviously very important."
Fabiola Gianotti, the scientist in charge of the ATLAS experiment, said ALTAS had narrowed the
search to a signal centred at around 126 GeV (Giga electron volts), which would be compatible with
the expected strength of a Standard Model Higgs.
"I think it would be extremely kind of the Higgs boson to be here," she told a seminar to discuss the
findings. "But it is too early" for final conclusions, she said. "More studies and more data are needed.
The next few months will be very exciting...I don't know what the conclusions will be."
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