The most anticipated discovery in the history of physics – the Higgs boson sometimes known as the ‘god particle’ – has been announced by scientists at Cern, the European nuclear physics centre near Geneva.
Two Cern scientific teams have detected a subatomic particle that matches the predicted characteristics of the Higgs, after analysing the debris of trillions of collisions at the $8bn Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful atom smasher in history.
“I think we have it,” Rolf Heuer, Cern director-general, said to enthusiastic applause at a seminar where the scientific results were announced. “We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature but it is only a beginning.
“The observation of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle’s properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe,” Professor Heuer added.

The Higgs is the last piece in the so-called Standard Model of particle physics that was predicted by theorists but not observed by experiments until now. The theory requires such a particle to confer mass on all other particles.

Cern is taking the cautious view traditionally associated with the discovery of fundamental particles by talking about “a particle consistent with the Higgs boson”.

“There appears to be less than one chance in a million that this is fake, which is roughly the same probability as flipping a coin heads-up 21 times in a row,” said Themis Bowcock, head of particle physics at Liverpool University.

“Very few physicists would privately argue that this is not a Higgs particle,” Professor Bowcock added. “Half a century after it was first proposed, and after a monumental effort by generations of physicists around the world, the discovery of the Higgs represents a major breakthrough in our fundamental understanding of nature. For physicists, this is the equivalent of Columbus discovering America.”
The particle is named after Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University, who predicted its existence in the 1960s and received a warm round of applause when he took his seat at Cern’s scientific seminar.

“I am astounded at the amazing speed with which these results have emerged,” said Prof Higgs. “I never expected this to happen in my lifetime and shall be asking my family to put some champagne in the fridge.”

However, there are some characteristics of the data announced on Wednesday hinting that the story may be more complex than just a single Higgs particle, physicists suggested. For example, there may be a group or family of such particles.

“More data are required to reveal whether [the particle] has all the properties of the standard model Higgs boson or whether some do not match, implying new physics beyond the standard model,” said Tejinder Virdee of Imperial College London. “I believe this observation opens the door to a new vista of physics that will take many more years to explore.”

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