What is the Higgs boson particle you will have heard about it many times on the news lately and if like me you are not a physicist then does it really matter that the team at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland think that they have found it? Let’s have a look at the physics to see.

What is the Large Hadron Collider

First off to understand the science let’s look at the Large Hadron Collider itself to see what it actually does. The collider is in its simplest terms is a 27km long tunnel sitting 175m below ground just outside Geneva Switzerland. It cost just over $6 billion dollars to build in 2008. Beams of hydrogen protons are accelerated at close to the speed of light through the tunnel in opposite directions. These beams are then distorted to make them collide into one another within four special chambers and the resulting sub atomic particles are scanned for anomalies by a farm of 3000 computers. It is here that they now think they have found the Higgs Boson Particle.

What is a sub atomic particle

A sub atomic particle is the parts that make up an atom. The atom was first split in 1917 by Earnest Rutherford when he discovered that atoms were made up from smaller particles. It was then over time that scientists discovered 12 distinct parts some of which are protons, neutrons, gluons, quarks, leptons, bosons, and fermions. I will not go into the differences of these here as the boson is our main point of interest.

The Boson Subatomic Particle

The bosons to be fair are one of two classes of subatomic particles the other is the fermions. The bosons include the proton and gluons as well as the Higgs Boson which is thought to give mass to other elementary particles within the atom. According to Peter Higgs who in 1960 wrote a paper theorising about the Higgs mechanism of subatomic particles that appears in nature and the later named Higgs Bosum particle giving mass to the surrounding particles allowing the atoms to stay in shape and not explode at enormous speed. It is thought to be made from dark matter. This led to a crusade by numerous scientists to find the particle they dubbed the God particle as they presumed finding it would lead them to understanding how the universe was formed.

Higgs Boson Particle Found

Well today 4th July 2012 after searching for four years and spending a colossal amount of money the two teams of scientist believe they have found something. They are still not sure if it is indeed the Higgs Boson and more research will have to be done to verify it. However if it is the Higgs or not they have found something and I’m sure like me your are happy your tax dollars are being put to good use so we can work out for sure if the big bang theory is how it all started. I for one believe in a different beginning but that’s for another time.

All comments welcome but please bear in mind I am not a scientist and learnt what I know from doing a bit of research so if I am slightly out in my terminology I do apologise.