Every time CERN announces a press conference there’s hope the scientists have found the data that would simply change the world of physics. This Wednesday CERN scientists are expected to confirm finding the God particle aka Higgs boson.
Billions of dollars and decades of intensive research have been put in scientists’ attempt to track down and study the elusive God particle. The excitement behind such a discovery is easy to justify even for the layperson. Studying the Higgs boson could simply change the understanding of the world as we know it and give scientists the data needed to explain what’s at the core of the universe.
The Associated Press reports that although scientists with CERN avoid using the word discovery when talking about Wednesday’s press conference, they refer to it as a sort of “eureka” announcement. This week two independent teams will present their massive data after CERN research only pointed to the God particle’s footprint but not its actual existence.
In a statement for the Associated Press, John Ellis, British theoretical physicist and CERN scientist for more than 40 years, said: “I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, ‘It looks like a discovery. We’ve discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs”.
Lead researcher Rob Roser for the Fermilab Higgs boson quest in Chicago believes scientists are very close to the discovery. “Particle physicists have a very high standard for what it takes to be a discovery” he said. “You see the footprints and the shadow of the object, but you don’t actually see it” said Roser of the upcoming CERN press conference.
Gregorio Bernardi, physicist at the University of Paris, told the Associated Press Wednesday’s presentation is “a real cliffhanger”. He explained the teams researching the issue have had “strong indications of the production and decay of Higgs bosons”.
Confirming the existence of the God particle would mark a milestone for the world. Notions such as dark matter, extra dimensions and supersymmetry would then be possible to test, explain and confirm. As Joseph Lykken, theorist with Fermilab, says, the God particle “gets at the center, for some physicists, of why the universe is here in the first place”.
