'God particle': CERN scientists find new particle, probably the Higgs boson
CERN scientists have found a new subatomic particle that could be the Higgs boson, the basic building block of the universe.
GENEVA: Scientists at Europe's CERN research centre have found a new subatomic particle that could be the Higgs boson, the basic building block of the universe.
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"We have indeed discovered a particle consistent with the Higgs boson," John Womersley, head of a British public research body, told journalists and scientists in London on Wednesday.
"These results mark a significant breakthrough in our understanding of the fundamental laws that govern the universe."
Joe Incandela, spokesman for one of the two teams hunting for the Higgs particle told an audience at CERN near Geneva: "This is a preliminary result, but we think it's very strong and very solid."
CERN's director general Rolph Heuer said: "As a layman, I would say I think we have it."
Addressing the scientists assembled in the CERN auditorium, Heuer asked: "Would you agree?" They burst into applause.
Peter Higgs, the 83-year-old British physicist who proposed the existence of the Higgs boson in the 1960s, was at CERN to welcome the news. Clearly overwhelmed, his eyes brimming, he told the symposium: "It is an incredible thing that it has happened in my lifetime."
The Higgs theory explains how particles clumped together to form stars, planets and life itself.
Without the Higgs particle, the particles that make up the universe would have remained like a soup, the theory goes.